Kai- day 26 and enough of those shenanigans!

Well! Kai met his match today.
Shayla is back.
It sure was nice to see her, after her six month internship with Sandy Collier in southern California.
It didn't take her long to put those new skills to work! She checked out Josie first- she will be putting 6 months training on her next summer, and that will decide what direction we go with her.

After that, it was Kai's turn. She started out with the basics, seeing how he did free longeing....

Yes Kai, there's a new girl in your life! And you can't fool her.
Kai tried every trick in the book to get out of work, he didn't want to do inside turns, or look at Shayla, so she went to longing in the halter..... it was a lot of work and he is pretty strong. He insisted on those outside turns and when it got to the point of him turning away and galloping off with his head to the outside... it was time to bring out the bosal. It was pretty plain that he wasn't going to respect her requests- he also backed up as an evasion to changing direction. Once she put the bosal on him, he couldn't get away with some of his other moves, so he tried little rears- which earned him even more work!

I really think that in the past few years before I bought him back, Kai had become adept at getting out of work by resisting, and having the people give up- he called their bluff. Sorry, Kai- that won't work anymore. A good half hour of hard work went on before Kai finally turned both directions properly and promptly. I got to thinking, that I thought I had gotten him over this stuff, but I had never really pressured him this much. It sure showed the holes in his training- and I knew that they were there, but didn't think he would be that bad at longeing. He has had a week off, but that is a lot of regression! I guess I hadn't really gotten him solid enough in any of that stuff for him to get over his desire to evade work, but last time I got on him, if you recall the other day, bareback, he was not willing at all.
So it's a really, really good thing that Shayla is willing to work with him! All I want is a good solid, happy and healthy horse.
Tomorrow he gets bodywork, and it will be interesting to see if his attitude changes after he is adjusted. Because then, there won't be any excuses.