Gimme shelter

A lovely schooling session in the indoor school for Max, the Ent and me.

The Ent and Max honed their skills together for a good 20 minutes or so, with in hand work, while I set up some cones and trot poles for a wee obstacle course for Max. There was also a small jump set up, and I removed the top pole with a view to seeing whether we could coax Max over it after he'd warmed up a bit.

It was a good session, lots of different things for Max to do, Ent and I switching who was at his head every so often so always something new to concentrate on. Eventually we did get a couple of good jumps out of him too. At first he just barrelled through, knocking the pole over, then he started lifting his feet and trotting over it (nothing wrong with that, we like him lifting his feet) and finally, with encouragement from the back and enthusiasm from the front, he put in a couple of lovely little jumps.

After about 40 minutes in the school, we took him for a stroll through the village. He hasn't been to the village in a while and remains unfamiliar with it, so was on high alert, but remained well behaved and interested in his surroundings.

We led him back along a footpath that borders one of the paddocks and had almost made it home when the heavens opened.

"It's just a shower," the Ent said. "Let's wait it out."

So the three of us stood under a tree, and I told Max he could get his head down for a munch, which he happily did. We stood for five minutes or so, listening to the rain on the leaves, and Max's enthusiastic chewing.