Million Transitions

After watching a Savvy club dvd this morning I realized that it´s high time to get more creative with the circling game. Of course we have been doing traveling circles, circles with obstacles, cloverleaf, S-patterns, falling leaf, figure 8s and change of direction...
Hm, ok maybe we have been creative after all BUT what I never asked Milva to do before was transitions on the circle. Yeah, transitions up but not down. Our trotting and cantering circles usually end with me engaging her hindquarters and her coming towards me in whatever gate she was in.
I started of walking next to her and switching the carrotstick from the go-hand to the whoa-hand making my ssss-sound for stopping and rewarding her. On the second try I just had to switch the carrotstick and she stopped. She is so super clever.
After that I sent her out in a circle and did the same thing there. First walk - stop - walk transitions and then walk - trot - walk transitions. All that by just switching the carrotstick from one hand to another - not wiggling the rope once.
She was a bit unsure about the trot - walk transitions and stoped in the begining but with a little tongueclick she understood what I ment.
She was putting a very concentrated face on while doing those transitions. Too funny.
A million transitions definitely works for motivating a lbi.
I wanted to finish our day with taking a walk around the pastures but realized quickly that I couldn´t walk that far so instead we did some travelling circles in trot on the big field and went grazing again.