A little excitement and schooling Rio

One of my side jobs is dog-sitting, and we have an old Cocker Spaniel with us for a few days. I had him tied out in the yard when Shayla brought Rio out today. We thought Rio had spotted old BillyRay, and she was tying Rio at the hitching rail when he spooked- went up and over the hitching rail and landed on his side after sort of jumping over it; since the rope was only wrapped and not tied he had a bit of slack but his head was under the rail facing the opposite direction that he had been in.... and then he tried to get up and ended up crawling under the rail. I didn't think he could- but he did! He stopped when I hollered Whoa! What happened is that the old dog was lying still when Rio walked past him, and when he was at the rail, the dog, now behind Rio, got up and moved and totally startled Rio. There was no harm done, just a little bit of hair missing on a front leg that scraped the rail as Rio was going up, and it took about a half hour for his emotions to come back to his normal quiet self. I put some StressAway oil and some Rutavala oil in his nostrils which helped to calm him down.

So, the best thing to work on today was his mind. Some sacking out with the flag, and the lariat, and dragging the rope, working on crossing the tarp, and then backing over the tarp and the poles that hold it down, sidepassing over the tarp, and pretty soon he was ready for another bareback session. This time we worked on having him line up properly with the mounting block. It took a few tries, but he was getting the hang of it.

He did some nice trot work both ways, and then we called it a day. It's always good when a day starts out with a wreck and finishes on a good note. 

While we were working Rio, Beamer and Nitro were having match races up and down the fenceline in their turn out pastures- I didn't get photos, but Dave (Nitro's owner) did, I'll have to see if I can get some from him. I didn't get to see who was winning the races either- I'll find out tomorrow.