The Kissing Bandit

Uh oh! Max is stealing kisses from innocent villagers! Well, villagers, anyway.

Was told this morning that a mum walking her kids home from school called over to Max in his field. He recognised her, came over to the fence to say hello, and shoved his whiskery muzzle in her face to steal a kiss!

She was charmed, of course. And luckily she knows Max well (everybody seems to), knew it was his new trick, and was not offended or dented. So more work on ignoring unasked for behaviour so he gets it straight in his head and stops assaulting people with his affections.

We had a good day today. Decided to longline him in his saddle, so that I could do some ridden trot work after our session.

He was a bit bemused by the new set up, but went really well for me, was responsive, and got lots of praise.

Trotting about was a different story. He was in a good humour and very full of himself. We went round and round, snorting, occasional head tosses and little attempts to canter. I laughed a lot and he expressed himself with mischief and eagerness. He’s obviously feeling really well.

I have to look at one thing though, and that is my saying “Good!” in a certain tone seems to bring him to a dead stop with no other aid. This must be something to do with clicker training, in that he recognises “Good” as a “click” rather than just the click itself, so stops to await his reward.

Will have to think about this and unlearn the behaviour because it was a shame to immediately lose what I’d just praised him for. But my fault, not his, so we’ll just have to work round it.