Training Day 2 – The Green Tarp

Training is scheduled for 8:30 am. It’s cold and cloudy. The last thing I want to do is go outside. But I’ve discovered no matter how cold I am when I start by the time I’m finished cleaning those massive feet I’m toasty warm and then some. Whisper wasn’t enthused about leaving his pasture because breakfast hadn’t been delivered yet but I assured him it would be waiting when he returned and he followed right along.

We continued what he has been working on (gait changes, leg yields, and half passes) then added another aspect – the dreaded tarp. I continued lungeing him while Samantha drug the tarp around the outside of the round pen. He pretty much ignored that but then it came inside the round pen and was laid out on the ground. Still lungeing in a circle and mostly staying at a walk we got closer and closer to the tarp. When he could maintain his pace and was simply checking it out rather than moving away we upped the ante by walking him alongside the tarp while I walked on the tarp making as much noise as possible. Then the big step. We walked over the tarp. Whisper actually put all four feet on a tarp and calmly walked over it. He stood in the middle of the tarp and accepted praise and pets as his just due. And then he did it all one more time for the camera. Good job!

And breakfast was waiting for him….