A lesson in compare and contrast

So recently I've been working with Otter on getting him to carry his own heavy head instead of him trying to get me to carry it.  We got into this bad habit because when I was first getting him into work again after his injuries, he wasn't strong enough in his back end to really use it like he should.  We've managed to get around going with him slightly heavy this summer because we weren't doing anything too high level, but I knew that it needed fixing.  Since we are going into winter, and he is getting a lot stronger (and also a lot heavier) I decided this would be a good time to go back and patch up this hole in his training.  It has been going fairly good, over the past month he's gone from only being able to support himself for 5 to 10 minutes without getting heavy to now being able to ride for about an hour carrying himself with only a few reminders.

Our ride on Wednesday was like that - he was light in his front end, and it's amazing how much easier it is for him to bend correctly when he is using his hind end.  I've also realized that he has a huge tell on how much he is using his hind end - if he isn't using it, he shuffles his front feet through the footing, and when he is pushing off of his hind, the shuffling sounds stop.  We did walk-trot-canter transitions and they were beautiful with no rushing, no head tossing, etc.  It was a really good ride.

Yesterday, not so much of a good ride.  Could tell when I got on and was asking him to step up through the bridle, and he just wanted to get heavy...  Our conversation went like this:
Me:  Please carry your head.  It's heavy.
Otter:  Ok, I will
*two steps later
Otter: My head is really heavy, why don't you carry it for me?
Me: No, self carriage is important, carry your own head.
*Cue Otter's temper tantrum

So after varying degrees of temper tantrums, he eventually decided that it was much easier for him to carry himself vs throwing his hissy fits.  Ended up with about 10 minutes of the nice work that we had on Wednesday. 

He tends to have this moments any time we start doing something new.  He'll be great for a few rides, then decide it's hard and throw a hissy fit to see if I'm actually going to make him do it, then he'll very rarely have a problem with it again.  Occasionally, if it's something really hard or he really doesn't want to do it (like laterally work- he is extremely short bodied, so it's hard for him to do shoulders in/haunches in) we skip straight to the hissy fit. 

I'm hoping we have gotten it out of his system and he'll be good today if I manage to get out there.... It's really cold outside, and I keep finding things I could do inside instead. 

A picture of Otter I took for my photography class.  I got a 100% on it!

Challenge November update:

No Stirrups - Doing okay.  Been dropping them when I can. Rode most of the  time on Wednesday without them, and did a bit yesterday before his hissy fit. 

Planking - failed miserably.  Was following the program then got to several days where I couldn't hold it for the required time (around day 18).  Not sure  if my positioning had gotten screwed up or what.  Decided to go back a couple of days to a point where I was comfortable and have been really inconsistent about doing them since.

Thanks for reading!

Oh ,almost forgot to mention - If  you are like me, and can't have enough calendars - Farnam is giving away free 2014 calendars if you go to www.farnamhorse.com/horsecalendar