My daughter chose a ball for us, pink and purple of course. We had been targeting a ball getting ready, now we had a ball specially for this, it had stopped snowing and I had a moment. He walked up to the ball and touched as soon as he got in the round pen. I clicked him but he didn’t want a treat, there was some grass. I guess that works. I left him to eat some grass so he wouldn’t be so desperate for it when we started working and got the rest of my stuff. When I came back we got down to it. He immediately grasped the concept and within a couple of minutes he was kicking the ball. He was doing it loose but the grass was such a distraction I wanted to make sure he was paying attention.

This is the way to sack out a horse. He thinks it’s a fun game, things are bouncing around under his belly, life is good. I have been thinking lately how well this ought to transfer to teaching a horse to work cattle properly. Teach him to target the cutting dummy and he’d be working it in no time. It really isn’t any different than a ball or the end of a whip. The possibilities are endless.