Harvey, 5th go
I played with Harvey today. I started off with Rusty but was unprepared and he wandered off while I searched for stuff. I could have gone and gotten him but Harvey was standing there wanting to work While Rusty was not. So I gave them each what they wanted.
The whole thing lasted for just over eleven minutes. I cut it down to just over a minute.
I put down our mat and the whole thing was one big long episode of mat training while we worked on everything else. We started with a little targeting, then on to patience and standing quietly. Some people who I greatly respect have talked about teaching a head down cue as a relaxation technique. So I decided to try it. He just braces against poll pressure so, on the fly, we tried a different angle. I said down, touched his poll, and offered the target. We’ll see how it goes.
Then I haltered him. No more backing away from it. Not as good as I like but we need to get the head down cue before it can be really good. We did some sacking out with the lead and I brought out the blanket and threw it over his back. having it up there made him all nervous again so we worked on head down. I was out of pellets before he was as calm as I would have liked but I let him go. He can think on it until our next chance to play.