Fun Evening with Louie

I had the evening shift at the barn today. I went over a little early as it was raining out so I didn't think the critters would mind coming in a little early. And I wanted to work with Louie today.

Louie always rolls in his stall when he comes in. As he was wet from the rain, it then took a bit of work to groom him. He was very quiet and well behaved on the cross ties tonight. I took him into the arena and started with lunging. He was good. He shook his head the first couple times he cantered but I quickly corrected him and he quit right away. I then got out one of the pole bending poles and set it where it would get knocked down with the lunge line as he circled me. The other day when I was asking him to go over a jump we set up, I didn't get the lunge line flipped over the jump stand and it got knocked over and Louie spooked and bolted off. So, I wanted to work on desensitizing him to this. At first I just placed the pole close to him and pushed it over. He eyeballed it and moved away the first time but then was ok. So, I sent him off on the line and let the lunge line catch it and knock it over. That startled him but he just spun towards it and stopped. GOOD BOY! That is an acceptable response to something he is not sure of. I quickly praised him and we did this 1/2 dozen more time. He quickly relaxed with this and each time he just stopped when the pole fell over. I then got on and rode him. The ride went very well. He was quite relaxed right from the start. We did lots of walking but some nice trots also. He got long and low with his head and I was able to relax enough to let him do this. My lesson with Mary was paying off tonight. I'm hoping to ride 2 or 3 more times this week. I have another lesson with Mary on Friday and I'd like for her to see some improvement with Louie and I. I know tonight's ride on Louie was the best one I've had since probably October.