Baker training session 21 - best one yet!

I worked with Baker for about  17 minutes yesterday.  He walked right up to me and followed me around for a bit while I set stuff up.  He had wandered away when I was ready to halter him, but as I walked up to him, I noticed that he had a very different attitude.  He is usually very curious and snuggly, but yesterday, he seemed to have more of a business-like attitude.  He knew exactly what I was there to do with him, and he stood very still while I haltered him, and then he waited very patiently for me to tell him what to do.  He was very no-nonsense about it, and ready to get to "work".  It was awesome!  He still took a lot of encouragement from the butt rope to lead to the tree.  We did have a long walk yesterday, but he tried to stop alot along the way.  Once we got there, I decided to tie him to the tree for all the work.  Even though he has been struggling some with the flyspray, he doesn't struggle hard, so I'm not really worried about him hurting himself.  I still used the quick release knot (which I would do with ANY horse anyway).  I flysprayed him first thing, and he was FABULOUS!  He stood perfectly still for all of it, with no struggling at all!  I went over him with all the brushes, and, as usual, he stood perfectly for that.  He was even really good when I picked up his feet!  At the end, we walked back towards Fiona.  It was a long walk, so there were several moments for me to ask him to halt and stand.  It was the best he has ever done!  I barely had to put any pressure on the halter, he halted immediately, and stood there until I asked him to go forward again.  Once, he even halted, not because I put pressure on the halter, but because I had stopped moving.  So, he is starting to read my body language as well!  Finally, I asked him to drop his head so I could remove his halter.  He IMMEDIATELY dropped his head so low that his nose almost touched the ground!  And then he kept it there even after I had taken off the halter!  And to top all that off, he never tried to bite me today ☺.  He definitely had a great session and is definitely putting all the pieces together.  I would like to have two more sessions like this (with the flyspray, at least), before I add anything new, though.  Whenever I come across something that is difficult for the horse - like how he struggled with being flysprayed while "tied", once I get a successful session with them, I like to have at least two more successful sessions before moving on.  I don't want to move on, in case the one successful session was just a fluke, or just a lucky day.  I like to confirm that things will continue to be successful before moving on.  I have found that three successful sessions is a good sign that we are ready to move on.  So, one down, two to go!
These are a few views of the double quick release knot



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