When I caught Jack, and started leading him to the barn he seemed kind of nervous. I didn't tie him up at first, and just let him explore, and it seemed to help. So eventually I did tie him up and got him brushed. When we went into the arena, he still seemed nervous. His ears were pricked, and he kept looking around. As we started working though, he calmed down quite a bit.
Another one of my goals was to see what he already knew when it came to playing the Seven Games. So, I started out with the friendly game, which went really well. He didn't move around at all, and wasn't worried about the pressure, until I started swinging the rope lightly with my hand that was farthest away from him. Before long though, he stopped moving and relaxed even with that pressure, so of course I took it away as soon as he relaxed.
Then I went to the porcupine game. Jack is very good at this. He's a very responsive horse, and seems to learn quickly. I hardly had to put and pressure on the throat latch, neck or shoulder, and he moved away from the pressure. He's not as good at moving away from it when I'm trying to move his hip though. In order to do that, I had to use the carrot stick, and put a lot of pressure before he moved.
The next game I tried was the circle game. I just kept him at a walk today, because I am just getting a feel for him, and for how to play the games, and I didn't want to do something wrong. At first he needed a little bit of encouragement, but like I said, he's a fast learner. So, before long he was circling me, and changing directions, and I only had to pick up my arm.
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| Circling game |
I did a little bit of the driving game, which he also did very well, but I started running out of time, so I had to quit before long. I worked with him for about half an hour today, and I'm excited to do some more!
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| Driving game |
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