What is the purpose? More respect needed!

My session with Gingy today was quite nice although I wouldn't say it was perfect in every way or a breakthrough. We played with sideways for quite some time. I has several cones lined up all the way down the pasture and he would get to stop at each one(and there were even treats on a couple of them!). He seemed to get that so we moved on.

Next we worked on getting him to put his back foot/feet into the feed bucket. This went pretty well. First I had the bucket just out in the open, so I would use my rope around his back foot to move it into the bucket. Then I took the bucket to a fence and had him circle to it. Once he got to the bucket I would sorta ask him to put his back foot/feet in, this worked okay since eventually he did. I need to work on communicating more clearly that he should or shouldn't stop and do something with the bucket while on the circle. I guess I obviously came out of neutral when he approached the bucket so that was one cue, but then I kinda used the rope to porcupine him until his back feet got in the bucket. Hmmmmm....

I was about to work on traveling circle, but he had done his best with the whole bucket buisness so I decided to call it good at that point. This was my decision partly because I'm trying to stay away from intense circling, must say it's very hard for me!

During this particular session with Gingy I did some serious thinking concerning whether I'm giving Gingy a good rationale for doing what I ask. Is it enough that by trying the tasks I set before him we can try to attain better communication and leadership within our relationship? Or does he really need a material reason such as scratches, rests, or treats? I know for sure that it helps my focus and mental/emotional/physical will to look for the improvement of connection, leadership, communication, etc, but does that help Gingy? That is what I am trying to figure out.

On the note of respect, the time before this that I played with Gingy he was very disrespectful and I let him get away with it :( Today I focused a little more I causing phase 1 to mean more then I have two minutes worth of nagging before I need to think about moving LOL. So today his respect was much better, he was not afraid but he realized the importance of doing what I said.

Hmmmmmmm... I see an interesting play time coming tomorrow....