Dusting Off the Cobwebs

So, yesterday I went out to actually play with Woody for the first time in several weeks. I have mainly just been spending UDT with him, grazing him outside the fence online or going for walks down the driveway, nothing too serious. I wanted to ask him to do a couple of things to freshen him up and see where we were, so I put Charlotte in the round pen, got Woody's halter on, and headed outside. I asked him to Yo-Yo out the gate which actually went very nicely, so I let him graze a bit. After about 5 minutes of grazing, I wanted to move on, and he leapt into action and trotted ahead, I led him into a circle so he could run around with out running into me, and that lasted about 30 seconds before he gredily stopped and ate grass. I brought my energy down in my body (make his idea, your idea and vice-versa), and then brought it back up to ask him to go forward. We followed this routine for a while until I felt like he wasn't even trying to be with me, so I did some sideways down the fence line with him until he actually focused his thoughts on me and did some nice steps, then I would let him eat. That worked pretty well, but I went on to do the "leave with me" exercise where I would walk forward and he would hit to end of the rope if he didn't come and a little snap of the savvy string. It only took a couple snaps for him to leave and stop with me, and I was happy with his focus, so I let him graze. Then, I asked him to back in between two mini pine trees with the Yo-Yo game going through my phases starting very soft and going rather quickly up the phases to get his attention. The last little bit was very soft with ears up towards me, so I was very pleased. After he ate a bit more, we went zig-zagging inbetween this line of 15 pine trees practicing stick to me and front-end driving. He did well with that, so Mom and I went to take them to graze in the really lush grass.
My dad invited Mom and I and the horses to go for a walk around the pond, which was really fun. He did a great job keeping up with me, and trotted and walking when I did. I'm pretty sure he liked it too because of all the new smells and sights and sounds, not to mention the extremely lush marsh grass!
P.S. Coming soon: Sometime in the next couple of weeks, I am going to give Woody his spring cleaning and I will take pictures of him to show the difference in his shape and how it has changed in almost a year! I was looking at him and I noticed just how slim he has gotten without losing the muscle he had. It really is incredible!
~Eden