Today's lesson plan: Lady is working on groundwork fundamentals as well as learning to leave baby to work with me. So I am trying to have more frequent but shorter training sessions with Lady outside the round pen without baby. Eventually, I will be taking baby out on her own for short lessons. My goal for Lady today is to improve upon "Lungeing for Respect Stage One."
Our goal for Baby Dazz today was just wearing the halter and getting her legs sprayed. I started with her in the roundpen with momma. She accepts the halter without a blink. So before that I played a little approach and retreat and teaching her to back up off my hand pressure on her nose. That went very well and after I put the halter on I repeated the lesson and taught her take three steps back when I applied pressure on the halter. In addition, I introduced direction. I did get her leg sprayed but it did not go as pretty as I had hoped. We ended the lesson with some desensitizing. I know there is a lot of controversy over desensitizing Arabians before their halter class training because they loose sensitivity and don't move out well. I confirmed with Lady after her lesson that she can still do some very nice at Liberty after I gain her respect on the halter. Both she and Dazz were moving beautifully together around the round pen to my cues. I have a trainer coming in this month to teach us all how to do Halter classes.
I took Lady to the arena today while baby stayed in the round pen. She was not very happy about it but I made our lesson short so she would get the idea that we are going to come out and work everyday and then she will go back to her baby. My intention is to make each lesson a little longer each day until we are working in full sessions. Actually Lady was fine until Baby Dazz decided to throw a fit and start screaming at her. We were able to work in a short session of lungeing for respect and for the most part it went well. She was a little hot and tugging at the end of the lead line when Baby Dazz starting yelling for her. Since Beau was a little bit the same way, although without the my baby is crying mania, I reviewed the Clinton Anderson DVD on Lunging for Respect Stage 1 and we now have tools for tomorrow's lesson. We'll work on that and hopefully get a little more slack in the lead rope.
At the end of Lady's lesson, I let her graze outside the roundpen to give Dazz more time alone and to settle down before I put them back together. That went really well until the chickens showed up. Apparently, roosters really spook Lady and she ran off backwards like a cartoon bullet. I just watched her and thought, "Hmmm... if she doesn't come back I can use the chicken method for weaning," but she came right back even with the chickens hanging out by the roundpen. Her attention quickly turned to attempts to get the treats out of her training bag and didn't bother with trying to get back in the roundpen with Dazz.
Other than the neighbor shooting his gun off like a maniac, it was a pretty great session. If it doesn't rain, we will try to squeeze in a second short training session tonight.
Train up a child in the way he should go [and in keeping with his individual gift or bent], and when he is old he will not depart from it.
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