Is this my best side?

It turned out to be a lovely evening this evening, despite a grim forecast, so Faith and I got to work on the yard again. I decided to work a little bit more on WWYLM, without the aid of cones this time, as they were proving to be irresistible to a certain filly who likes to pick them up and pass them to me. Also in the interests of encouraging patience, I thought I would mix it up a little with some Grown Ups are Talking.

We were doing really well on the left rein (with me standing on her near side). She would walk with me keeping her head by my shoulder, stop when I stopped, and also back up a few steps when I backed up too. Then I would just stand with my hands in a neutral position (easy now I have a convenient bump to rest them on), and ask her to stand quietly beside me for a few seconds, then click and treat. We built this up to about 20 seconds at a time, and all pawing, leg waving etc. behaviour was ignored, and she only got a click and a treat when standing quiet and relaxed. I thought this might be quite a nice build up into ground tying eventually as well.

Flushed with this success, we tried it on the other rein, going the opposite way. Well this is where it all fell apart. I am obviously doing something differently with my body language on this side, but I’m not sure what it is. Faith put on her snarky face, and although she walked with me well enough, but when we stopped, she would come past my side, and round in front of me to stand facing me, so I am obviously not effectively setting up a boundary with my body language very well on this side. I do have a habit of holding my left shoulder slightly higher than my right, so this might have something to do with it, but I must, must try and get these sessions videoed to try to spot exactly how I am different from one side to the other.

Anyway, we managed to end on a good note, and then I gave Faith a lovely groom, so we were both relaxed and happy!