Phil Whitmore at Greenwood with Duke

Wow it was an eventful day.  Laurie with Cathy nad Lexie and Amy were on theire way to be in the event.  I was working hard to make sure that the event would be ok. 

Skills worked on with Duke

• Backing him up and getting him to focus on what we are doing
• No giving up when asking him
• Asking smaller things so its easier for him to learn
• Make sure its fun
• Using my hand and tapping his chest to help hi back up
• Getting him warmed up 4 steps forward and then 4 steps back
• Using the backward method to get him to focus
• Keeping the space between us
• If he bumps me then  he is stepping out of line
• Need to work out more
• He can sit quetly for a long time
• He can step onto a platform better than anyone else
• If you want to do the shaking trick, you use the tapping to ask and when he answers stop the pressure
• The horse brings his hoof up and does it 80 percent of the lift
• Horse could probably stand all of his feet on a platform
• Duke is pretty skilled
• Phil said his skills had dulled but there are there
• Hes lazy and Phil called it
• He also noticed he could have some arthritis issues
• Tricks learned:  Smile, steps forward and back, lift his leg, put his leg in a rope and then slip to the side that I would pull, platform standing, walking to the platform, Bonnie showed me better way to change out the halters (by using the lead line around the next and then slip them on and off) Pressure used to get Duke to understand, keep his mind accupied with you