Come again

I found an article on Teaching Your Horse to Come When Called and thought I'd give the exercise a try. Bob came out to watch. He's as interested in all this now as I've been.

The deal is to approach and retreat over and over. I had to walk 20 feet away each retreat so I really got some exercise. The weather was cool and sunny. It took at least 15 minutes before I could get close enough to touch and have him remain still. But it was cool how he stayed planted and just watched me.

Since he was still jumpy, I tried a variation. Instead of slowing down my approach to get really close, I marched noisily and heavily within 2 feet but past, turned and came back. Pretty soon he was grazing unperturbed by each pass. So I tried the same in front of his head. Again I could get within 2 feet and whiz on by with no reaction.

I ate supper and came back 20 minutes later to repeat, as instructed in the article. This time, on the second approach I was able to stop at his head and pet him. The third time we digressed, so I went back to marching close by. Can't wait to keep this up!