Teaching Sean to mount a horse

Thanks to our friend, Mike and his suggestion, we made more progress this weekend!
Mike suggested making some sort of barrier in front of the horse barrel, so that Sean can not swing his leg over the front of the "horse". Good suggestion!! To make such a barrier, I pulled a 2nd barrel over and placed it in front of, and at a 90 degree angle to the 1st barrel. So the 2 barrels looked like a T. This is so that Sean can't dismount by swinging his leg over IN FRONT.

To practice mounting the barrel, I got Sean to get his hip as close to the barrel as possible and to face the front, instead of facing across the barrel. This way it's much more natrual for him to put his weight on his hands and swing his leg over. That went really well!! Then, because of that 2nd barrel in place to block the "front" of the horse, Sean could not swing his leg over the front. Instead, being the clever fellow that he is, he just slid right off the back!! I'll probably take a 3rd barrel and put it across the back too. That front barrel DID stop Sean from swinging his leg over front-wise, so thanks, Mike, for your suggestion! That's one part of the bad habit that is getting re-trained!!

Later on, I took Sean for a walk on our dirt road, just for some exercise. When it was time to come home, instead of retracing our steps, I thought it would be interesting to teach Sean to go through our fence. We have a smooth wire, 3-strand fence. Anyone in the western US will know what this is, but in Europe this is pretty rare I think. Anyway, it's just 3 strands of wire (not barbed!!) strung between fence posts. Well, I had to get Sean's hip lined up with the fencing, and I had to get him facing forward and then he could put his leg through the fence. He kept trying to face the fence and put his foot on the wire. But with a little patience and by gently guiding him, I moved his hip toward the fence and got him to put his foot THROUGH the wire. Once his weight was on that foot, he easily leaned down and put the rest of his body through that wire. It was neat to see and it was a great practice run for mounting the horse facing forward too!

Alas, no pictures! The next phase of this will be to add a saddle to the barrel and see how it goes. Hey, I may even get Sean on our Paso Fino by the end of the week at this rate!!

Comments and suggestions are always welcome of course!!
Cheers,
Nancy from HOT HOT HOT Colorado. We've had a week of 90-degree weather and we're in for another week of it!