Plastic bag

Garbo doesn't mind plastic bags - he knows they normally contain food, but after the neighbour spooked them all by throwing a white frisbee around (or something), which in turn made a mess of my paddock (horses not the frisbee), I decided to do some de-spooking.

He doesn't look worried here does he - to the untrained eye - but he is .... (aeroplane ears as Jane calls them) - but he is gaining confidence with it as long as I don't try and touch his legs with it.

I spent some time walking away playing extreme friendly, this photo was taken with me walking backwards swishing it up and down.

Then I held it towards his withers and then shoulder, then legs again- not perfect but good progress.

At the end I held it up high and as soon as he touched it with his nose he would get a hay cube. This worked really well. He was seeking it out. Maraschino leant over the gate to see if he could eat it... lol

We also reviewed the lead by the hind leg lesson from yesterday - Garbo remembered and came backwards at a really light phase on the rope. Then I tried at liberty and he was great! Then we tried lead by the mane - I added the savvy string to the halter loop as a back up instead of a rope and started by asking him forward with phase 1, then 2 on the mane. Once he took a step I gave him a hay cube. Then we repeated that about 5 times and made a circle round the wash bay. I also asked for stop with the mane too which he figured out really quickly.

Then I tried on the far side! Hah - he just decided it was time to look the other way and sniff everything (the chair, the cover, the hose, the bucket). Maybe it has something to do with his mane being on the near side, or do I just lead too much from that side and not change it up enough.?

It's really cold now - southerlies, it got down to 5 degrees by 6pm. While I was playing this game it got really windy as the Southerly arrived and bitterly cold as I spent 10 minutes afterwards putting back all the divets that I could in the paddock.