Mustang Saga

June 2, 2006 - Day 13

Today we walked up in front of the house, where there are so many scary things! Most of the domestic horses have issues going through there at times (or all the time, in Lyric's case). All the kids' toys, the trees, cats, chickens, buildings... He was afraid of a wooden work table that I've been using as a mounting block. We walked up to it and touched it. I touched it first, then he touched it, then we walked by it a few times. The first time he rushed, the second time he controlled himself. The truck was pretty scary. I touched it, he took a little bit of time to look at it and sniff it and check under it, then he touched it, but he still didn't trust it. I decided that spending too much time there gave it too much importance, so we continued on. Next he was very worried about all the racket from the chicken coop. One of the hens must have been laying an egg, which always requires at least a couple others to join in the chorus. He could kind of see them but from a distance and up a hill and it probably didn't make much sense to him. He watched them and listened for a while. We went back to the table and a more open area of field. Then back to where he had wanted to pause to consider the chickens, and continuing on to the next scary thing, a couple sawhorses with boards across the top. I touched, he touched, we moved on. We made it to the area in front of the tack shed, which is almost to the pen I want to put him in. Soxy is in there right now, all alone. She's fat and had to be pulled off pasture. She's very lonely and was calling to him. I didn't want them trying to visit over the fence. He has no idea what electric fence is, and when he first finds out I DO NOT want to be attached to him! So we turned around and went home. When we got back to the pen... Wait, by the way, he has no problem going through the gate now. Anyway, when we got back in we worked on learning to back up on cue. He'd do it, but only with his head way up in the air. Kind of odd. He did get to where he'd do it from either side, softly, with his head down most of the time. I had wanted to go in later and sit and read with him, but I ended up being lazy inside most of the day. The weather was icky and John was home and I had a headache and it was just a good day to be sedentary. Although now I kind of regret it.

I found some pics of him when he was in the Burns, Oregon holding facility. That sounds like a prison. Let's call it the Burns corrals. I'm going to ask permission to use them on my here. So far all I see is his head among a bunch of other horses, but it is unmistakably him. When I was looking through the pictures before I went to the adoption I didn't even notice him. Mostly because all that shows are his ears or his eye. But I probably wouldn't have thought much of him from a picture. He is my meant-to-be boy though, no doubt about that!

Here's the web address, see if you can spot him: http://equine.wisecomp.com/032106Geldings.html (click "begin")