Pacha - april 19, 2011

Good progress in ground work. With the current warm weather, we now exercise in the outdoor lungeing ring, without lunge, nor even halter. Pacha is 'naked' and completely free. I stand in the middle with the lungeing whip, and often follow him on a smaller circle. He stays on the outer track near the fence and obeys the voice for all gait transitions (walk-trot-canter-halt). He can give lovely 'descentes d'encolure' at trot and keep them over several rounds. He will not yet do them on command, but what I do is encouraging him with a 'Biiien!' at his first attempt to bring his nose down. He enjoys the compliment and carries on as if to get more of it. He starts doing it at canter.
I allow him to roll himself at the beginning of the session, which is one of his great pleasures. As for rewards, I play more on his need for security rather than on his greediness. I gave up titbits, which invited him to nip, and rather reward him with halts, scratching at his preferred spots (whithers, behind the ears, around the eyes) and strokes around his neck and back. One of his preferred fondles is when I wrap his neck with my arms- we must look rather weird like that I have to say!
We always finish the session with a 'follow-me' exercise at walk, which he does better and better. It is always easy on the way to the ring gate, and it took some time to convince him to continue in the other direction once near it. He now takes a funny resigned look, but puts up with it and carries on.
The final reward is a 10' grazing in the nearby meadow before going home.
I enjoy these sessions so much that they now almost compete with riding...