Think it through

Grace cantered to the gate so fast tonight she barely stopped in time. My beloved old Grey had a bad accident as a youngster doing exactly the same thing. From now on I shall wait until I am at the gate before I call her, because she stops when she sees you put up a hand. Not sure how that will work in the dark mind.

Grace did the same thing after our work session. When I signalled the end of the exercise she cantered up to me. No its not me she's keen on, but the click/treat reward. And yes she did stop in good time.

Not happy about 'move over' exercise when it involves swinging her quarters from her right to left, but she did it quite well in the end.

Grace seems to understand 'no' as well - so when she decided to cow kick instead of moving over and I said 'no' she stopped, thought about it and then tried the step over. It is almost as though she has been taught to kick - probably accidently, but whoever achieved this feat couldn't have done a better job if they had tried to do it on purpose.

I am going to think through the next stage of Gracies work quite carefully. There is a lot going on for her with her feet and general loosening up physically. It would be easy to push, because she is so willing. But if she gets sore she could easily get resentful and then we would lose everything we have gained.