Crazy Mule Today

I headed over to the barn today with Lance at about 4:00 PM. It was a nice sunny day but windy so kind of cold outside. Louie seemed happy to see me and came willingly up to the barn. Didn't even lock up at the doorway today. I decided to take him right into the arena today to lunge him and then I'd tack up to ride. Well, he seemed so nice and quiet when coming up to the barn. But, as soon as we got in the arena and I asked Louie to move, he spazzed right out. He bolted off at 100 mph with a snort. To his credit, when he came to the end of the line he did not drag me but headed into a circle around me. I got him settled back into a trot and a second later he bolted off again with a snort and a buck and even sent a kick in my direction. He was out on the end of the lunge line but I still let him know that kicking of any kind, even in play, when we are working is NOT acceptable. He did his bolting thing 4 of 5 times. He did a few crow hops but no more kicking out. He was just plain full of it and feeling good.

After a while he settled down......mostly. So, I decided today we would get some stuff out to work with to get his mind working with me. I put down a low jump and dragged out the wooden bridge. It is a small arched bridge and he's never seen this before. He went right for the jump and seemed to think that was kind of fun. He hesitated for just a second at the bridge. I was sending him onto it and not leading. After just a moments hesitation, he stepped onto it and crossed. After that, he made no attempts to avoid it. We were doing this all on the lunge line and we worked on transitions from trot to walk. He was having a very had time today with walk. He was jazzed up and wanted to move out. The obstacle helped focus him.

Eventually, I asked him to whoa on the bridge. If he was just going up on the bridge, he would stop immediately. But, if he was past half way across and on the downhill slope, he wanted to get all the way off before stopping. It took a few tries to get him to stop on the downhill slope of the bridge. One he did it the first time, he was fine with it.

We also worked quite a while on ground manners when being led. He was always good at my house because there were no distractions. It took him being in a new and busy place to find the hole in this part of his training. With the constant distractions at the boarding barn, he often gets heavy on the lead line and does not always respect my space. He doesn't purposely push into my space, he gets gawking around and doesn't pay attention to me and where I am. And I have not been working on this like I should. So today I led him all around and make him really pay attention to me and when he didn't he would get to work on backing, moving his hindquarters and on the forehand. It didn't take too long before he started keeping one eye one me while gawking around and he did real good. He is also doing great with trotting in hand. He understands what I want now and when I say trot and start to move off, he is right with me on a nice loose lead line. Two girls came into the arena with two mini horses. They were all fired up too. This caused a lot of distraction for Louie but that was good as that is just what we need to work with. Louie did good keeping on task even with the wild little snorting, galloping beasts in the arena.

I ended up not riding as I ran out of time. But that's ok, we did some good work today. I just have to make sure to reinforce the leading manners every time from now on consistently. When I was done, the arena was empty so I closed the door and let Louie loose. He was now past the desire to run around but he did enjoy a good roll. When I turned him back out in his paddock, he laid his head on my chest and wanted some head hugs and ear scratches which he got.