Special Moment! Sunday's Exercise

Ohhh sorry people! i know its been, what two weeks? since i last wrote in here.
   there is sooo much to catch up on! on sunday i finally had enough time to go and do something with Prince. I've been trying for about six weeks to do something!
  i decided to just do whatever comes to mind. so i went out there and brought him in,  and i tied him to the hot wired fence (don't worry! its off!), and then i decided to test him. i wanted to see how long he would stand still. so i walked over to his eletric fence and started bringing the back closer up to the main place where is shift him over. all the while i was watching him out of the corner of my eye. he stood still just watching me, and then he stuck his head down and started to eat the short dead grass around his feet. he used to paw at the ground and get "stuck" in his rope so i would have to come and "rescue" him.
  well so far off to a good start. after shifting the fence i went back and groomed his beautiful almost summer coat (yes, i'm working on the photos!) which has almost gone all black, his belly, some of his legs and nose still has yet to shed. His head came down to the ground but he didn't eat (yay!). once i had finished groom i hooked him up to my twenty-two foot line and backed him out.
  just before i tell you what happened, i've been working on the trotting poles and those raised ones (whatever they are called!) with him, as its been about three years since we last did them, and he has been banging his feet on them (careless horse!) but last time i did it, we almost had none, he just banged his feet on one.
  this week he wanted to jump all five in a row! i had to ask him to slow down and walk them, which he did banging his feet on all of them save one. i have this rule, if you can't do it at a walk don't do it at a trot!
 so i made him go over about three times, but by the third he was bored and he decided to keep himself busy but trotting (ugh, but i let him do it to see what would happen) and sure enough - bonk! bonk! bonk!- you get the point! only he knocked them all crooked, so i straightened them up and let him go again, he bonked them again, then THEN he trotted over all over them without hitting a single one!
 So i stopped him and gave him a treat. i looked around and there was this small fallen pine. Now Prince can jump any bush, tree, branch without any fear but give him poles and drums and he worries.
  i had made it higher then anything he had ever jumped. i sent him over it, and he jumped the side of it first try, but he wasn't thinking about what he was doing, so i asked him again and again, and he did it without fear or rushing it.
   he had done a bit of galloping around when i asked him to go over the tree (from not enough exercise and from too many weeks in the paddock) so he had worked up a sweat, so i took him down to the river and i plunged in. i suddenly got this idea. i know he doesn't mind water, but to what point? and how much does he trust me? so i walked all over the place with him following on a long lead (he was right behind me) and this gave him the chance to pick his own footing, but he followed right behind me all the way through some really rough big rocks (scraped his feet) and down to the deep fast rushing piece by the dam. he didn't falter at all.  i know now that he trusts me very much (horses have no depth perception) and that water was no issue. Great!
  i brought him back and tied him up and started working on his feet, i did them about one month ago and there was an inch more on the back feet, but half an inch on the front. Also last time i did his front feet i blotched them up. So i fixed the first one and stood up, First i wondered why my back didn't hurt (as prince leans) , then i clicked he hadn't leaned at all! so i walked over the other side and did the other foot. Nothing. back feet? nothing. WOO HOO! i've been working on this for months!
  Then i stood on a my grooming bucket to work on his bump on his back (caused by a saddle injury before i had him), and changed my mind and decided to lean on him. (should i mention i had no shoes on and no helmet? this was BIG for me!) i leaned on his shoulder and swung my leg over and let it rest on his bum (last time i did this he jumped and gave me a fright) but he just stood there, head lowered and body relaxed. so i just lay there, feeling venerable and nervous. but i knew if he trusted me, i should start trusting him. i lay there for what seemed ages then i felt the moment go, so i took my leg off and stood there on the bucket feeling like i just won a million dollars.
  i decided to finish off with something i had never done before. i got my savvy string (a thin string about five feet in length) and dropped it over his neck and i held the two ends in my hand very lightly and walked to the electric fence.
  a couple of days ago he had gone thorugh the fence, my fault entirely because he was about to jump the tape that had dropped to the ground just as i pulled it tight. he couldn't clear it and got it wrapped around his front legs and he bolted (he got a zap from it about a week ago) thinking that it was on. i counted as he ran, and it took him about fifteen seconds to realize it was off and get out of it. but he (in that time) got it wrapped around three trees, and stewed it all over the paddock across the river. The fence by the way was off, and i was shifting him over.
   now as we reached the fence he got to two metres up to it and i could feel him slowing down, so i asked with my body 'please for me, come forwards' he did, and he made it to one metre, but you could see he was worried that the fence out 'get' him. i let go of the savvy string and opened the fence and lead him in and turned him around and hooked the fence back up again and turned around to see him still stand where i left him. so i gave him a huggle and a kiss (my Mr Kisses lol) and let him go.

