I Love My Little Ponies!

When I say I love my little ponies, I mean I love my horse and my donkey hehe. I worked with Chrome on lifting his hooves and he did great! He still tried to paw and stomp occasionally, but I only clicked for holding it up. After doing it several times he offered it all by himself. :D I guess it's time for me to grab it and click for standing still while I'm supporting it. Then we will move on to straddling it (like a farrier) and rasping it. Then I'll have to teach him to place it on a hoof stand for rasping. I love how there is so much I can teach him with clicker training. :)

After that I worked with the plastic bag tied to a whip. He still isn't crazy about it, but he stands perfectly still for me to rub it all over including his legs and privates. He was picking up his front legs when I touched the bag to them because we've been working on picking them up. I don't really mind. I also snapped the bag around to make noise over his back, behind him and over his head. The only one he seemed concerned about was in front of or over his head. I'll have to work on that more. I also let the bag rest on his head. He fought it at first trying to get away from it before he realized that putting his head down got the bag away from him and got him clicked. :) Good boy.

Then I worked with Zep. I tried using his grain this time and it definitely lasted longer than treats would have. I do drop some but he and the chickens clean it up. Zep had shown interest in the bag on a whip so I offered that to him. He targeted it several times, but if I moved even an inch toward him he ran off, so we will save it for another time.

As for petting him in this session I pet his forehead, over both eyes (yay!), both sides of his face, both ears (he pulls back a little over his right ear - I'm trying to time the click for before he reacts, but my timing needs to improve), his poll and behind his poll about an inch on both sides of his mane. Yay! Good boy. At one point he was so focused on me that when a car drove past the barn he spooked. Poor guy. He didn't associate it with me though so it's all good. I'm so excited how well my boys are doing. :)