Changes

We have had a few really good sessions the past few days. Banjo has made some great progress and we have improved a number of the exercises. She has been easier to catch and very curious. She has gotten over some of her fear and doesn't run off like she did at first. That being said, she will now probably begin to test her limits and see what she can get away with. She will see if she can get me to move my feet and test it to see if she can be more dominant than me. :)
We had two great lessons in a row in the stall working through the exercises. Much less resistance and I was doing better about having a purpose to each thing we worked on. We have been reviewing exercises and then adding one new one. That is all we usually have time for in the evenings. As she gets better and more responsive to an exercise we drop it out of the review or just visit it when we need it. For example, she really has the hang of backing off of pressure from the string around her neck. So instead of making that part of our review, I test it when I need her to back up or if she has moved too far past me during one of the other exercises.

Last night we worked with Banjo in the round pen for the first time. She was easy to catch in the stall and so we did a couple things in there and then lead her over with her mama to the round pen. We reviewed a few things and it was great having a little more space. We have been working on leading in a figure 8 so we could practice turning to the left and right and that was getting harder to do in the stall. She had some resistance that we needed to work through and the round pen gave me enough space to move her feet more effectively. To lead her in a figure 8, I have one rope looped around her hindquarters and one around her neck. I pull the butt rope and ask her to move forward. The neck string is used for direction.
The last exercise for the night was a new one. It's another step towards teaching her to lead... This time the long line goes around her neck and I stand off to one side and pull lightly. The goal is to get her to step to me and face me. When she steps to me she gets slack in the rope and a release of pressure as her reward. Its a good transition to the halter as a lot of horses will resist when they feel something pull behind their ears for the first time. Hopefully a repeat of this lesson tonight will go well too.