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!