Baker training session 8 - review again, and pick up hind feet

Baker was so adorable this morning!  As I walked out to his field, I called out his name, and he picked up his head and whinnied at me!  Before I had even walked in to the field, he was already walking up to greet me, away from his mom!  This is such a huge step towards he and I becoming a winning team one day!  Obviously, it took no effort at all to catch him.  He received what he was hoping for - a lot of rubbing, especially in his favorite spots - under his neck, on top of his mane, his rump, and his forehead.  He really sucked it all up and even snuggled with me (without pushing or leaning on me).  After spending a little time loving all over him, I started by picking up his front feet again.  He stood perfectly still for all of that.  Since Megan was here to help, and since Fiona was doing really well (she kept to herself and ate while she ignored us), I had Megan hold Baker while I picked up his back feet.  He offered very little resistance to this, and after just a couple of tries, was standing completely still.  Hopefully, he will stand this quiet when the farrier has to work on him - that's the real test!  After we were done with that, we worked on leading again.  As he has done with all previous lessons, he just got better today - I used the butt rope for the first walk, but after that, he did not need the butt rope to go forward, just some pressure on his poll.  We did have to work a while on walking and stopping, but mostly because he kept trying to lean on me.  I think he was getting a little frustrated that I wouldn't let him lean on his mom either, but we persisted until he was walking politely beside us both.  I ended up spending about 20 minutes with him today.

So, I was going through my pictures of Gia from when she was a baby so that I could compare Baker to her.  I had a good profile picture of Gia when she was 16 days old, so I decided to take one of Baker today (at 16 days old) to really get a good comparison.  Can you tell who is who?  Can you spot some similarities and differences?  Remember, they have the same mom, but different dads.  Have fun!


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