Introducing The Pool Noodle
Harvey and I have been working on Spanish walk for a couple of days now. He’s been doing a spectacular job of picking it up using only capturing and his big brain. He’s such a smart boy. I thought it was time to work a little harder and add a new concept. The Pool Noodle!
This is the first time he’d ever seen one. It was interesting at first but never scary. Especially once it became attached to food!
With it he will learn to target with his knees. We work on and talk about targeting with noses all the time. Horses can target with any body part though.
It is pretty simple to teach. In this case holding the noodle in position and asking for a step forward so he bumps it and click! He very quickly picked up that the click happened when he touched the noodle with his knees and started putting two and two together. He was even offering a couple of steps at a time!
He has such slow controlled finesse, we ought to be able to accomplish some fun things that Rusty will never be able to because of his very different style. Do you know there;’s a name for holding one foot in the air and pivoting on the other? It’s a beautiful thing to watch and I can’t remember the name. Harvey is so doing it though!