Couch to 5k - Awesome Longe Lesson!!

I had one of the best longe lessons with Chrome today....... and of course no picture or video because my husband is out of town.....  Darn!!

Today was his third workout following the Couch to 5k program.  It started out with a five minute walk, two minute trot, five minute walk... and I just realized today it should have been a five minute walk, three minute trot, five minute walk... oh well.  I'll do the three minutes next time.  :)

I've been doing his workouts loose in the round pen, but I felt like he was too high headed and a little stressed, so today I got out my longe line and went out into the middle of the pasture.  He did soooooo much better on a line in the middle of a field than he did in the round pen.  I think there is just too much to distract him in the round pen such as the gate, the hay bale, the poop pile (yeah he won't go through it and I really need to clean it up lol), the duck's food bucket (the only place we can feed them that the horses can't steal it), etc.  Out in the field he concentrated completely on me.  Faran and donkey stood just outside his circle and stared at him as he went round and round lol.

The thing that totally surprised me and made me soooo happy is that he remembered EVERYTHING!!!!!  He listened to the voice cues for walk on, and trot, and best yet whoa!!  He did them perfectly!!!!  His whoas were so impressive.  As soon as I'd start to say it he came to an immediate, and SQUARE, halt!  :D  Love it!  I was using my clicker and treats since that's how I originally taught him and when I would click and he would stop or if I said whoa and he would stop he waited there!!!!  He waited patiently and quietly while I walked to him, fed him his handful of timothy pellets and walked back to pick up my rope and whip.  :D :D :D  I know the smileys make me looks like a silly kid, but I'm just that happy with him.  At one point he did try to turn in to me, but I flicked the whip at his shoulder and he went back out on the circle and waited.  :)

It wasn't until our walking cool down that he finally remembered to lower his head.  So during his cool down we worked on that. We will work on duration with his head down and head down in the trot later.  :)  I wanted to keep the session short and sweet, not to mention we were following the 5/2/5min Couch to 5k workout.

After the workout we walked around the pasture working on head down some more, then we went to this dirt pile (where we dug out the pond when I was a little kid and left the hill of dirt, talk about fun to play on!!).  I had him walking up it, backing down it, walking down it and backing up it.  We also worked on shoulder yields and hindquarter yields.  He was a total rock star!  I love my horse!  I'll try to get a longe session on video when my hubby gets home.  :)

P.S.  All of the work on the dirt pile/hill was at liberty.  :)  Oh and since my husband is out of town I don't have help for measuring him, so I'll do his Monthly Progress Report when he gets home.