The Journey is Hope for Tomorrow and a Reminder of Yesterday

Walker and I had a lovely play session yesterday. I am slowly playing with the list of Level 4 tasks, and this last week, we have been playing with Walker's zone three issues. At level 4, the ante is raised, having to go sideways over a barrel and jumping a single barrel. 

When Walker goes sideways to the right, he feels very unconfident, but he can go over that barrel as long as I stay close to remind him not to walk forward. When his legs touch the barrel, I am pretty sure he thinks he is going to die or get injured. 

It is much easier for him to go over the barrel to the left, so something from the right eye really bothers him. We will just keep plugging away, and like all the other issues with Walker, some day, it won't bother him any more. I have to say, I am pretty sure this whole zone 3 issue has taken more than two days for him to "get over". I remember when he could not go sideways over a pole! Now, he goes over a barrel, and going right, coming towards me! There will be amazing days to come.

Yesterday, I brought a more play for tomorrow attitude, so I took any small improvement and moved on. Walker did a lovely long line weave game, so we quit that pretty quickly. Then we jumped a small jump on the long lines and played with backing up to the jump. Walker was unconfident at first, but after the third try, he became much more relaxed, so we quit that as well. It's a task we need to do, but more than that, it will help him to stop backing up when I ask. I am looking forward to playing with that again to see how he improves. 

Then we played with freestyle and fluid rein. I have found that wearing gloves when it is this hot and humid helps the reins slip through my fingers so that I can actually do the fluid rein exercise. Walker responded very well, at one point trotting more than half the arena with his head low and stretching out. Fantastic!

Then we did trotting and cantering circles around the question box with my arms folded across my chest. The arena had just been graded, so it was easy to see that we went over the same hoof prints for all of the circles within one to two feet across. It was definitely the best 20 meter circles we had ever done freestyle. In fact, it was so good, we quit right there. So now, it will be time to do more simple changes and more yo-yo cantering along the rail, playing with Walker getting more comfortable picking up his left lead. 

As always, Walker earned lots of cookies today. Even though the weather here is a preview to hell right now, Walker almost always brings plenty of energy to the table if I approach him correctly. Lately, he has been more left brained to start, so it has been helpful to have Maverick to play with who is teaching me how to play with an LBI. Slow, slow, slow, move the hindquarters in all kinds of ways, lots of stops, lots of praise and cookies. It never fails to amaze me how well these strategies work!

I always remind myself that when I play with Walker, we have come so far from where we started. It helps put so much in perspective. I remind myself how much he has taught me. I remind myself how much he has forgiven. I remind myself how many barriers have been brought down between us and how much he trusts me. The good news about all of that is that our relationship is precious, not fragile.