silkyraven | Training things this week (Reply)

Despite the heat we are making some progress I think. He’s getting calmer about saddling using the clicker to reinforce not nipping or puffing out behaviour. He’s standing much better to be groomed although his leg waving habit is very ingrained and will take a while to stop. He walked all the way to the arena yesterday, tacked up, without stopping at any point. So I’m pleased with all these.

The nipping is beginning to come back into the ST work, which is frustrating. I need to step back and take the pressure off again but I was starting to look for 2mm improvements. I think the LFS has improved, and the shoulder in isn’t too bad. The haunches in is still pushy so we need to go one step at a time I think.

He’s enjoying the connection training work so I think once session a week purely at liberty is a good idea. On the one hand this is a bit ‘chasing too many rabbits’ but I do think he enjoys the variety and the nipping and pushing comes back if we focus too much on one thing so I think I’ll stick with it for the moment!