Oh all right, if you insist!

Having taken some advice from horse loving friends, today I took Max back to basics to see if I could find that willing pony with the fancy moves.

So today it was indoor school and in hand ground work. Just concentrated on walk/trot/halt transitions. Max larked about a bit at first, with misdemeanours met with silence, gently turning him back to where he went wrong and trying again, and good work met with loads of praise.

He rose to it! We did some brilliant work once he settled in, then finished off with some loose clicker training of stuff he knows really well so he could "hit the jackpot" with a handful of pony nuts.

Also threw in a new thing we had started working on before the op. I ask Max to stand, and then walk away from him, around him, set up distractions while he stands still and watches. Then I stand at some distance, gesture towards myself with a command of "Forward Max".

He looked nonplussed at first, so I crouched down and repeated the gesture and command. He will always come to me if I'm crouched, and after only a couple of attempts, I got the same response standing. Clever boy!

Only half an hour of work, but we ended on a high, we were having fun together, so it was a good time to call it quits.

Took him back to his box for a few carrot stretches, then put the left over carrot slices and a small pear in his feed bowl. Man, can that pony find a pear in a hurry! Took the whole thing in and looked up at me with delight, mouth completely stuffed full of pear "Nom, nom, nom" as he chewed with relish. Finished off the carrots, smeared me with pear slobber as thanks, and then out to his field, one happy pony and one delighted me.