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.
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