Thursday, July 14, 2011

A training ride and a fun ride

I decided to bite the bullet and take Cole on the trail yesterday evening. He has been doing so well on the weekend mornings, but every time I try an evening, he is horrible. Well, he was horrible, again. Let’s see… He tried to trot down the hill, tried to spin and run home, once, the first time I asked him to trot, he tried to run, and when I stopped him, he bucked in place, his trotting was very fast and quite out of control at times and he was in a hurry to get home. That is a typical evening ride. At least this time, I didn’t turn back early. I stuck it out and went on the minimum ride—to the next river crossing. I think I merely need to ride in the evenings on trail more often to get him through this. Now that he has shoes, I will try to do it at least once a week.


I was nearly back, and I found my sister with her dog! I forgot she was working day shift. (Most of the time, she works afternoon shift.) She walked back with us, and Cole couldn’t take his eye off Stubby. He didn’t like when Stubby was in the lead. He felt he should be in the lead. Stubby hates following. Cole wanted to crowd him off the trail. Cole acts funny around cats and dogs. He wants to chase them. I certainly don’t let him. I think when he lived in his paddock, he learned to chase them out.

I then took Cruiser on a fast and fun ride. The weather was cool, so we trotted much of the way home, so we had no trouble getting back before dark. He was in one of his great Cruiser moods, and I had so much fun. Just no one tell him he is 24, and maybe he will never act like an old horse.

2 comments:

Achieve1dream said...

That's really strange that he acts so bad on evening rides. I wonder if it's during his nap time lol. Good job for sticking with it though and making him behave. Have you just hand walked him in the evenings and used clicker or was it always in the morning? It might be worth a shot. I'm glad you had a great ride on Cruiser to make up for it. :D

Achieve1dream said...

I did try the green beans! I completely forgot to mention it. I broke them into pieces and Chrome ate four or five pieces before he decided he wanted supper and started spitting them out. So then I broke up the rest of them and fed them in his supper and he ate them all. I'm sure it won't take long of adding them to his feed to get him hooked on them. I'll definitely have to grow a bunch for sure. :)

Yeah I'm wondering if Faran didn't come from an Amish place. I know the person who had him before the lady we got him from used him for logging, but I don't know if that guy was Amish. However Faran is eleven years old and he's a Percheron so it wouldn't surprise me if he'd been with the Amish or Mennonites at some point in his life or that he'd been put in stocks. I have complete faith that clicker will get him through this though. He's already made a big turnaround with it. He used to be afraid of everything. It's going to be a lot of work but totally worth it. :D