Donkey Day (and Chrome's stifle update)

 First a Chrome update.  As you can see in the above photo he is back to his old self.  :D I have just been walking him, letting him graze in the yard (he walks around a lot while grazing), backing up in a relaxed posture and walking him over the hay bales.  Tomorrow I'm going to start over on our Couch to 5k workouts, but I guess I'm going to try running with him so he's not on longe circles.... yuck.  Wish me luck lol.

 And now on to Donkey Day!!  As you can see in these pictures I let Zep out of the round pen because we had bad weather for a few days.  I'll probably put him back in as soon as we can build him a lean-to.  If I could find Faran a home I would just train Zep out in the pasture since I could easily put Chrome in the round pen or out in the yard to graze while I worked with him.

Zep tries to help me out and bites Faran trying to get him to go away.... but little donkey teeth don't make much of an impression on the Hulk lol.  

These pictures weren't taken during a training session.  I was actually guarding Chrome while he ate his supper because he eats soooo much slower than the other two and they try to steal it from him.  They were totally mugging me lol.

 We want FOOD!!

 So anyway, on to the training.  Even though I wasn't training when I took these pictures I took pictures of what we've been working on so you could see.  I just snitched handfuls of Chrome's food to reward Zep for cooperating.  :)

 Petting him on the nose.

The first day I took my target (tennis ball stuck to the end of a dowel rod) out and worked on touch.  He quickly remembered the work we'd done with that.  In the first session I was able to get him to transfer and target my hand!!!  :D

 Holding my palm out flat so he can touch it with his nose.  I'm so excited for him to learn the hand target because that teaches him that my hands are good.  :)

In a later session I started holding my hand up toward his face.  His natural reaction was to turn his face away, but I just left my hand in the air.  When he turned back to face me without moving away I clicked and gave him a treat.  It took no time at all before I was brushing my fingers down his forehead and then putting my whole palm on his face.  :D  I can tell he remembers all of this, it will just take time to gain his confidence again.  Hopefully we will have better weather next week and I will be able to work with him more.  We only had three clicker sessions this last week.  The exciting part was that when he was in the round pen he was walking over to where I sit to train him before I could even get in the pen lol.  He loves it!

  As you can see by his total mugging of the camera he is definitely finding his confidence again.  :D

Zep says bye until next week!!