Every which way....all friendly!

On my commute home, all I could think about was WHAT to do with Cha’Cote when I got home. I actually felt a little of my confidence dwindle away…..Man is that a fragile little thing! I decided a good thing to do would be to play the friendly game in as many ways as I could think of…but things he already knew….so he could feel like a winner when we were done. I started with grooming as he still can get bothered by the shedding blade. He totally ground ties great for this. I am now able to pick up both feet from one side and clean them. I proceeded to the back feet, something I have apparently forgot he had. The mind sure can trick you when you are afraid of something. So this is the 3rd time I have played with his back feet. I even got to use the hoof pick for a half a second on one of them. Next up was the extreme friendly with the c/s and string. Progress was made as he did not move at all while I was totally ‘IN” zone 5, nor when I switched sides back there. Whew….that one is scary for me. Probably more so than for him even. I soooo don’t want to get kicked. Sad that I expect him to totally trust me, but I don’t totally trust him. We both of course have good sound reason to not be 100% faithful to the idea of trusting each other. From there we did just a couple min of weave and fig 8 at the trot and proceeded to the pedestal. Of course he had no problem standing with his front feet on it, or walking across with all 4. But he has yet to let those back feet stay there more than the split second it takes to get across. Well no more! He did it. He finally stood with all 4 feet on the pedestal! I desperately dug for my phone in my pocket to get a picture, and try as I might, I could not get one with ALL of him in the frame….non blurry. He would move before I could get far enough away. But I managed to get a pick of him with just his hind feet on it. I yelled for someone to come out of the house, but to no avail….the TV must have been blaring. Then we did some sideways over a pole and some stick to me. All in all a good evening with an end result of deeper trust. I’ll take it!
Savvy On
Michelle