Mojo at the mounting block.

A bit slow at adding new posts but over the last week we have been refining the cue to come to the mounting block.
It was very windy in this clip, the barn seems to funnel the wind. So I only showed Mojo the saddle.
We did some work at coming to the mounting block, I sent him to a cone and then stood on the mounting block and called “taxi’ he comes to stand next to me but sometimes over shoots and bumps in to me. I have to be careful not to reinforce his swinging out again too. This is little snippet, the cone is just out of shot – I must be better at siting the video camera.

A few days earlier I went back to getting more impluse control round the cone square – when I am further away he gets frustrated. So I went back to working on getting Mojo walking calmly round the pole and cone square. He was still a but frustrated at times but better than when I am further away. I also tried to use a variety of reinforcers – scratches and treats.
Not really sure it all went to plan as he did try to bite the target.
A longer video this time – warts and all.

The saddling didn’t go too well as he decided to walk off before I fastened the girth, I just held the saddle and walked with him then said ‘whoa’ – he stopped and I gave him a lip curling scratch and removed the saddle.

Today I saddled him with no problems at all, and put on his bridle. Didn’t do anything else so he learns that tack doesn’t always mean he has to do anything.