This morning we pulled weeds in the garden, and then Pat fed them to the horses. I can't remember what they were, but horses love them. Except for Chaco. He is not interested at all. He just wants his hay.
Then we do driving practice with Sparky. We hook him up with reins attached to his halter which string out behind him. Shawn drives him, and gives him the "gee" and "haw" commands. Gee is right, and haw is left. These are derived from driving oxen and haw is short for here, the left side, and gee is short for git or the right side. Pat and Laura and I have little red saucer things that we use for the "target" to get Sparky to come to us . . . whoever Shawn decides and drives Sparky to. When Sparky reaches the right person, he gets a horse cookie. Later, we do it with the red saucer on the ground with a horse cookie on it. Sparky does really well.
Next, we drive Chaco. Pat asked me if I wanted to, but Chaco can get crazy with the lines on him, so I declined the offer. I'm glad I did. She drove him to me and Shawn and Laura and we each would give him a cookie. But he was a bit of a hard case. He'd get frustrated and try to go a different direction, and she had her hands full getting him to go the right way without going ballistic. After awhile, he got it pretty good, but he still has a ways to go.
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