Oh no I won't.
Oh yes you will.
Oh no I won't.
Oh yes you will.
I finally managed to get Woody out on a hack today, which was desperately overdue for his feet. I don't know if he was just in a mood, or whether it was that we have not hacked for a while, but on the way back he started to jog every few strides. To stop him, I took a firmer contact (nothing hard, just firmer than it was) and he started to refuse to walk at all.
He stopped dead and started backing up, but since the road was lined with banks of snow six feet high, there was absolutely no damage he could do to either of us. So I let him bounce his way backwards from one side of the road to the other. He finally ended up with his bum in a snowdrift, and then get really mad at not having made me release his mouth. He stood and smashed his forefeet alternately into the road as hard as he possibly could. Truly violent - to the extent that if I had not stopped him he would certainly have damaged himself. The only way I could stop him was to lean and tap his front leg with the whip.
He then gave in and walked home very nicely! Could someone just have a word with him and tell him that the panto season is over?
C
Another method is to circle each time he jogs, and only stop when he drops back to a walk. This does work if you are determined about it...however, you need to space to circle--small circles. The idea here is that unless he walks, he will never get home.
ReplyDeleteWarning: on one very stubborn horse my one hour ride turned into a two plus hour one on the way home...but he walked. *sigh*