Colic

I didn’t update the blog last weekend because I was busy taking care of Chance during his colic episode. He is better now. Here are a few pictures of the lazy babies taken during the time I was out there with them.

Natty is still a very good mama, even though she is weaning Chance. The first day he was sick, she was pawing him and trying to make him get up. I knew something was wrong then because she never paws him anymore. On the third day, the vets came before I got there (I had tried to go to work that day but didn’t stay long), and Natty let them come into the paddock and take Chance out – such a good girl!

This is my exhausted helper. He slept in the barn with me and helped me walk Chance all night. At one point, Chance went down, and I couldn’t get him up – then came Billy to the rescue. He jumped on Chance and that made him bound right up! Billy really did a great job with the horses, and I think it was good for him to be there for such a long time that he calmed down. Natty did nip him once, but not bad, and now he knows to give her a little more space. Unfortunately, he’s scared of the front end of the horse, not the back end – meaning he won’t walk in front of her and always goes around the back if I happen to call him from the wrong side of the horse. Luckily she hasn’t ever tried to kick him. She seems to be pretty tolerant really. Not that I trust her for a minute!

Boots!

In the interest of harassing, er, I mean desensitizing the baby, I try to expose him to everything I can think of. Today I pulled out a selection of boots for him to try. He took it in stride, as usual – no fear, just some mild curiosity and a taste-test. Here are the pictures and a video.

Jaunty, aren’t they? Not edibly, though!

Now these ones were a little more interesting…

Trying on boots is exhausting!

Finally! New Pictures

My little Pipsqueak at 8 months old – size XXL! He just outgrew his last halter, size Small Horse – the size that comes after yearling. I wonder if he’ll need draft size when he’s finally full-grown. He is the size of an average horse now and still looks butt-high to me.

Working in the arena – a little sweaty already! He’s such a good, smart boy.

Our post-lesson walk to see the world:

The greeting committee at the gate:

“I don’t think you are horses, but you seem cool – I think we can be friends!”

The wooly bear is starting to shed out, and his hairs are at least 2 inches long. I’m thinking about shearing him and throwing his coat in with the other animals’ wool for spinning. How neat would it be to have a scarf made of baby Chance hair? Here he is a little slicked-down because we worked up a good sweat in our lesson. Isn’t he a handsome fellow?

“Oh Geez, woman, what NOW???”

I have a tough time getting good pics of Natty because she sticks even closer to me than Chance does, but here ya go:

Natty also had an excellent lesson today! I worked on voice commands for walk, trot, canter first until we had both worked up a sweat, and then I hopped on her and practiced “walk” in the arena. She did a great job, especially considering she never would move a step in there before. She’s so cute – when she realizes she has done something right, she gives the sweetest little whinny of joy. I need to try to get it on video because it’s really special. Oh, and I have to give her some credit – you know she’s kinda huge, and since it’s winter I’m wearing thermals under my jeans, so I’m slightly less mobile than normal – so I tried to get on her bareback and got about half-way and kinda got stuckish – wasn’t sure what in the world I was gonna do – drag myself up and over by my elbow over her neck or fall off backward… but she froze like the good girl she is and let me drag myself up. Such a great horse!

Check out our shadows in this picture and you’ll see why I often don’t have pictures at all – I’m trying to take Natty’s pic, but she is really too close (that’s her eye in the lower right corner), and Chance has his head resting on my shoulder to remind me he needs attention too…

To get this next one, I turned and ran fast as I could across the paddock then turned and wildly snapped the picture without even stopping to focus…

Here’s Chance with his basketball. Natty plays with it sometimes too. Look how long his mane and tail are getting!

Beautiful girl (bad lighting this far north this time of year):

Another one with fun shadows:

The theme of my relationship with the horses can pretty much be summed up: how much will you put up with from me today??? Today I attempted to photograph Chance’s cute little baby teeth. Here are some of the results:

Finally I think he stuck his tongue out at me!!!!!!

