I swear Cara and I will someday win the prize for the people that took the longest to train a horse to do anything. We've just got Gusti nicely settled (he's 8). He still has a ton more to learn...but he's a solid citizen and that was our goal when we started him.
So now we've focused our attention on Dagur. We do bits and pieces of training here and there. Dagur somehow manages to sort out some meaning from our training sessions and seems to able to string the concepts together. At least we think that's what he's doing.. Poor boy...he has to suffer through these sessions, while we fumble around trying to determine the best route to some concept that will make sense to him. It's wonderful having Cara to bounce ideas off of. Between the two of us, we usually come up with something that makes sense.. Tonight's session included introducing the bit to Dagur. We gradually encouraged him to take the bit up (clicker training helped speed that process up). Then we took him for a long walk after dark. Dagur quickly determined that it was impossible to eat any grass, however horse cookies plugged in very well. It was exciting for him to be on the trail in the semi-darkness, with Marty crashing through the trees around us. At least we hope it was Marty crashing through the trees. I'm not sure what we'll try next, but it's important that we keep the word "PLAY" in our hearts and minds while we work with him.... It's all fun isn't it? Or at least it should be. Wanda
