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Don't know if I'm doing the right thing or not. He's still evading, still manure smelling and stopping to gaze fascinated into the distance at something only he can see. Perhaps I'm just lazy but I'm not going back again to just giving carrots and then carrots with a click. It's time to move on. So we just work through it. Did alot of wwylm (clicking with eye at my shoulder) and started working with me on the offside, the side he doesn't like so much. When he evaded I just waited at the end of the lead rope until he decided to try again. A couple of times it was quite a long wait. Still, persistence will pay off in the end. One day he's going to GET IT and realize it's okay. The mugging is nearly non-existent. Occasionally he puts his nose on or near me but I just swivel my body and he gives up. The stallion excitement ongoing but so what. I keep going. It's not that I don't trust Alexandra and her experience but I don't see the advantage of going back to the start over and over again. We make no progress and he's still no more into it than he was before we did as she suggested.

Also tried when attempting wwylm to walk into him so that he would turn with me. We'd start well and then he'd kind of stall but that's to be expected. Ultimately I want him to stay with me an arm's length away from either side. When I move he moves, when I stop he stops, when I turn he turns equally well from both sides.

Interesting thing tonight for as the end piece I asked for head down. Nothing. Waited, didn't say it again and was finally able to c/t when he dropped his head a fraction. Then he dropped it alot and I c/t'd over and over again. I could tell the pressure was getting to him - all those carrots! - for he started to eat grass but I just kept c/ting (and verbally cueing it to try and reinforce it). It's almost as though he's going to have to reach a crisis of some sort, working through these evasions as we are. I mean here he is getting carrots bang bang bang bang. He's overwhelmed and attempts to opt out by picking at grass but because his head is still down he's still getting the carrots which he eats. Jackpotted at the end for a nice back up. He didn't follow me back to the yards.