Targeting Tail

I just came in from working with Cracker Joe. He is willing to try most anything, but he is really liking to work on his dance steps.... most of the time I just have to ignore him trialing dance maneuvers while I try to get him to focus on other things.

Today the first thing was a new target... the tail. I wanted to have him standing on the edge of the pen with his tail against the rail. It took less than one minute for him to get the concept of "tail". The longest part was waiting for him to rock back and lean his rump back, once we had that clarified, he was putting his tail in my face right away. Then I had to clarify that I wanted him to target the backscratcher I was holding and not my body. That was hard... he still needs improvement in the open, but it was developing.

He totally got it when I went to the corner and said "tail target corner". He tried his nose a few times and then flipped a 180° turn and backed in. I fed him all the cookies in my pocket. Good hinny!