Update on the Driving Lessons

I haven't posted any updates for two reasons. First I have been insanely busy. Second they have been pretty low key.

After the lesson with Ed, the next day I tried it from the beginning without a spotter. He was cool, calm and collected through the whole thing. We've been pegging away at it. What was apparent right away was that we moved around the ring like drunken sailors.  So I've been setting up obstacles and working on steering. I'm trying simple dressage patterns around the ring and we've been slowly getting better. Some days are better than others.

One day we had a discussion about who decided where we went. Steele had some very definite ideas about where he was going and where he was NOT going. I figure that this was a discussion better had on the ground so I persisted doing my level best to stay calm but firm. In the back corner he stopped dead and refused to move. When I urged him forward he backed up. So I shortened up the lines and came up beside him. We made our way into the corner. So I counted that as a win.

Today he was very very good. Especially considering that he had the week off. Our driving circles were decidedly egg shaped. Which is a huge improvement over the squiggly cloud shaped thing we had been doing.  I think that he's finding this work interesting. One thing he is trying to do is to grab the lines in his mouth. I'm confident that we can work through this issue too.