Easy Come and Easy Go

Easy Come and Easy Go

The Piaffe is no more.  At least I have decided to stop working on it.  I figured if something went wrong with it, one of two things would happen.  Either he would morph it into something I didn't like or he would decide to do it all the time.

Turns out, both things happened.  I decided to give up for the year.  Since it is nearly time to start trail riding, I would have given up soon, anyways.  After all, I have my priorities.

He started to go too much forward and often he was trying to go sideways.  His legs were going all different directions--he just didn't know what to do  One front leg was going up too high.  I know all this, because not only did I feel it, but I had Ellen take some video of us.

I am pretty sure I know what happened.  I got greedy.  Instead of clicking and treating for a couple correct steps, I let him go longer than that.  If I could have captured the good steps right at the beginning and practice that a lot, he may have known what I wanted. Instead, when I didn't click him right away, he started to try other things--thinking maybe I wanted something different.  Sigh.

Next winter, I can try, again.  Until then, I have some wonderful memories when we hit the pinnacle of loveliness--so much so, that Cole brought tears to my eyes.  Of course, no one was there to see us, those times.

Until I can get on the trail, I will either ride outside--where he acts like a normal horse, or work on him going forward in the arena.  I don't want to lose my forward movement.  That is more important than any other dressage maneuver.  If he does volunteer it--and gets it perfect--he will get clicked.  He just has to be perfect or very close to it.

We are still going to continue working on our line dancing.  He can now do 3-4 moves in a row, and we are both having fun with it.