Can you say tolerant horses??? I sure can!

Horse Geniuses

Natty and Chance are soooo smart! I have been working with Chance on trotting in hand up and down the driveway, and he is doing very well (except when cars turn in – then he does rearing in hand very well – must work on this). Yesterday I turned him out in the arena and tested him on voice commands. He stayed right at my shoulder for walk and trot voice commands – didn’t pass me or slow down or swerve or anything! He also cantered on command, but he’s much faster than I am so he passed me quickly on that one.We did a lot of starting and stopping and changing of pace, and he wsa fantastic! This was the first time I ever tried any of this with him loose and the first time I ever tried to get him to canter on command. It’s funny, but when I try to chase him to get him to run, he doesn’t budge. Now I know he’ll move if I just ask him too. Good to know! I worked with Chance for awhile, and then I brought Natty in and tried the same thing. At first she was just walking behind me at her usual slow speed, but I kept rewarding Chance for trotting when I asked them too. It did not take my smart girl long to figure out how to earn a reward. Then I put Chance away and worked with Natty by herself at walk, trot, and canter. My formerly lazy mare is actually excellent at all this, and she has the prettiest extended trot By the end, we could even go from stop to canter with no walking or trotting in between. All three of us worked up a good sweat, but I was so very proud of them for catching on so fast and still working so willingly even when they were sweating and blowing.  I think they might even have been enjoying themselves. Neither one of them can canter without bucking, though… gonna have to work on that somehow.Oh, I almost forgot to mention – they slow and stop on command, too! Always important.

On Saturday, I had Natty out riding around the pasture on the far side of the property from where they are turned out. The neighbors’ dogs came rushing the fence and barking while we were in a tight corner under a huge tree with a lot of low-hanging branches (still working on the steering!). I could tell Natty was afraid of the dogs and wanted to bolt back to the barn, but she very carefully walked out from under the low branches before she started to buck and canter toward the barn. She’s so smart! Also, she stopped the bucking and cantering when I asked her to even though the dogs were still barking. Later, I even managed to get her back toward the corner so we could get all the way around the pasture. The dogs came back, and she was still nervous, but she walked nicely along the fenceline. She’s such a good girl!

Chance was a big rascal. I wasn’t there, but I’m told he kicked the puppy while he was being led to turnout. They also said the puppy was being obnoxious and jumping and biting at the horses’ tails and he needed to learn, but I still hate that my sweet baby kicked him. He’s ok, and I do think he learned his lesson. He has been kicked by the llamas, too, so maybe he really learned with Chance. I don’t know when this happened, but it might explain why he left the stall and wouldn’t come back after Chance warned him that one night last week…I am thankful Natty didn’t get him because she really could have hurt him easily. I guess if he had to be kicked, it’s probably best the littlest horse did it. Poor little fellow though!

Sorry, no pictures this week – my cat chewed through my camera cable so I can’t transfer any pictures until the new cable arrives.

Learning about Dogs

I started bringing my dog with me to visit the horses. There is a new barn puppy for him to play with, and I want him to get used to being around the horses. So far everyone is doing very well. Last night, I was in Chance’s stall grooming him, and both dogs were in the stall too wrestling and playing. Chance didn’t mind the excitement at all – he didn’t pay any attention until they got really wild and loud, and then he just looked and snorted at them. When I went around to Chance’s far side to continue grooming him, the dogs came too. One dog went behind him like I had and the other to the shortest path to the other side and went right under his belly. Both dogs were at my feet, so they were also brushing against Chance’s feet. He lifted his back foot in the gentlest warning to them, but he didn’t kick at all or even move away from us. He is such! a good baby horse. He’s almost bombproof and so gentle and kind. The dog and I came in and out of his stall all evening, and even when the dog was barking and jumping on me (very jealous and suffers from separation anxiety), Chance didn’t react at all. I haven’t let the dogs near Natty while I’m working with her because she’s a little more spirited and does tend to nip at dogs, but I have let my Billy in the paddock with her when I’m just supervising their introduction. The dog is scared of her (luckily) and just sits at my feet when she’s around, and she comes over and sniffs him and nuzzles his hair a bit. So far no aggression. Hopefully he will learn to stay out of her way and she will learn that he isn’t going to bother her. He does get pretty worked up when I’m in Natty’s stall and cries and jumps around outside the stall, but she’s taking it all in stride. She almost nipped him once though because she can reach him from her stall window if he’s right outside it. All in all, they seem to be adjusting well to each other.

