Getting Better...

Feel somewhat successful this morning. I went out determined to back straight and actually accomplished a bit more.

I always try to go through the steps.. desensitize with the stick and string, then move on to backing up, etc. This morning I jumped right to flexing thinking that would be a quick successful place to start. Wrong... Vaskur started to act like he wanted to bite the rope, then even seemed to act like he wanted to bite me.. I could be wrong, but since he had never done anything like that before I knew I needed to nip it in the bud. I knew I needed to move his feet, so I started to lunge him to the left, which he went off pretty nicely. His yielding was sloppy, and when trying to lunge to the right, he kept leaving to the right. About that time, I guess I got irritated enough to stop being a nagging mother and went back to YHQ stage one. He did that better than he has and moved quickly on to YHQ II. I really got after his butt on that one and got his two eyes much better. Then we went back to lunging until I got him going in both directions.

Finally I got back to what I wanted to start with which, was backing up. I had planned to back him down the driveway in case he kept going crooked, but lo and behold, he backed straight. We even did all 4 methods. Now... he is not leaving with enthusiasm, but he is backing... Yeah!

Then to see if all that effort changed his attitude about flexing... and yes... he did that without offering to bite the rope.... or me!

Tomorrow I think I will try to do all of the above things better and then add YFQ. I know that won't be much fun. Maybe Vaskur will surprise me.