27th Nov - 9th Dec. Water, alpacas and time to do work.

So following on from my last post...

We completed two weeks complete rest, the only thing I did with him where his carrot stretches.
He then completed a few weeks doing just ground work, basing it on working every other day so he could rest inbetween.

During the week id pessoa him, long rein him and lunge with the long reins. He worked well (bucked and pratted about on the end of the lunge line when being pessoaed as usual (little terd) but buckled down eventually and worked really well.

During the weekends, when I have more light I would take him for a walk around a really quiet bridle path. As I said in my previous post, he had taken to spinning infront of cars and then bolting with me. This was only happening in company for some reason. So I chose a quiet hack with limited road work.

And yesterday, I got out of bed and braved our first hack alone in over a months time. I was going to go for the 'getting on and off, praising and confidence building technique' but quite honestly, he was pretty faultless.

We had one small blip with our first water encounter. In the end I hopped off and led him into it and remounted with him stood in it (ha I win!) He didn't do anything nasty, just wouldnt move.
But suprisingly he walked through the ford straight away (more of a leap) I then turned him around and made him walk through it a few more times until he made less of a fuss. I was very pleased with him!

He then walked through a very scary farm with strange sheep with long necks making funny noises at him (alpacas). He was literally Pooing his pants. But managed!

So overall I'm really pleased with the progress we have made over the past few days. He's still being worked everyother day with regular holidays to keep him happy and interested :)

 

Water training. His least favorite thing.  

 

Desperate for a hair cut also. look at that beard! 

 

Fuzzy ears :)