Wound up again

Yesterday Pistol was super duper wound up again, so we ended up only doing Liberty.  I've found that when he is really wound up, if I try to put him OnLine, he starts biting while I'm trying to halter him, and then starts acting up whenever he is asked to do something.  So... starting with Liberty in the catch pen is usually better for him.  I can usually get the halter on with lots of approach and retreat and all, but I feel that he is trying to tell me something on days like this.  So, no halter to start, we head straight to Liberty.  First I asked him to Stick to Me, because that has been a real challenge for him both at Liberty and Online.  He sticks just fine, but doesn't want to change gait.  I've found as well that sometimes treating him like a LBI helps him get through tricky spots, so we walked, trotted a couple steps, and got a cookie.  That made a huge difference, but I have to be careful not to use cookies too much, because he becomes a cookie monster!  So I usually only use 1 or 2 during the session to keep his attention on the task instead of the cookie in my pocket.  We went from stick to me into squeezing through the barrels, which he did really well at.  I sensed he was getting bored with smaller and smaller gaps, so we moved on to the pedestal instead of jumping the barrels like I had planned.  I asked him to stay on the pedestal with his front feet (its an old tractor tire filled with dirt, so its really not big enough for all 4 feet) and disengage his hindquarters.  He's gotten really good at it, but every once and awhile he still thinks he should be going sideways around the pedestal, so he will back off and go sideways around the edge of the tire.  Then I asked him to go sideways down the fence while I stood still, and he went what I judged was about 22 feet away without making me move my feet!  I was so proud of him for that!  I decided the session should end pretty soon since he was doing so well.  The last thing I did was ask for a circle, even though I was in a big square pen instead of a small round pen.  He gave me one full circle at the walk, about 12 feet out, and disengaged perfectly when I asked him to.  Session over!  And I finally had a calm horse that was happy to do things instead of an exuberant mess.