Mustang Saga

Yesterday Anchor and I were stalling out, or at least it felt like it. John told me I was crazy, he's only been here four days and he's a totally different horse than the one who came here. It made me feel better.

Small Strongyles:

My friend came over and we were both squatted down in his pen poking through a pile of poop, looking at the worms that had come out. Yeah, I know... What can I say, we have curious minds. Anyway, we were totally ignoring him, and suddenly I noticed he was just a few feet away, looking at us like, "Hey, that must be really cool, what'cha doing?" Just the neatest interested look.

Then John came out and was real jealous that someone besides me had been in there. He felt left out. He asked if he could go pet him. So he did. He must have been in there with him for aout 10 minutes. I was off at the round pen looking at Melissa's horse so I don't know exactly what they were doing, but John came out of there with the biggest grin on his face.

Last night he said to me, "It's a good thing they want to keep him, because otherwise I might be tempted to keep him. I'm really starting to like him."

Tools of today's trade:

So, on to our big progress. I started with the clicker training yesterday. Basically he gets a click and a treat for the littlest things. He wasn't really willing to give me much. I was a little disappointed. Today we played "hide your hiney" (look at me, butt pointed away - he was the spoke and I was the wheel). Then I did some clicking and treating for approaching me when I said "come here." One. Step. At. A. Time. We were making progress though, he understood the game and would come as close as he felt safe doing. I was hot and tired and I had a headache so I leaned against the wall, facing away, hipshot with a leg cocked, and pretended to doze like a horse. Lo and behold, before long he wasn't far from from my elbow, looking at me expectantly. I gave him a couple sideways glances and a big grin, and we stood for a while. I extended my hand with a treat in it and he sniffed me for the first time. Unfortunately I smelled like OFF and citronella, in an effort to scare off the yellowjackets that stung me twice today! He didn't seem put out though.

I suddenly realized the puppy had been in the house unsupervised this whole time and decided to leave. I sauntered around the pen slowly, stopped for a second at the trough, acting like a sleepy horse instead of a person with a purpose, and he followed me! I think he might want a friend! It was a really great moment.

On to the resident horses. Well, just Tonka. I took him back to the vet since his eye was still cloudy. They said it looked some better but switched him to eyedrops instead of ointment and we go back in a week to sedate him and stain the eye again. Good news was yesterday's visit was only $6 (unheard of!) but next week will probably be another big bill. Dang that horse! I wish he'd quit coming up with new ways to hurt himself. I always say he's worth it, but I wonder exactly what his price tag would look like if I added all this stuff up. Nobody but me would probably pay that price. But that's okay, because he's not for sale. :)