R-E-S-P-E-C-T

Sonny has been really, really, nippy lately. He wants to bite/put his mouth on everything. He hasn't been aggresive at all, so I figured he has just been bored from being inside 24/7. Well, he went outside almost every day this week and Thursday he was still biting as much as ever. I didn't do a whole lot Thursday because there were so many people in the arena, but we we did do felt...blah.

Not only was he biting, he had his ears back all night. I have been thinking hard about it these past few days and I realize it all comes down to respect. He has lost a lot of respect for me lately and I don't do anything about it. I don't blame him. For some reason I have been letting him do things. I make up excuses for him, such as he is bored from being inside all day, and make up excuses for me, well I will allow him to do it. There is a big difference between let and allow, and I have been letting him do whatever he wants.

After thinking about it, we have had the most boring past few weeks. It's hard enough to not be boring with an LBI when I try, but I haven't even been trying which means he is probably ready to just eat me and get it over with. If I ask him to jump something and he doesn't, my response is "Well why don't we just touch it instead?". I ask him to canter and he trots, my response is "Well, okay lets just go do something else". I ask him to back 5 steps, "Oh, you only want to back 3? Okay, then". No wonder he has lost all respect for me, I have been the worst leader in the world!

So today I went out and actually acted alive. For the first time in a while I set up a playground. I set up four cones in a rectangle to work on backing...goodbye threee steps only!! I set up a weave, since we haven't done anything with that pattern since out last lesson with Juli in Janurary! And I set up two barrels for jumping.

After playing some touch it (which is getting really good with the bridle/bit!), I slowly worked him up to energy. I don't think boot camp would be fair after having weeks of spa days. We moved over to the cones and after circling through them I halted him in front of the first two and asked him to back behind the last two (so through the rectangle). After backing three steps (Linda is right, horses can count. Not a joke!), he stopped. I continued to ask him to back and he just stood there for a minute, so I moved to phase two and his head shot up and his ears pricked forward. "WHAAAAT?! More than three steps?" Haha, he definitely wasn't expecting it. But a few yo-yos later his backs were REALLY improving!

We circled down to the barrels and from a trot I asked him to go up to the barrels then stop. Not jump. Then the next time, I really focused on the jump and had the mindset "He will jump", not just corssing my fingers that he would. From the walk, he plopped right over the barrels. Who would have thought my horse could jump? ;)

The weave was a bit more challanging. Unforunately, my hypothesis that 'even if I didn't practice the pattern it will still get better' turned out to be false. It was just as sticky as it was when I left off. Our figure eights were a lot better, so I need to just keep applying them to more and more cones.

Along with playing with the weave, I am finally getting the motivation to do things that are hard for us and that I normall avoid. I asked him for a lot of sideways on his bad side and didn't just let him get to phase 4 for up and down transitions.

Overall we had a really great day! I hope that I was finally challenging him enough to make things interesting without feeling like work. Hopefully, we can keep with with the respect now!