Rain and more rain

Dante is doing well, but we haven’t gotten as far with his training as we would have liked. The problem has been the weather. There has been so much rain since we got him, that the river has been a big problem. It has rained 16 days straight. There was another inch overnight at my house. So though the road construction isn’t a problem anymore, Ellen still hasn’t been able to do much during the week except ride in the arena. Sigh…




I have been forced to work Cole on the hill that leads to the river. He is now fine when we are at a walk or if we are trotting away from home. My goal is to trot quietly up the hill. He is good the first time, but the second and third time gets a little trickier. I just stop him when he gets too excited and we walk until he settles down. I don’t click him for trotting quietly, because he stops so reluctantly for his treat that I think a better reward is to allow him to keep going. I do click him for good whoas while going uphill.



There are places that are good to trot when we are going downhill. It is funny that each successive time we go down, he gets faster—very unlike all the other horses I have down this with. They stay the same or slow down the more we do it. After 3 or 4 trips, Cole is burning up the trail. Consequently, working the hill is a good workout for him.



Good thing, since it looks like we will be doing it a lot in the next few days…