Wet through to me knickers!

I'm quite pleased with myself this morning. I carried on schooling Radar in the rain, which just kept on and on. I've come in frozen, and literally wet through to my good old M&S midis :-)))   But he got his exercise to keep him fit to hunt.

I've found a very good way to make him really cross!  You turn Ace out, and make Radar work while Ace is grazing outside the arena. Boy was he annoyed. This was good news, because it gave me something to focus on other than the rain.

As usual, walk took a long time to estabish, but once we had it, the trot and the canter and particularly the trot canter transitions were really quite good. I then had to reestablish the walk before we came in, because after cantering he was leaping all over the arena to go again :-)

The other reason that I am smiling this morning is Ace. I wasn't happy with his progress yesterday, there was an unpleasant board-like quality to  his back. In the evening I put him back under the lights again. Today, there is a very noticeable difference in the feel of his back muscles. They aren't in any way as loose as we want them, but there is a new feeling of elasticity which has not been there before. I can press gently about six to seven inches away from his spine, and see the muscle right by his spine bulge smoothly  upwards. I doubt if that's ever been possible before, but certainly not since the operation.

He adores the lights, I am so pleased that we already had them because I would not have thought of buying any just for this. I leave him tied up and roped in under them while I groom Radar. Then I massage him. Then I take off the headcollar and let down the restraining rope, and he stays there. Today I even turned the heat back on again when the timer ran out and he gave himself an additional five or ten minutes.

I will be using them again tonight, since twice a day did such a good job yesterday and also just because he likes them.

Scar wise, it is looking as if once the hair is regrown, it will be extremely difficult for anyone to tell that he has ever had it done. That is just an unexpected and not unwelcome bonus.

If the improvement in  muscle tone is sustained tomorrow, I will think about starting lunging. The beauty of living on these hills and having him out full time is that there is no rush to do that, his back is getting stronger all the time just walking about finding food.

C