Wizard: Session 11… Progress!

Photo above: it appears that Wizard is feeling fine and dandy after his chiropractic adjustments. Here he is goofing around with his buddy JR.

Session 11 (11/20/08): A breakthrough! It seems like Wizard has decided that I’m not so bad. Until now, it seemed like he’d rather be eating, sleeping, or cribbing instead of hanging around with me. And who can blame him? I tickle him with my silly brushes, mess with his feet, put saddles on him, and fiddle with his mane. But on Thursday, he seemed far more content to stand on the crossties and he seemed to enjoy the fussing.

When I longed him, we had more progress. I’ve been working on cueing Wizard to move his shoulder when I apply pressure in the form of my hand or a tapping whip. I tap the whip about as lightly as a person taps a pencil on a desk. When he moves, I stop. I’ve been working on this in order to strengthen my “go” cue on the longe line. When Wizard is longeing, he sometimes comes to a halt and faces me and it’s a little bit of reorganizing and cueing to get him going again. But on Thursday, he longed without stopping once! We also worked on walking forward, alternating trotting and walking, and a little bit of backing up in hand.

Gave Wizard Strongid wormer– he was quite good about it.