A Surprise in the Bushes

This afternoon I rode up at Gazzam Lake again. Ben did really well except for a bit at the beginning of the ride. We were going along the trail perfectly, his ears were pricked forward, he was listening to my aides and he wasn't hesitant at all.

Then out of no where he decided he didn't want to go anymore and just stopped dead in his tracks. I tried coaxing him forward and got no response out of him. All he wanted to do was turn around and go home. Thinking I'd try and trick him a little, I backed him up on the main trail until I was at a fork with a trail that headed toward the lake. He was willing to go forward down that trail so on we went.

After looking at the lake for a bit we turned around and half way back to the main trail he refused again to go forward. No bit of encouragement was going to coax him this time, but somehow he decided that he needed to start making his own trail. Not wanting to fight with him, I said "Okay" and let him trail blaze his way through the ferns. He was having a great time and since I could see the main trail in the distance I thought I'd just sneakily work our way back to it.

Then, out of the bushes came a bounding tan colored dog. At first we both thought it was a coyote and totally freaked out. Luckily the owner of the dog was on the main trail and called it back to her and scolded him for scaring us. Ben was really nervous about heading back the way the dog had jumped through the bushes, but in the end he complied. Once we were on the main trail again, he acted as though nothing had happened and we were on our way and peacefully enjoyed the rest of the trail ride.