Double Duty Days

So this weekend I spent way too much time at the barn, and I have the totally unkempt house to prove it. I keep hoping I will get up earlier to get there earlier so I will get home earlier and not feel like I am spending all day there. Yeah, like that's gonna happen. But I need to spend time out there because I'm doing double duty: Skye needs me and I'm working with Reebok, that big puppy dog.

See? You could easily mistake him for a
puppy dog. Or you could if you knew him.
And had really bad eyesight.

It's been in the 70's this weekend, despite being mid-January, so the outside has had an irresistable lure. And I have to go every day to make sure that Skye gets her time in the round pen. Apparently Erin had a hell of a time getting her in the stall last night as she was whinnying and carrying on. Erin agreed that having her herd closer by exacerbated her worry about them instead of assuaging it, but the girl needs to rest that leg. Luckily, it sounds like the vet may get out there tomorrow and may agree to let her back out with her mates.

Then the question of when she will be ridable arises again, but if it's not fractured, I think I'll be good to go. And start the 10 walking rides, followed by 5 rides with trots on the straightaways. Then we'll be working on her FINALLY the way I planned on when I bought that pretty girl in March.

Agh! I'm coming up on owning her a whole year. Although we have made a lot of progress together, a lot of it has been 2 steps forward, one step back. But we definitely have a real relationship now, and she now walks nicely in the ring, which she would not do until I trained her to do it myself. So we're getting there. And there's a good chance, if I get on her next week, that by the time I have owned her a year (February 29 purchase, March 10 taking possession), I will be walking, trotting and cantering in a controlled way and trail riding.

This shot is from the second time I rode her, a little more than a year ago.
That beautiful face won me over. I'm more or less immune to her beauty
now of course.

So this weekend I would put her in the round pen and hang out with her a little while. After she'd been in there at least an hour to get the ants out of her pants, I'd bring her in, groom her, paint the bump with DMSO and re-wrap it. Then I'd put her back out again.

While she was out, staring wistfully at her herd in the pasture (no kidding, she would stand like a statue watching them, no doubt wondering how they were functioning without her in there to boss them around), I would get out my main Sweet Meat, Reebok. I'd been leading him around trying to get him to keep his distance, getting him more comfortable being handled and proving to him that nobody dies when he is not with his herd.

Today my young friend Claire came with me, and she was a great help in that she could hold on to him while I groomed him. We tried tying him, but he wasn't crazy about it. I will do it again tomorrow for longer, but he is so herd bound he is just so antsy. I gave him a good grooming, and cleaned his feet and he was a very good boy. He relaxed enough to graze, which was a big step.

Then Erin offered to help me work with him on the line. We just used my long lead line, which is training length, and put on Erin's good rope training halter (with more knots in the nose for pressure when needed).  She has taught him somewhat to lunge, but he still needed a lot of work. He would crowd me and come in and practically walk into me.  So we definitely needed to use the lunge whip. He is totally desensitized to it, which is good as you don't want fear, but it's bad because he doesn't mind walking into it.

I was having a hard time getting him to go counterclockwise when Valerie (who owns that sweetie pie Wren) volunteered to show us some stuff a locally renowned trainer has been showing her about teaching him to lead respectfully. She walked, waving the whip back and forth behind her, and led him with a slack line. It worked great! So then she lunged a little. I was feeling pretty inadequate until she turned him to go counterclockwise and he pulled the same stuff! Then I took another shot and after bumbling around quite a bit maneuvering the whip and the line (with Skye, that superstar, I don't need a whip, so I'm out of practice with it) and getting him to come walking in on me, I finally got him going well in both directions. I was so proud of him. He really was trying, and is so affectionate when he comes in. Everybody is just in love with him. I was so happy that I got to work with him with some instruction, and it helped so much. Not just the instruction, but to have the cheerleading section.  It was a really fun day.

Claire and I also did some dinky duty. With Munchkin in the pasture with the mini donkeys, you basically need to double team them, as Munchie will chase them away to get your attention and your cookies all to himself. And he's just about irresistible. I'm not sure if he would go away if I chased him, but I'm pretty sure I'm incapable of even attempting to drive such cuteness away from me.

Simply irresistible! (cue the  Robert Palmer song here)

Anyway, I spent a lot of time out there doing not much with my mare, but a lot with other horses. Soon, Skye, soon.