A visit from Liora!

This morning Gobie had a very special guest come to the farm. It was Alison and Adam and their daughter Liora!

At first, Liora wasn't too sure about Gobie. After all, he's pretty big and quite nosy. He was very interested in her and whatever treats she might be hiding.

Liora also got meet the Corgis, Furby and Belle. The dog-dogs were probably her favorite since she could get down and play in the grass with them. Liora is also a pro at playing with dogs.

With her parents encouragement, though, soon Liora was petting and brushing Gobie like an old farm hand. Gobie was very well behaved and stood dutifully for being brushed.

Honey and the other horses said hi to Liora over the fence, and we even went inside the paddock for a walk around.

How cute are those ponytails?

Gobie showed off how well he can eat grass and search for treats. He especially liked to lick Adam's hands (salty?) and couldn't resist "putting the moves" on Alison while she tried to take pictures.

Real suave, Gobie.

It was a nice, sweet visit. Now Liora knows a little bit more about horses, and Gobie knows a little bit more about small people!

Pretty Fancy

This weekend was another lazy one for Gobie and me. It was HOT and when these Maryland summers start getting humid and in the 90s the humans and animals seem to get on the same page and just want to hang out in the shade.

I'm a firm believe in hangout time being just as valuable as training. You can learn a lot about your horse while you're just spending time as pals. My favorite thing is just to be out in the field with Gobie and the other horses. Most often Gobie chooses to come to me all on his own, and I can groom and touch him all over without the benefit of a halter or lead rope.

The horse I had before Gobie was an open book. I personally knew her mother and father, who all of her previous owners were, where she lived her entire life and what she had done basically from the moment she was born. But Gobie's history for the most part is a mystery to me. I know he spent years at HorseNet Horse Rescue, and before that was part of an animal neglect case in Maryland. But who his parents were, what his life was like before the rescue, what he was taught or how he was treated is all lost in the wind.

But what I do know is that he's a pretty good pony.

Got any treats?

And it's fun to conjecture. Bonnie and a friend were out watching Gobie trot across the paddock and agreed that he looked gaited. Horses have different paces, most of them doing a walk, trot, canter or gallop. But some horses are what's called gaited and have an extra, ambling pace that's supposed to be a really smooth ride.

Bonnie and her friend further imagined that Gobie had some Paso Fino characteristics. Since we don't know who his parents were, it's hard to say if he's any particular breed of horse. Most likely he's what's called "Grade" which is basically the horse version of being a mutt--having different and/or undetermined breeding. Bonnie has a friend who breed Paso Finos, and she thought she might like to come out and take a look at him and give her opinion.

What we do know for sure is that he's a dun colored horse. Or, probably most technically a grullo horse. It's a kind of dun color, and he's got all the hallmarks:

Primitive striping on his legs.

Black tipped ears.

A dorsal stripe down his back.

And a cute tush.

Okay, so that last one isn't a grullo thing. Sometimes he looks pretty blue colored, but othertimes more yellow. It's kind of like having a chameleon horse. But so long as we're talking colors and markings, can we please talk about how cute the star on his forehead is?

Adorbs!

In addition to being a good pony, Gobie continues to be a ladies' man. He makes a fuss over his girl, Honey, who is probably almost ten years older than he is. And not to mention, a bit taller. She seems to enjoy his attention, though, and it's not the sort of attachment that causes an issue for the humans involved.

Honey was actually in season this weekend, and she was putting all the right moves on Gobie. He was attentive, but since he's a gelding, obviously couldn't do anything for her. He was gelded when he came to HorseNet at 3-years-old and I wonder if he ever did get a chance to help make any baby horses. He seemed kind of clueless about Honey, though, so probably not.

Honey is a beautiful looking horse and a good girlfriend I think.

Soon Gobie and I will have to start doing more complicated things. Since he's doing so well at the de-spooking and yeilding stuff, we'll probably move on to some lunging. And from there we'll try a bit of driving. Fingers crossed for some cooler weekends!

A Comparison

Check it out! On the left a photo of Gobie the first time I met him circa September 2010, and on the right a photo of him today. You can see how much his forelock (or bangs in non-horse talk) has grown out! Pretty fancy, right?

Review and Hoof Oil

It was my birthday on Friday and I knew the weekend would not be complete without a visit to Gobie. After all, he was kind of my early birthday present to myself.

It's been super hot recently so we've been trying to keep the work brief. He had a bunch of flies on him, which I realize is a never ending battle, but there were at least two huge biting kinds so I figured that some fly spray was in order. If you remember we've been working on not being terrified of fly spray so this was a good review.

Once again he wasn't a big fan of the stuff and tried to get out of the way. But it was much less of a dramatic response and soon he was standing rather nicely to get sprayed. I think he could tell that it was making a difference with those nasty biting flies, too.

Since we were reviewing things, I brought out the dressage whip with the plastic bag tied on the end to see where he was with facing scarey things. I shook the bag pretty strongly a foot or two above his head and he tried to back away but soon was looking right at me and licking his lips. He remembered! Soon I was shaking the bag all over the place: down his back, under his belly, down his legs, on both sides and he handled everything like a champ. It was definitely a conscious effort on his part to not run away from it so I wouldn't say he's desensitized, but he has learned that when scarey things happen he should stand still and look to me--which is even more valuable.

