Thursday, February 26, 2009

Day Eight

Today was pretty chilly so I left the cameras indoors with the dogs.

In yesterday's session, Kasper (having not been away from his buddies for ten days) was skittery again, worried about what might be down the road, or what might come roaring up the road. Every time I led him down the road a litte way--and I mean a little way, like ten feet--when we'd turn around he'd try to dash home as if demons were nipping at his heels.

So today I focussed on getting him comfortable with turning in a calm manner and not dashing off. I led him down the road, made him do lots of turns on the hind quarters, and then stood him and flapped the flag around him, which seems to relax him. I stood him facing down the road, and made him stand facing home (which makes him more nervous). We did the turns both ways, backing up facing both ways, and lots of flapping. He didn't dash off once today. Yay!

I've added a new link that has a brief description of training a young horse to harness. Their method took about two years. That's the kind of timeline I'm prepared for, since Kasper has big confidence issues, and since I'm willing to take as long as he needs to be comfortable with every stage.

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