First Bath

Over the winter Gobie's coat had gone a little crazy. He evidently had some insect bites, and had rubbed naked patches on his neck and shoulder, and had a bit of dandruff around his mane as well. So as soon as it got warm I vowed to give him a proper bath.

Easier said than done, of course, to a rescue pony not use to that kind of thing. I have no idea if he ever had a bath in his life but I suspect not. Last summer Bonnie would bring the hose out to spray on the horses to help keep them cool, but Gobie wanted none of it.

The first step was just getting him wet, so as soon as there was a weekend in the 80s I brought him out to meet the hose. Bonnie had an old one with an adjustable nozzle attached to the house, so I took him under the trees and tried it out. Gobie was decidedly not a fan. I did manage to get him wet, but he was terrified of the thing. He backed up, ran around in circles, and pranced around with his front feet. But he got wet, and we ended on a positive note.

This weekend I came prepared with some shampoo and a new hose. With the new hose I could attach it to a water source closer to the fenced in work area, it was coiled for easier handling, and the adjustable nozzle was all new and pretty water tight so it didn't make any scary hissing water noises.

All in all it went rather well--and extremely well, I'd say, because I was doing it all myself. It's a bit tricky after all, to manage one nervous horse in one hand, and manage a crazy hose in the other. He was much more calm this go around, but still wanted to run about in circles. It was also brutally hot--which was helpful because I could tell in his moments of calmness that he did enjoy how the water cooled him off.

Things did get a bit dicey when he stepped on the hose. It's coiled, remember, which means that if he stepped on it just so it would wrap around his leg. Horses generally don't take kindly to feeling like their legs are trapped so he would start kicking to remove the bother, which would sometimes mean the hose would wrap even MORE around his leg. Removing such a thing from a bit panicked horse can be dangerous--you run the risk of getting kicked, or your fingers stomped on. But, as a testament to the great trust between us, Gobie was very good at listening to me asking him to stop, and then allowing me to deftly removing the coiled bit. It was dangerous at times, but entirely successful and most especially, built the trust between us even more.

On to the pictures:

Dry pony, pre-bath.

All wet, and looking a bit silly.

Some consolation noms.

Here also, for your viewing pleasure, a video. This is directly after his bath. I was hoping he would take the opportunity to dry off a bit and roll in the grass, as opposed to the dust (and therefore mud). But, as you can see, he thought about it but never did roll. Fortunately he dried off pretty quickly and rejoined his friends.

The aftermath of the bath:

Halter and lead rope drying in the sun.

Now I need a bath...!

My other motive for giving Gobie a bath was to help manage all the beastly little flies harassing him.

The crazy jerks have been awful this year, biting his poor little legs and ears. After his booster and vaccinations he was feeling out of sorts--so we called the called the vet and the recommended we give him some bute. I also suspected the flies were bringing him down, too, so the bath was part one in trying to manage them. After he was clean I slathered a bunch of SWAT on his legs and in his ears to help sooth the bites and to kill and repel the flies. The stuff works magic and highly recommend it. The next day he got some fly spray over the rest, and I tested out some equispot on him. Not sure how much staying power either of those will have, but we will see.

Bonnie suggested I try a fly mask on him, too, so that may be the next step. Meanwhile the horses are all trying to beat the heat by staying out of the sun and in the shade.

Ice has nothing on my naughty pony

It snowed Saturday and while it wasn't a ton it did ice over pretty well. It made for crunchy and slippery walking. The forecast for today called for more wintery precipitation, but I wanted to see how my pony was faring so I drove out anyway. The roads were pretty good, until I got to Bonnie's driveway which was a little dicey. But the horses all looked cozy in the field. Gobie came right up to the gate to be let in to the work area. I was surprised, but pleased to see how deftly he seemed to be managing the snow and ice.

Steady feet.

The other horses wear blankets, but not Gobie. His coat is plenty bushy to keep him warm. However, I did spot an icicle hanging from his mane!

The spot on his shoulder and neck where he had been rubbing hasn't gotten any better. I'm not sure what's going on with it but I'll have to put something anti-itch on it I think. I'm a little worried that the ointment would make him a bit cold, though, and ointment wouldn't really fix whatever the root cause of the thing is.

Despite that one worrying spot, Gobie seemed to be in a frisky mood. In the work area I made a bucket of food for him--the supplements, and some black oil sunflower seeds. I gave him a good brushing to help his hair stand up and get some muddy bits off. A couple of treats later, it was back to the field with the rest of the gang.

The sound of the horses crunching around on the icy snow was pretty impressive--it echoed through the trees. You could also hear the crunching in the woods--maybe deer? It caught the horses on alert for sure.

Bonnie came out to say hi. We chatted a bit out the weather, how the horses were doing, and the farrier visit scheduled for Monday (which may be rained out!) She tossed in a few flakes of hay for the horses, and they charged up to the fence to eat.

I managed to get a pretty entertaining video of the horses romping around in the snow, including some pretty fancy moves from that naughty pony of mine.

Enjoy!

Gobie over the fence

I have been feeling like junk for the last week, especially physically speaking, so I decided it would be a good idea to make a quick visit to the horses and keep it low key. It was cloudy out, but pretty warm, and thinking about raining. The horses were all in a pretty lazy mood, too. It seems like they're getting along pretty well now a days.

The trees have been dropping leaves like crazy, so as the horses were grazing you could hear the crunch, crunch, crunch of them shuffling around in the leaves with their hooves and their muzzles looking for grass. The crows, too, seemed to be out in force today looking for bugs and other things in the dirt. For some reason they are quite leery of people and extremely hard to photograph, but trust me when I say these are some of the fattest and largest crows I've seen around. Not all the trees have lost their leaves. There's one on the other side of the fence in the woods that is still big and yellow. Inside the horses' paddock though most of the leaves are on the ground.

And some of the horses like to eat the leaves, which apparently doesn't agree with their digestion. Either Gobie doesn't eat as many leaves, or they don't upset his ponys-will-eat-anything stomach, but whatever the reason I'm glad he doesn't seem worse for wear.

Honey was pretty friendly over the fence today and was the first one to come up and say hi to me. But immediately I could tell that Gobie was putting everyone in check to today, including his girlfriend. He came up to the fence and I gave him a treat and he tried shooing a too-nosey Honey away. It was pretty undramatic, but even after he left me at the fence line the other horses were mindful of where he was pushing them around. All the same, our visit was pretty nice. He seems like he's healthy and content and with the impending colder weather that's all you can really ask for. I took a video of the visit over the fence.

Featuring: giving treats, Honey and Bo getting shooed, and me getting my hand licked by Gobie. Enjoy!