Played for a good long time today - an easy walk up - a right brain snort when the neighbour's dog barked, but then a nice soft squeeze over the ditch. Up to the round pen and we squeezed in today instead of backing in (like we have ALWAYS done - boring!) Turned her loose, took off a layer, had a drink and watched her roll. She loves to roll, my horse. =)

We then played catching game - she's QUICK at that one - haltered with 22'line and played first three games - checking for ball or chair. Still a bit chair like on the PP HQ yields - but they're coming along. Driving is getting better and better. A little extreme friendly from a distance and we were ready to try circling.

Her sends are much better overall - which means mine must be - and we tried change of direction when she would break gait. That worked a few times but I think she gets quite unconfident out there quite quickly and then she would ignore my change of direction request and just speed up in the direction she was going. I'm not certain what to do about that but I'm going to try just slowing down and having more friendly time and also waiting a bit longer before I ask for the change - make SURE she's REALLY going to break gait. I did use the friendly a fair bit this time and it really seemed to help her confidence with me as her leader. After some sideways - trying to get her further away from me and still sideways - we then had some more turnout time while I packed up the 22' and had a drink so we could walk to the mailboxes.

On the 12' line we squeezed out of the gate - and she rushed out so I asked her back in and out over and over until we got a nice soft walk through the gate, then turn face and wait. Thanks Linda! Our walk up the road had some unconfident moments so I would interrupt her RB running all over the place and just hang with her, gently stroking her until I could see a change in her, then ask her with a subtle phase 1 "would you like to continue our walk" and if she left first, I went with her.

At the mailboxes we sat and grazed for about 10 minutes and then walked home. We stopped to talk to drivers on the way up and down the road and she seemed to like poking her head into their cars to see what was there - any treats? She is always more confident on the way home and we walked in synch for almost the whole way - I tossed the leadrope over her back and we would walk, stop, trot, stop etc. together. Just to see, I squeezed her over the ditch that used to scare her and she did it calmly and with confidence - yay!

So even though I still haven't solved the circling game problem, it's coming along. I can see progress and I can think of new things to try until I get the right savvy arrow.