Then it was time to try a little hoof oil. Gobie's hooves are kind of dry and cracky and tend to chip pretty easily. I bought some hoof oil with the hopes that putting it on every so often will help improve their conditioning. You might also remember that I bought some Black Oil Sunflower Seeds and some vitamin and mineral supplement. I made a mixture of that stuff and put it in a feed pan while I tried brushing on some of the oil onto his hooves. He wasn't really crazy about the hoof oil, I'm sure it was a brand new experience for him. But he was pretty good all the same. While he ate, I crouched down by his feet with his lead rope in one hand and the oil brush in the other. I would brush the stuff on his hooves and he would pick his feet up. He wouldn't try to kick or anything, just move his feet out of the way. But soon he'd put them back on the ground and I'd continue putting the oil on and it wasn't long before all four feet were done.

I tried to get a picture of all four of his feet, but as you can see he was too up-in-my-business for that!

Gobie did great! I decided it was probably time for him to enjoy field turnout with his friends without his halter.

Naked pony alert!

Bonnie had asked me about it before. None of the other horses kept their halters on, and generally speaking it's not recommended to have your horse wear his halter all the time since it could get hung up on something and cause injury. Gobie and the rest of horses at HorseNet Horse Rescue kept their halters on all the time for easy catching, so I had just continued that practice.  But since Gobie's always been really easy to catch, we decided he could probably do without.

Our training session was short and sweet--only about half an hour for all that. And thank goodness, because it was pretty hot out. I did hang around longer, though. With Gobie turned out with his pals, I sat in the shade of the tree to watch the herd hang out and be horses.

Nothing like a refreshing drink after a hot day and a little work!

The smartest pony

I'm consistently being pleasantly surprised by this good pony!

The weather was much cooler this saturday than it was last weekend, so I figured I had better get out and actually do some work with Gobie. The sky was cloudy and it sprinkled a few times but it was actually pleasantly cool.

I had bought a new halter for Gobie since the one I had got before seemed a little big. It was an average size, for horses between 800-1200lbs. Gobie's about 740 or so, so I got him the next size down, 600-800lbs. They can be kind of tricky to find, but I ordered a purple one online. It fits much better and he looks adorable in this shade of purple. I had been keeping his halter on him, just because that's what was done at the rescue, but since he's so easy to catch I think we'll probably let him go naked soon enough.

Last weekend I noticed that his ears were a little crusty and thanks to the interwebs I figured that it was probably due to flies biting the inside of his ears. So I bought some SWAT to treat the crustys and deter the flies. He was not super excited about having it applied to his ears (who likes having someone stick their gooey fingers down in their ear anyway?) but he was very good and wasn't dramatic about it or anything. He actually settled down really nicely to have his ears handled, probably because he realized the ointment made his ears feel a lot better.

Gobie and his BFF, Honey. She wears a fly mask.

Another recent purchase was a rubber fortiflex 8 quart feeding pan. I've been trying to feed him a cup of Black Oil Sunflower Seeds (BOSS) and a half cup of Omega Horseshine whenever I take him out to mess with him. The reason is two fold: a treat for him to look forward to whenever we do some work, and hopefully some added conditioning. He's not wanting for nutrients as far as I can tell, he's quite the pudgy pony. But I'm hoping the vitamins and minerals will help his coat, and condition his feet which are a little dry and cracky looking. I also have some Farnam Rain Maker hoof oil, but I'm sort of working up to putting it on his feet.

As far work goes, we worked on leading, yielding and desensitization.

I've found that Gobie leads lots better when you aren't too far ahead of him. This might be something that I had forgotten, or it may just be Gobie's lazy horse preference. At any rate, when I walking right at his shoulder with him he follows along quite well. If I'm a bit ahead of him he likes to stop and plant his feet. So far he's not bargey at all, so we'll see if leading him close will do the trick from now on.

We went through the yielding motions really well today! Unlike last weekend he was not super lazy about moving around. I don't know if that's strictly to his credit or if it had something to do with a change in my technique. I'm always amazed and glad at how well he backs up, usually that's something horses don't like to do. But Gobie is a champ, so much so that if he isn't moving I know I can get him going in the right frame of mind by backing him up. We also tried some turning on the forehand and that he did a good pace. We also worked on being pretty light about it--instead of me having to manually push him into motion we got to the point where all I had to do was snap at what I wanted him to move. Of course, we also had to counter act this by getting him to NOT move when I wanted him to be still, too. It was super productive and with more practice we'll be even better.

The completely NEW thing we tried today was desensitizing. I had done this in the sense that I'm able to touch and pet him where-ever, but this was more of a step toward getting a "bomb-proof" horse. I tied a plastic bag on to the end of dressage whip, and with the lead rope in hand, shook it at him. At first he was definitely freaked and predictably tried to run away. But once again he was an excellent little pony and soon caught on that if made eye contact with me, or stopped to look at the scary plastic bag the noise stopped. We did this around his head, down his back, on his left side, on his right side, and along his legs. By the end of it he was really thinking before just instinctually running and about 98% of the time looked to me or at least just stood in place. After we were done with that, I gave him a good brush down and some treats. I'm looking forward to trying this again, because I'm sure he'll be even better at it next time.

I knew it was around feeding time, so when we were done I turned him back out with his pals. By then it was drizzling pretty good but it felt nice.

When Bonnie came out to feed all the horses new what was up and made their way to the gate. I took a little video of everyone, including Gobie acting kind of like a bozo by the gate.


(the white horse getting in my business is Cinder)

Bonnie said she could tell whenever I worked with him because he seems a little different--more engaged with people. I'm glad that he's interested in being worked and that we manage to keep it positive and fun for us both. He really is such a good pony, and everyday I'm delighted by my little diamond in the rough.

The votes are in!

...and the winning name is: GOBIE!

Thanks everyone for providing your input :)