The Mustang Diaries: Oakley Groundwork Update 3 - Session 20ish

At this point, I've lost track of how many full groundwork sessions I've done with Oakley. Surely its 20-30 by now, so I'm just going to go with "20 ish".

Yesterday, I introduced Oakley to a few new exercises and obstacles to further advance his training. I had an old tarp lying around and instead of putting it away, I decided to get use it as a tool with the horses for a few days. I laid it out in the arena and backed Oakley out of his corral for the session.

We started with the usual suite of desensitization, yielding his hindquarters, and lunging before asking him to try some new tasks. He learned to back up by tapping the air and by applying steady pressure to the lead. I was thoroughly impressed with how quickly he understood and how light he was on the halter pressure when asked with steady pressure. In the video below, you can see that I was holding my palm open and placing it against the clasp of the lead, and he was soft and willing to move his feet. I then asked him to start yielding his forequarters by placing my hand at his jaw and tapping the foot I wanted to move with my stick and string. Again, he picked up on this exercise very quickly, and we were able to get in 4-5 good crossover steps on each side!

Then I asked him to approach the tarp and walk over it. He figured out it wasn't going to hurt him, and we spent a few minutes lunging and sending back and forth over it. We then ended the session by repeating all of the desensitization exercises while on the big scary tarp.

After that great of a training session, I decided it was time for him to go out to pasture for the very first time! He didn't hesitate to get out of the confines of the training arena and the gentling corrals. Watching him explore the pasture with the beautiful fall foliage behind him was the most rewarding experience.

For arriving here only a few short months ago, Oakley is well on his way to becoming a well-mannered, respectful, and versatile horse!