Backing out of the stall

Had a great ground work session with Quincy, it was short but oh so wonderful. Yesterday Quincy knocked Vicki over barging out of the stall, my fault I have not worked with him and he is starting to do the old Quincy things again. So I have decided that everyday no matter what I have to do something of him, even if its only for 5 minutes, no exceptions!!! Yesterday was really good, I did some back up and some circling, he went twice around at the walk before I had to encourage him, for us this was really good. I also made sure he was at my shoulder when I led him, not a few steps behind like he has been doing. Don’t get me wrong leading him has become a joy in fact he leads better than the others but always a few behind. I was very happy with the out come.

Today I thought lets do something different. I decided to back him out of the stall, now I know what you are thinking, that’s easy and you have done that before, but wait, this stall had a drop down of about 8 inches so what that means is that he has to step up 8 inches to get out. I asked him to back and had to work on getting him straight and keeping him that way, this became an added bonus for us to work on. Once he was straight I asked him to back and as soon as he hit the board he stopped. No mater how I asked he just stood or came forward or stepped to the side. We just started over again and again and again... I was getting to the point that I thought maybe this was to much for him but just as I was thinking this he turned and looked at his back end and started to lick and chew. Ok we are getting someplace, I asked a few more times before I thought maybe if I lifted one hoof up and out, I walked to his back end lifted a hoof and placed it out of the stall then walked to his head and asked him to back.( Should have thought of this sooner) He walked forward, I tried the other hoof and this time he just stood licking and chewing, he did not walk backwards but he did not walk forward either and he licked and chewed. I gave him a minute to think about it asked again and he tried then stopped but still did not bring the hoof back in. The next time hooray he backed out !!!!! I told him what a good boy he was and let him stand part way in part way out. He licked and chewed again then I asked him to back he went right out.

Fixing the stalls in on the top half of our to do list, now I am thinking maybe not so fast this is kind of cool, LOL.