What a weekend... I am absolutely exhausted... I had zero time to rest. Finally, I didn't remove Peg's shoes since they were still hanging on pretty darn hard! I will probably remove them next weekend since it will have been 4 weeks. Her hooves seem to have changed shape a whole lot... except for her bad foot that didn't show as much improvement as the other one... :(
Saturday morning... we had to bring the horses to the vet to get little Wakan gelded and to give Dandy her shots. For the trailering part... I think it went okay. The colt didn't want to get int he trailer so I had to use my lunge whip to block him and guide him in the trailer. Since he was such a kicker lately, I didn't take a chance to get close behind. Once he understood that he had to get in, he went like a champ!
Then we got Dandy, who trailered without asking questions, except that I forgot that I was standing on her blind side and when my sister came to shut the door, I got crushed between Dandy and the wall... plus she stepped on my foot briefly, something she never does... no harm done, not even a bruise. Once at the vet, Wakan wouldn't go down for his gelding. After four shots, he finaly went down and the surgery was a breeze. He recovered quickly and was back home in less than an hour. Right after we dropped the horses off, we were off to get the new mare.
The place where I got her from is 2.5 hours from my place, one way. So we got there around 3:00 pm. The mare is in the barn, so I go check her out... first thing I notice is the she is NOT 15.3hh, but I already knew that was a lie. She might be in the taller 14.3 hh but no more. She is stocky and has a huge hindquarter. So she comes up to the gate and I'm thinking she's friendly. So we separate the other mare that's with her and back the trailer up. The mare wouldn't go in the trailer, so we herded her in (we had a stock trailer). She reared up, she can't lead at all! Once in, she was quiet for the whole ride home.
I put her in with Dandy after they met over the fence and they bonded pretty good. They are now eating on the same patch of grass, nose to nose. the new girl keeps trotting around... I think she was cooped in for a while. She has AWESOME movement and her feet aren't in such bad shape... I'm happy about that since I won't be able to trim them in a good while.
Yesterday, I fed her apples and she was really friendly, I touched her pretty much all over, except legs, but I did the neck, face, ears, cheeks, wither, back (even tapped on it!) and rump, without going too far back behind the leg and she took it all in stride. Then I stepped it up and I probably should've left her alone. I took her halter and moved her head, she responded pretty well but wouldn't move forward, so I applyed more pressure and she kept exploding backwards, so I moved her sideways as much as I could and called it quits, but each time I went to make her move, she would freeze, shoot backwards or pin her ears and threaten to bite me.
Later that day, I was petting her and she turned, pinned her ears and threatened to kick, I immediatly chased her a bit. The thing is, I don't know if I ever had a horse this callenging to train. I plan on starting work on her this weekend, and I have a goal to have her leading (at least walking forward without struggle) by the end of the weekend. I don't want to scare her and turn her against humans and I don't want to have her walking all over me either! I will have to gauge my reactions. If she is not working out for me, I will have to sell her as this purchase was intended to get me another riding horse, not another pasture ornament... I already have enough of those!!!
I am not sure where I am going to start, but one of the things I usually do to foals in training is put a leadline on them and let them figure it out. Usually, they are terrified by that snake stuck to their faces and just keep wanting to get away so there is no use trying to hold the line, I just let them run under supervision. If they step on their line, they learn that to undo the tension on the face and head, they need to release the pressure from either the hoof or lower the head... therefore, they learn to give to pressure, but most times, they don't even step on it. The next step is to take the lead line and apply forward pressure, by then the horse might be tired and might even respond immediatly instead of fighting. If they do, reward them, do it again and reward if they answer correctly, then, you may do it again and let them go after they answered correctly. I need to teach her to trust me, at least to touch her all over, I might isolate her to do that. I don't know how much of a project this will be, but I am ready to stick it out and try as much as I can to turn her around.
I am sorry but I had zero time to take pictures. On Sunday, we had the beef slaughtered and taken to the butcher shop which took most of the day. In 2 weeks, we'll have the best tasting beef in the area! We've already sold all of it. We are not making much profit on our beef at all... only about 400$ and I have not deducted the transport fees and probably not all of the feed... so we aren't making much money at all on them. Oh well, at least we'll have good meat to eat! We are planning on having a few more for the same purpose.
I had my heart in a bind when I knew they were gone, but once I saw them afterwards, they didn't feel like the same animals... I found that about myself... I think I pretty much only see the soul of a person or animal. Once the soul is gone, they don't look like the same people to me so I have very little attachment to them after their death. I saw my grandfather dead in his hospital bed and to me, I was only looking at him to confirm that he was in fact gone but the body on the bed wasn't my grandfather... it was just a body. It's hard to explain, but once something has died, I disconnect completely from it.
After he died, I heard him speak to me and I plan on trying my best to respect what he told me.
Anyways, sorry for not having pictures, my feet were so sore after the day, that I didn't feel like walking the whole way back to the field to take pictures. I will definatly have some next weekend! Hopefully of training!
