Weaves and Touch It Patterns

After I reviewed the Online Patterns a couple of times, I came to the conclusion that I wasn't giving Woody the opportunity to try and allow him to make the mistake to teach him more responsibility. With that in mind, today I headed out to the barn with the plan to work on weaving in and out of barrels, the Touch It Pattern at Level 2 if I could find something for him to stand on, and if I decided to ride, to play Follow the Rail. When I first went out to the pasture, Woody and Charlotte weren't that interested in me, so I went to hide in the 3 huge pine trees at the bottom of the hill. I know they saw me go into the grove of trees, but I guess they forgot I was in there because as soon as I started to shake one of the branches on the trees, their heads shot up and Woody started snorting. Little by little with Charlotte leading them, they both made their way down toward the trees, and every once in a while I would shake a branch and they would take off bucking and farting. Their curiosity eventually got the best of their fear of the commotion I was creating and Charlotte came up and sniffed me, closely followed by Woody. After that, he willingly followed me up to the barn where I haltered him and attached the 22-foot line. We then went out the gate to the playground where I had set up 4 barrels to weave between, and began to work on our Weave Pattern. It was challenging for both Woody and I at first (once again going through the difficulty of figuring out which way to go through the barrels easiest), but after a couple of weave, he started to vaguely grasp the concept, so I moved on. I didn't want to drill him on it, so I moved on to working on our circles. I had the 22-foot line on him so that he could have the drift he needed, and I played with a new concept for him. I played "I'm going to slap the spot that you are standing on, and if you're in the way, that's your problem." or otherwise called Don't Make Me Pick Up the Stick. The first time, I ended up slapping his shoulder, at which he took off, turned and faced me, and licked and chewed. When I pointed the next time, he was off like a bullet. The main purpose of the exercise was for me to practice NOT micromanaging him (very difficult for me to do) and really practicing my neutral position. It is very hard for me not to pick up the stick and go "come on, speed up" every once and a while and its really hard for me to not look at him when he goes behind my back. After going on the circle, I noticed that he kept pulling on the rope to go up this little hill, so every time he'd go by, I would go into power position. He got bumped because he ran into the end of the line. I stopped the game the first circle that he went past that hill and didn't pull on the rope, and he seemed really connected to me. A proud moment because that's hard for him. Also it was good because he actually used the whole 22 feet to do his circles on!
After the circling game, I wanted to play Touch It, so I went to the stack of big boards that is like a pedestal, and ended up working a really long time with getting him confident enough to put his front feet on it and stand on it. I was really proud of this also because he really thought his way through it; what a great puzzle-solver!
Before we headed in I did a couple more weave patterns and got it so that I could walk straight on one side of the barrels and he could weave without me having to direct him TOO much. When we went inside the gate, I tied the 22' line into a set of reins and a lead rope, hopped on the fence, and Wood came right over to me to get on. I mounted, gave him a bit of an apple, and after sitting for a couple minutes, I asked him to Follow the Rail (or pasture fence in my case). He was really resistant at first, but I kept putting him back and left the reins alone. After he figured out that I would leave him alone if he went straight, he was more willing. Especially down this one stretch of the fence he was wonderful. It definitely needs some more work, but it was a good first try.
Once we got to the barn I hopped off and gave him a big hug. I'm really happy that he isn't resisting a whole lot now that I'm starting to ask him to try harder and have more responsibility. I took his halter off and he followed me around a bit while I was cleaning up. Knowing that he wants to be with me even after I rode him and played with him for a couple of hours is a GREAT feeling.
Things to work on: Keep working on Follow the Rail, Weave, and all my other patterns, but be careful not to drill him on it... he HATES that!
~Eden