Working With Tango (Day 2)

When I got to the barn today at 4:30 pm, the trainer asked me what my short term and long term goals were with Tango. Then I put Tango’s halter and leadrope on and we led him to the indoor arena. He was much more respectful of my space this time and was super relaxed. I walked him over a bridge a couple times and he was great!

Then my trainer asked me to lunge him around the poles (like pole bending poles, not ground poles). She said that the other day he did not like them at all and that she wanted to get to the point where we could tip over the pole without him caring. He did not care about the poles whatsoever today and when it tipped over he didn’t even react. My trainer was very surprised but happy! Then we did the same thing with a barrel. The first time it tipped over he wasn’t a huge fan but it wasn’t a bad spook at all. The second time there was no reaction from him at all and he kept on walking at the same pace.

Then we lunged him over two bridges in a row and it only took him a couple minutes to go over both. We also worked on putting our hand on his poll and he was so much better today then he was last time! He put his head down right away and was perfect. We took him off the lead-rope and let him walk around the arena and he rolled. After that we worked on bridling him as that has been pretty difficult in the past and today was not an exception. After awhile he got better and we stopped with that.

Then we led him to the wash stall just so he could get used to the sounds and sights of it. He has never been bathed to my knowledge and he hated the noise of the water and how it looked. He tried backing up and I could tell he was thinking about rearing but thankfully he thought better of it. Once he was calmer in the wash stall we turned off the water (the water never touched him, we just wanted him to get used to the noise) and led him back to his stall. I tied him up and brushed him and told him he was a good boy. I left at about 6:00 pm.