August 6, 2007
Tonight was a fairly big night for Nova. We took both of the babies down to the arena for some lunging.

I lunged Nova first, since he was feeling spunky. Well, he sure was feeling spunky!! He went out and started trotting and he even cantered all on his own. He was pretty well behaved, but we still have to work on his trot-walk transitions. He doesn't listen to the word 'walk', so I tug on the line, and he takes that as a cue to stop, and then try to change directions on me. But, we'll get that all figured out in no time. But all his other transitions are wonderful. In fact, for the first time I asked him to canter (since he was feeling spunky), and he picked up his leads very nicely. The first time to the right he picked up the left lead, but before I could ask him to trot again he did a flying change all on his own! And he cantered around very nicely, relaxed and not pulling on the line - it was like he's done it before!

So I just have to work on some transitions, and other than that, he's an allstar.

August 17, 2007
Brought the monster up for his Developer, and then another session with the bridle. Well, last time I tried to put it on, he ended up pulling (puts his head up and backs up until he hits the end of the rope) - I wasn't expecting him to do so, so I didn't prevent it. Tonight I was more aware, and just untied his lead from the post, so when he put his head up and backed up it didn't tighten on him. Worked wonderfully because he backed up a bit, the stopped and took the bit and let me fuss with the bridle. I had him tied up while we were clipping Su, and man is this horse persistent!! He just doesn't stop chewing on that bit. Maybe he thinks it's a new chew toy. When we were done with Su and he was still chewing, I decided to lunge him to take his mind off of it. I'm very glad I did, because for the first time we nailed his trot-walk transitions! And not just once, but like three or four times! He started off all spunky and we had our trot-dead halt-stare at me-then leap off again transitions to get from the trot to walk, but then all of a sudden I asked for one and he gave me the most beautiful transition. And proceeded to give me, like I said above, a few more after that, so it wasn't a complete fluke. I also worked on reversing directions, and he's starting to get those too! Quite often I get the stop and stare and it takes forever to get him to reverse, but now he's finally getting it. (And when the turns he's basically pivoting on his hind and crossing over his fronts nicely! Go Booger!)

I was quite proud of him for that, since we accomplished two things. Now, the trick will to be if he remembers them next time I lunge him.