January was a long month. Dark and rainy. Mud. Lots of mud. But then I went to feed horses after work one day and did not have to use my headlamp! Angels chorus.
It's hard to tell if progress with BeeGee was made during that month. We worked on the same things as before. Ground manners, sorting out the vewy scawy (very scary) things that weren't scary the day before. Some days I felt like I needed an arena. Other days a round pen. Sure, those are great tools if you have them but the most important tool of all is patience.
BeeGee is a lot of horse with big reactions and his major talent is worrying. My job is to be patient, kind, allow him to sort things out and not worry if progress doesn't seem measurable. In January it felt like we got stuck but progress is measured by his willingness to greet me in the pasture, whether I have the halter in my hand or I'm just going in to say hi. Progress is measured by his willingness to follow me when I want him to even when he's not haltered and free to do whatever he likes. Progress is measured by his willingness to stand still when asked, his curiosity about a new object instead of fear, synchronicity with my steps both forward and back plus stopping when I stop. That's BeeGee's progress.
My progress is recognizing his signs of anxiety: the funny little crinkle of his nose to the right that is actually kind of endearing, lifting his head, looking away to avoid addressing something scary, kicking out in frustration when the scary thing won't go away. My progress is being able to take a deep breath when he makes a giant spook move, being patient when it feels like we took two steps backward from whatever we did yesterday or last week, reminding myself that he checks out once in a while and that everything is new to him again. And that some day all this time I took with him will be absolutely worth the trouble.