Good pony!

Bobby is make huge leaps forward in his outside dressage work! I longed him in side reins first and got on with dressage whip in hand--something he's also being very good about me carrying lately. He doesn't like getting touched with it (and I literally only brush it against his hip when he's sticky to my leg), but he does allow me to carry it now without having a complete spaz.

His walk work was very good, very relaxed, and very focused despite plenty of pony and people distractions around the barn.

distractions included, but not limited to, wild ponies.

His trot was okay. He was being very good about halt halts, but he was a little more unfocused. I did a few trot-halt-trot transitions with him which brought his attention back until the cows across the road started mooing. Then he had to take a peek at them and was sluggish moving off to the trot. I brought him right back to a halt to try again. Unfortunately, Bobby takes great offense to super fast transitions because he thinks he did something wrong, and he hates doing things wrong. So when I asked him to trot off again he had a bit of a tantrum.

Me: Give your face. Very good. And trot.

Bobby: Back up? You didn't want me to trot before, so you must mean back up.

Me: No, no. Halt. Give your face. Good pony. And-- no, Bobby. I want you to go forward.

Bobby: WHY DON'T YOU WANT ME TO GO BACKWARDS?! YOU ONLY LET ME TROT TWO STEPS BEFORE YOU TOLD ME THAT WAS WRONG, SO YOU MUST MEAN GO BACKWARDS NOW.

Me: No, Bobby. Just relax and halt. Good. Give your face. Good. And--nope. Wrong again.

Bobby: OH MY GOD, DID I JUST FEEL THE WHIP TAP MY BUTT?? WHY ARE YOU BEATING ME?? I'M JUST TRYING TO GO BACKWARDS FOR YOU!!!

Me: Ok, no spinning. That's naughty. Just halt. Good pony! And trot.

Bobby: I'M ONLY TROTTING BECAUSE YOU BEAT ME SENSELESS WITH THE WHIP.

Me: Mm, pretty sure I didn't.

Bobby: PRETTY SURE YOU DID.

After that, he gave me quite literally the best trot work he has ever done. Ever. You guys are obligated to believe me in this despite lack of photographic proof because you should all know how honest I am when things are not going well--which is about 93% of the time. He was fucking fabulous. If all it takes is a teeny little tap on the butt when he's being naughty and he takes that as "Must be perfect now", the dressage whip is coming to warm up with us. Sometimes I really do wonder what goes on inside Bobby's head.

After his perfect trot work, he got rewarded by getting to stop and say hello to Dollar.

"whoa, dude. what's on your head?"

His canter work to the left was acceptable, but really good to the right. He did want to get fast when coming back down to the trot, but I put him right to work leg yielding and doing shoulder-in to slow him down and get him focused back on a rhythmical trot. He was a little resistant, but again--he was so solid with half halts today that all I had to do was throw one at him before asking him for the lateral work and he quickly slowed.

I have a fun jumping exercise planned for tomorrow so I'm really hoping the rain holds off another day. It's going to make him think fast about jumping instead of loafing around half the arena to get to the next jump and having the opportunity to gawp at the outside world.