Ride 43

I'm in a hurry so I have to make this short, but I want to record it to keep track of his rides.  I rode Chrome again today, bareback for just under 20 minutes.  I took him out on the road and my husband went, but he was walking Jackal on a leash so we didn't take any pictures.  Sorry!

Chrome was excited as we left the property, but very hesitant about the direction we chose (which he's been down several times and nothing has ever happened).  He kept wanting to stop and look around.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and I think he was smelling the neighbor's horses.  When he wanted to stop I would let him look around for a minute before asking him to continue.  Each time we stopped my hubby and Jackal kept walking and it was so funny because when I'd ask Chrome to walk on he wanted to trot to catch up.  I made him walk because letting him get away with that would lead to the jigging I hate.  We went a short distance and then turned around because the neighbor dogs were being OBNOXIOUS with Jackal there.

As soon as we turned around Chrome extended his walk, lowered his head and snorted three or four times in a row.  He was definitely tense!  So I was a little disappointed because I thought he was walking fast because we were headed back in the direction of home.  So as a test when we approached the driveway I just sat there and did nothing.  He kept walking straight!!  He never looked at the driveway and never slowed down.  In the other direction he was still looking around (the neighbor on that side has a really trashy house and property), but he was doing his fast walk, so I was happy.  He was eager to keep going, he just didn't like the other direction for some reason.  We went a short ways and turned back before we got to the other neighbor with obnoxious dogs (ahhhh why don't they build fences around here????).  He continued his big walk all the way back to the house.

I was so proud of him, especially since he didn't spook when there was a bunch of rustling in the brush beside the road.  :D  In fact he never spooked once, he was just tense.  I'm not bothered by the fact that he was tense going in the first direction.  Either he knew something I didn't or he just wasn't ready to go there after such an extended break.  I'm willing to listen to him.  We can conquer it another (less windy) day.  Anyway I gotta go.  Later!

P.S.  I finally used the mark all as read button in my blog reader.  I hated to do it but with 1300+ blog posts to read there was no way I would ever catch up!  I hope I haven't missed anything important.  If I have you can leave a comment and I'll try to check it out.  Sorry guys.  I hope all is well with you.