P.S if you want an awesome shedding tool, try an hacksaw blade! i got a slighty used one and it works a treat!  

This Interesting Week

Well its been an interesting week. Last Thursday i was watching one of my level two Parelli disks, and one of the tasks was to spend twenty minutes a day sitting with your horse. Basically you just pull up a bucket/chair or a stump like i did and you sit on it. After watching that i got all enthused, and ran out to do it. When i came up to the paddock, prince was dozing so i rattled the hot wired spring gate (i turned the fence off- don't worry!) and his head came flying up and his ears pricked up so high i thought they might have been held up with a bit of string.

   When i reached the paddock i jumped over the fence and walked over to the pile of wood and picked out a small stump (all the while prince was following me asking “what are you doing mum?”) and sat on it. Instantly his ears drooped (as though i pushed a button) and he relaxed his hind leg. He had done all this before.

 In ten minutes in he was already massaging my hat with his lips, and then he did my shoulders (very relaxing by the way! lol), and then he bit my hat and dropped it back on my head. I almost jumped up and hugged him! I had been wanting to teach him to pick my hat up off the ground if it blew off. But i hadn't had time to work on it, and here he was doing without me even asking.

   Then after that i reached down and picked up some grass and hid it and waited. Then he picked up my hat off my head again and dropped it on the ground. I gave him the grass. What a good boy!

    Suddenly it started to rain, and along with the wind i was getting cold. I felt prince move and i stayed really still. He moved so his butt was to the wind, then he walked up to me so i was facing his chest, then he moved his head over mine, and carefully put my head in the hollow of his throat! He was protecting me from the rain! When the rain stopped he carefully moved away and stood almost over me.

I have only seen mares do that to a foal! He thought me as one of his herd, which is really great.

-- Friday last week---

i had the day off so i brushed prince and decided that his paddock had no grass. Time to shift him over.

  I had him in the front paddock a little while ago, and that is like knee deep now. But i wanted to give that a rest. So the next option was across the river. 

Only about two days ago it was raging, and very high, so i walked across the swing bridge to see the level. 
   It looked good. It was very clear so that meant it was cold. No kidding. When i walked prince across the river, in the first two minutes in there my legs went numb. Brrr!- in the winter time it was warmer!-

  I managed to convince prince it was alright and i dragged him across, and then up the bank. He wanted to stop and eat some grass, but i asked him to trot and we trotted across to his new paddock, then once in there proceeded to roll! Lol and then sat up like a dog sitting!

Guy Fawkes

Did anybody out there have trouble with their horses? On Guy Fawkes night i gave prince some Rescue Remedy just to keep him calm, because i didn't want him panicking. I know he doesn't like gun shots so i was hoping he would be all right. In Kaponga it was kinda raining, so we only let off a few (we still have heaps left that we are hoping to explode sometime soon), and every time one loud one went off i worried about prince. Afterwards i went across the river and checked on him. He was fine, just hyped up. He wasn't scared or anything just wanting to go for a canter.

  The next night i didn't give him anything and we let a few loud ones off. I thought i better check him afterwards and he was scared. He was running around his paddock with his eyes huge! I walked up to him to rub him to calm him down and he wasn't thinking so he nearly ran me over. I was saved by the fact i waved my arms at him to stop. Which he did. He just wouldn't stand still. So i went into the shed and made up his feed and stuck some more Rescue Remedy in it to calm him down.

After that he was fine. Weird horse!