Groudwork

This evening I worked on groundwork with Navajo. I first used the ideas that Susan Burris from Texas gave to me.

The first thing I did was took him along a fence and told him to move his front quarters away from me and his hind quarters away from me. At first he wasn't quite sure what I wanted but after a couple of trys he figured it out. I was quite proud of him and am going to use that again.

The next thing I did was set up an L shape with some tires and a bucket and used the fence for the other part. He did well in the backing up but didn't get the part about backing around the corner. A couple of times he moved forward and then we started right where we began. He did that about 5 times and then about the 6th time around he figured out that he has to go around the corner. I praised him and left him stand there for a little to let it sink in. He did very good and I am proud of him. Thanks Susan:)

We then worked a little on what Kathi Hayes of Kentucky told me to do:) Anyway, I worked on verbal commands to start out because I figured that we had worked on that before so we would do that first. He did very well at starting when I said walk and stopping when I said whoa. Then I walked a little ways to see if he would follow me without me having to do much and he did that also. I am just so proud of him of how far he has come in the past 10 months that I have had him. Thanks, Kathi!

Also I want to again thank all my friends from Horsechannel.com and everyone else for all they have done and all the advice they have given because without your help I wouldn't be where I am with Navajo:) Also want to thank Amber Wolbeck for answering all my endless questions that required some long answers when I first was on horsechannel. I want to thank my cousins for being just that awesome cousins. Thanks everyone, you guys are so awesome:) I also want to thank my non-horsey friends for understanding my love for horses even though you don't understand:)