Update

Dublin was videotaped today (Sunday) for my coaching call tomorrow. Our goal was to get more responsiveness to leg pressure, stick to the rail, do some sideways work, and work on a loose rein. We still have work to do but considering how inconsistently he's been worked, he's really making progress.

One issue we still are dealing with is his crankiness when being saddled. Once the saddle is on, he's fine, but he doesn't like having it swung up on his back. He expresses his dislike by trying to bite me, and since he has actually bitten me before--hard--I tend to respect that gesture and it doesn't make for a very graceful saddling. So not pleasant for him, and it just escalates the problem.

Laura used to have the same problem with her mare, who has a similar temperament, and she found that letting her eat while being saddled eliminated the problem. So we tied Dublin to the trailer with a hay bag and I swung the saddle up. It worked like a charm! Not only did he not try to bite me, he never even changed expression, just munched happily away. So yes, it's a bit of a bribe, but if he starts thinking of this as a non-event and even something that involves food, I'm willing to use it.

One Parelli exercise is to see if you can mount from the fence. I've been using a mounting block, but the last time I rode him, a few days ago, I decided to try mounting from the fence. The tricky part about this is to cue the horse to actually sidle up to the fence so you can slide on. The first time, I cued him to move closer with the riding stick, which both confused and offended him, and he did a little buck the first couple times I tried to move him closer to me. Then he swung completely away and I had to drive him back to the fence by driving his off side. That worked, and I was able to slide on him. Today, I just tapped his hip with the stick to move him to me, and he did it! No problems at all, and I was on and we were off.

He's been a bit dead to leg pressure all along, so Julia suggested using the "thunk thunk" technique--cue him with the leg, if he doesn't respond give him a light thunk with the riding stick. Wait 3 seconds and if no response, thunk again but double the intensity. And so on, until you get a response. I'm still figuring out what Dublin's reaction will be to having his buttons pushed as he tends to strike and kick, so this actually works well because the intensity of the thunks goes up predictably, so by the third thunk, when it is getting really annoying, he has had some time to think about whether he is going to get cranky, or yield, and so far he is yielding, and by now he is often yielding just to leg pressure. We are still a ways off from power steering on him, but at least I don't feel like I'm trying to guide a drunken sailor down the street!

He's breaking into a trot now upon request, and not after several rounds of the "thunk thunk" exercise. We can do a rather rough figure eight at the trot, and his stopping and backing are getting better. I can actually back him on occasion without using the reins, just shift my weight backward to draw him back and use my feet on his shoulders to drive him back. Sometimes I can skip the feet! His sideways is getting dramatically better, and I can open the gate from on top of him. It's not pretty and it's not fast, but we're getting the job done. He can also sidesteps over poles in a "U" configuration, which is on the video, and I got him to sidestep over a barrel later, although I did have to get off of him to accomplish that.

The video is on YouTube