All The Kings' Horses

Yesterday, I worked with Baker for about 46 minutes. He has been getting a little big for his britches, so I decided it would be a good time to start working with him in the round pen. I started out by just getting him to move forward away from me. He was very distracted by working in a new environment, and all of the "new" things around him.  He spent a lot of time looking outside the round pen, and trying to get away from me. My main goal with this first session in the round pen, was to get him to focus on me, and ignore everything going on outside of the round pen. Basically, every time he turned his back to me, or his hind end in this case, I would make him move away, usually at the trot, but sometimes he cantered on his own, so that he understood that to not focus on me meant that he had to work.  As soon as he would turn and face me, I would stop making him work, and allow him to have a break. Most of the time when he turned to face me, he would also come towards me, so...

I got to work with Baker yesterday.  We spent almost an hour together.  He came right up to me in the field ( he is such a personable horse!).  As I was walking him in, there were a few things he noticed, and was a little worried about - the tarp on the trailer, the chairs that sit under the tree near the barn, a dog trap (we are still trying to catch those dogs 😒).  At each of his "concerns" we stopped, and I waited until he touched them.  Sometimes I would have to encourage him by pulling a little on the leadline, especially if he would get distracted with something else.  Anytime he moved towards the scary thing, he would get a "Good boy!", and whenever he finally touched it with his nose, he would get lots of scratching in his favorite spot.  We had to repeat this process on the way back out, at the end of our session as well.  He was a little nervous and unsure at first, but by the end, he was starting to pull me, gently, towards things that...

On Tuesday I had to take Baker in to the vet (don't worry, nothing bad happened 😃).  He needed to get his last rabies booster shot in a series of booster shots.  With all the other shots he's received, I've had to have the vet out for something else anyway, so we just combined the trip.  However, this time, I didn't need anything else done, and it seemed silly to have the vet come all the way out to my farm, and for me to have to pay an extra $30 or so for the trip fee, just for one little shot.  Every Tuesday, when I'm on my way to my lesson with Butch, I pass right by my vet's office, so, I thought, why not just combine the trip?  It would be another good opportunity for Baker to get on the trailer, and it would save me a little money and time too!  Now, you might remember that Baker has already been on the trailer, several times.  The first time was when he was colicking, and that trailering experience definitely did not go the way I would have pla...

Wow!  It has been a while since I have had the chance to work with Baker.  Things are just so crazy busy around here.  The good news is that horses this young don't need a lot of work at this point, unless problems arise.  Baker has been coasting along, staying under the radar and behaving himself. So, even though I have felt a little guilty for not having time to spend with him, I know that he is just fine on his own.  However, yesterday presented us with the first time this fall that the horses have required blankets due to the weather.  Everyone has different blanketing philosophies, so I will share mine.  All of our horses live outside 24/7.  They do have access to shelter and most of them have their natural winter coats.  We also strive to keep their body condition scores at about 5-6 at all times, but especially in the winter.  And, most of them, except the fat ponies, have 24/7 access to high quality hay (the act of chewing hay ...

I worked with Baker for 30 minutes on Friday.  He was quite sweaty, thanks to this warmer than usual weather we have been having, so I started out by giving him a bath.  He thoroughly enjoyed it, and stood very still while I hosed him down and scraped him off.  Then I moved him into a stall, and, since it was close to dinner time, I went ahead and fixed his dinner.  I wanted to work on desensitizing him to the clippers up near his poll again.  One of the best ways to desensitize a horse to something, is to combine it with food as a reward.  So, I put his grain meal in a feed pan on the ground in the stall.  I turned the clippers on and let him have a bite of food.  Then I approached his poll with the running clippers.  He was nervous and tried to get away from me and the clippers, but I held on to his halter and managed to touch the clippers to his poll.  As soon as he relaxed for just a second, I pulled the clippers away from him and al...

I worked with Baker yesterday for about 38 minutes.  It was a rather uneventful session, so this blog entry will probably be brief, but those sessions are so nice.  I brought him in to the cross ties and gave him a good grooming - he has really been filthy lately!  Meanwhile, I was multi-tasking and watering down the arena at the same time.  Where he was crosstied, he could hear the sprinklers very close, but he couldn't see them.  He was a little startled at first, but very quickly settled down and ignored them.  Once he was all cleaned up and flysprayed, I worked on "pulling" his mane.  He stood so quietly for this that I was able to get almost half his mane pulled in the time I had.  He barely fidgeted, and it was mostly to move around and get someone's attention as folks were coming and going in the barn.  Once my sprinklers were done running, I had to put Baker away and finish my barn chores before lessons started, so that's as far as I ...

I've had a busy week and weekend, so this was the first chance I've had to sit down and write about my last session with Baker.  I worked with him last Wednesday for about 47 minutes.  We started in the cross ties with a nice long grooming session.  He was pretty filthy, so I had to spend a bit more time brushing him - he had no complaints though 😂.  He has gotten so patient with tying that, yesterday when the vet was out for fall vaccines, I was out of places to put horses for a few minutes, and had to tie him at the tree where the wash pit is.  He stood there so patiently, watching everything that was going on and just waiting for it to be his turn. Anyway, back to last week.  Once I had him all cleaned up, we moved into a stall and I cross tied him in there.  It has been quite a while since I worked with him with the clippers, but we had started to make some progress the last time.  He had gotten very comfortable with the clippers on his muz...