Wendy took Bingo and Walker out today, so I volunteered to bring them in. As I approached the turnout pasture, I saw Walker slowly pacing along the fence line. Bingo was standing along tbe fence in anticipation of someone's arrival, but he did not show any anxiety by pacing. Both of them popped their heads towards me as I came closer, and they started moving closer to the gate. By the time I was opening the gate, they were both there calmly waiting for me to pass through. Since Walker had been pacing, I thought I would go about bringing them in a little differently, a little less direct line in my approach. So, once I had gotten their halters on, I threw their lead ropes over their backs and opened the gate, walking toward the barn. Lo and behold, they followed me! They followed quietly and with no impulsiveness. When we got to a muddy area of the third turnout, they stopped to eat some especially tasty shoots of spring grass. I sat on the fence next to the water trough and marveled at two things: 1) That these two who were clearly anxious to see me arrive not five minutes earlier were calmly choosing to eat grass instead of stampeding in the direction of the barn and 2)Walker chose to step into the muddiest, wettest area of the turnout to eat grass. Just two months ago, he would have taken the widest possible route around mud or water!
So, after watching them in amazement for about 5 minutes, I approached Walker and led him to the water trough. He drank deeply, and when he seemed finished, I then led Bingo to do the same. He also drank a lot of water and then Walker continued to drink right next to him. Bingo did not push him off, he was too busy enjoying the water! When they were done, I lead only Bingo with his rope, and Walker folowed along quite willingly. Fun!
Once we got to the last gate, I backed both of them through and closed it while they waited. After a calm walk back to the barn, they hungrily tucked into their food.
While Walker ate, I set up the the arena to do some more weave pattern on the ground. Once I had him tacked up, we walked out to the arena, and it was so nice to be leading a horse that wasn't completely wound up from not being allowed to be a horse for months on end. We started with the weave on a circle, which Walker picked up on very quickly. He was so calm, it was time to ride.
Walker started as he usually does, trying to work his way into the middle of the arena. His constant desire to move the the middle of the arena has been a frustration for me for a long time. But this time, I had three ways to play with that. First, we did several partial disengages towards the fence. Walker was really starting to understand how to do this yesterday, and it went even better today. This gave Walker the idea that I might ask for this at any time. Also, whenever Walker turned into the center of the arena, I went with the "and more" technique of doing what he wanted, but more than he wanted to. So I said to him, sure, go to the center, but in a very tiny circle. He soon decided he did not really want to go into the center. And if those two tacks did not do it, I finally went to phase four when he strayed into the center of the arena by trying to stop him with my leg first and then using my carrot stick with a sharp tag on the neck. I only had to do that once. After one more time on the rail, Walker went around the arena on the rail at the trot and the canter without ONE SINGLE CORRECTION. First time it's ever happened. I still don't know exactly why today, but what a glorious moment. I immediately stopped with Walker, hopped off and fed him lots of cookies. I took him back to his stall where I took off his saddle. He was so calm, he had barely sweated, so I brushed him off and asked him back into his stall and gave him an extra bit of hay. He's not much of one for scratches and hugs, he prefers food as thanks. So I stroked his neck briefly and left him to his hay. I walked away thinking, "Perfect afternoon . . . "
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