My Mind's Been Blown

O.O I've been so sure these past few days that things had been going terrible between Chase and I-we'd gotten into quite a few arguments. I recognized it as disobedience, so of course the solution I thought up was increase the phases....but that just leads to bigger arguments with him. I find that if I keep things progressive and interesting, he becomes very willing. I'm saddened to say that my courage failed me at teaching him to lift his hid legs for me. And when I asked Julie to help me, she smacked him for kicking out-when I could clearly see it was out of nervousness. And that settled it. I will only trust me or my dear Franny to touch his hind feet, and that means I will have to be the main teacher. And thoroughly, I realize I am not ready for that, and neither is he. I can not teach him to be confident about it without being confident myself. And right now touching his lower hind legs makes me unconfident-even facing his hindquarters at close range makes me a little nervous. Which I'm extremely proud of myself for-to think a few weeks ago walking next to him, or even thinking of visiting, made me nervous. Where I am now is a HUGE step. Anyways, back to it, my mind was blown today. I didn't have a lot of time, so I decided on undemanding time. He took his head out of the hay feeder and walked over to me, ears pricked, and stayed by my side as I scratched him and such. I've been wondering whether or not the only reason he follows me to the stall is because I always give him a bit of extra grain or let him finish what he has left over (he usually has left-overs). Nope, he proved it different today by waiting for me, stopping when I stopped, and walking besides me to his stall. He nibbled for a bit on the grain he had left over, then (this will amaze you guys) he turned and walked to the opposite end of the stall to nuzzle me and ask for scratches. We stood there for about ten minutes when he decided to start licking my hands. He thoroughly licked one, then licked the other, then went back to his feed. LOL. So groomed him a bit more, waited for him to finish. Afterwards he seemed to want to play-he pawed at his jollyball and then looked at me pointedly. I laughed, put the leadrope around his neck, and took him back to the pasture. First off, he wouldn't go back to his buddies (unusual). He walked from one side of me to the other side, placing himself between me and the gate-which made it impossible for me to close it. I laughed a bit, then drove him off-at which point he listened, but flattened his ears and swished his tail in unhappiness. Poor guy-but I had to leave. Well, that's all for now-I'll get more info and pics and vids tom on my facebook or myspace. Poss youtube. TTyl!