Mustang Saga

The help:

I was innocently walking my horse through the field when I realized there was an awful lot of rustling in the grass behind us.  Three chickens and two dogs make a lot of noise.  I don't know why they were following us.

Sadly, last week we lost one of our hens.  No feathers, no body, nothing.  Just gone.  The back of the chicken coop was wide open - the chicken wire had been knocked down.  Since then I've been letting them run loose.  They're safer that way, I figure.  But they've taken to sleeping and pooping all over the top of my hay stack, so I put them back in the coop today.  Repaired it first, of course.

Joseph was very jumpy this afternoon.  Didn't want to be caught at all, at first.  When I got him out he was worried about what was going to happen.  We did simple things.  Things he could easily get right.  I added one new thing - lateral movement from a circle.  He was confused and stressed at first (and distracted - Liam was walking Bella) but when he got it and I told him "good boy" he marched up, dropped his head, put his face under my hand and completely relaxed.  It was just what we both needed.  We duplicated it a couple times on both sides and it was awesome.  After that I fed him his supplement and put him back in the pasture. 

But then I couldn't resist catching him again and getting a picture to share with you.  A couple years back Katia and Bella won a nice black leather halter at the Spokane Mustang Days.  Sadly, it didn't fit any of our big-headed beasties. But it does fit Joseph pretty well, and he looks extremely dashing in it.