*drum-roll* WE HAVE CANTER!!! :yahoo: With a bit of a concerted effort over the past fortnight we now have a reasonably consistent 5 or 7 steps of left canter in the school. I’m very pleased – today he popped into canter from walk and was beautifully forward and responsive, despite it p*ssing it down with rain. We can only do straight lines and the right canter often doesn’t happen (that’s his weaker hind so he finds it hard to push off) but I feel like we’ve made a huge step forwards. Given how much better it is just in a couple of weeks I don’t think it will be long before we have a good canter on both reins.

Obviously this week has been very hard with losing Pico but Dino hasn’t been too upset by things. I’ll spare you the details but he had a good look, sniff (and chew) of the body when Pico went, called for him once when I took him back to his box that night, but hasn’t called or been looking for him since. He seems to understand and has accepted that his friend won’t be coming back. I’ve moved him along one box to a brighter box that has a window at the back and a new friend next door (otherwise he would have been a bit on his own and we didn’t want that) but he’s settled down nicely. In fact yesterday and today he’s been super forward and off the leg and really going well.

I had a brief chat with the vet before he left us on Thursday and we’ve agreed to leave the jaw alone for the moment. He didn’t think the lump had got smaller, but did agree with me it’s not grown in a couple of months so now we give it time and pray it sorts itself out. Much as I love Goncalo I’m happy to not see him again for a bit…! The next scheduled visit will be to take a look at Dino’s teeth in 6 months or so.

So pretty happy with how Dino is right now – going to get up early tomorrow and hopefully have another lovely ride in the quiet part of the day – need to get him working over raised poles to strengthen up that hind and help get the right canter going 🙂

Just to prove he can move when the mood takes him, I present some action shots:

There’s a few more on the Flickr stream if you click through 🙂