Chance is growing again. He’s now 14 hands, 686 pounds, and he cut all 4 of his new incisors. Baby is growing up fast!

Here is a short video of the dogs playing last Sunday. This is exactly what they were doing in Chance’s stall that didn’t bother him a bit. Such a good boy! (yes, I know the video is really short again – my memory card was full).

Enjoying the Snow and Sunshine

Today the sun came out! Chance and I had a lovely long walk all over the place in the snow. He’s such a good boy; he trotted very well for me and even cantered a little (I can only keep up for about 4 strides, but he responds immediately when I ask him to slow down so it’s ok).  He also talked to his friends, regular-size full-grown horses.  Here are some pictures taken today, Chance’s 8-month birthday:

Chance clacked his little teeth like a good submissive baby and the mares nickered to him – it was very cute! And the mares must like him, because they followed along on our walk as far as they could go.

Here are Natty and Chance together – the greeting committee coming to meet me at the gate:

And a scenic shot – this is the kind of view that must have inspired the phrase “winter wonderland”

Videos!

Finally a Horsie Update!

Well, the snow has melted and I can get to the horses again. They fared just fine without me although I think they were happy to see me when I finally came back. Natty was extra affectionate and tolerant, so I think she really must have missed me. Well of course she did – there was no one to give her a nice break by babysitting the kid for awhile! Chance is his usual loveable self. He is much less mouthy than he was for the last several weeks since he finally cut his next little molar. It’s just barely starting to come in and so cute   Natty and Chance were blanketed during the big snow storm, and I’m told they did just fine when it came time to pull their blankets off. Chance didn’t even mind being brushed down and behaved himself as usual – Natty maybe less so, and she let it be known she didn’t want to be brushed down and didn’t want anyone in her space. Oh well, she’s a work in progress. She lets me brush her now, so I guess that’s a good start. Both Natty and Chance are now sporting nice, neat (relatively speaking) bridle paths thanks to the Christmas gift clippers. Turns out it’s hard to get pictures of a horse’s bridle path, at least if you just clip a small one. But here they are anyway – painters may wish to note Natty’s fascinating mane with the black center and white edges almost like the Fjords.

We had a strong storm today with high winds and heavy rain. This is the only still shot I was able to take before the rain drops started landing on the camera lens and messing up the pictures. They were munching on a windfall pine bough – made for Christmasy breath for the afternoon

Note the standing water in the background – this was such an unusually heavy rainfall that the arena flooded. I thought this was great because it gave Chance an opportunity to practice walking through water in a safe environment. Natty loves water, so she walked in it, splashed in it, pawed in it, had a good old time – and Chance learns by example. He maybe isn’t quite as enthusiastic as Natty at this point, but he sure isn’t scared of it! Here’s the video, totally uneventful just like I prefer all our new experiences to be!

The little pipsqueak is officially getting gigantic! I was hugging on him while talking yesterday, and I realized his big old butt is just the right height for me to rest my chin on now! I don’t know when he got so big. He’s such a good boy – not a mean bone in his body and never spooks. I just love this little horse and he’s still the best colt in the world. He was even calm and gentle with the new barn puppy yesterday, which is great! Tomorrow is our hoof trim day, and I’m sure he’ll impress up all with his attitude about that as usual.