Mariah. She is the sweetest horse you have ever seen. See how good she looks in her sweat blanket? All the girls are Westernaires love her big brown eyes and the fact that she has no problem if lean against her or wrap your arms around her neck. And then you get on her back.
I have been working hard on training her for a while and I have made some great progress. She is collecting much more consistently now. But when we are out on the trail she still gets very excited and now she has has found a knew way to act out - she kicks out. Bit annoying actually.
We are reasonably sure that it is not her new saddle. Though it does not fit perfectly, she has not had any soreness after a ride so that is good. I think I know how to fix that so stay tuned for that upcoming experiment.
But when we ask to do something like control her speed or serpentine thorough a shallow ravine she starts to kick out. Carly came over and we went for a ride. We had a great time and totally lost track of time. I hate to do that to Carly because she is so busy. But we did some work with Mariah and Carly gave me some tips for working through this latest quirk. Carly said that with some horses you literally have to work the disobedience through their body.
First, we had to get control of her head. We have made get strides getting control of her head. But once you get control of their head, they start moving their shoulders around. Then you have to get control of shoulders. Once you get control of the shoulders you lose control of the hips. That is about where I am, trying to regain control of her hips. So it was a good lesson but did you notice, she did try to kill us. That came later.
The vets around her are giving a 7 in 1 shot for the spring shots. We have heard more than one report of horses colicing from that shot. I asked Carly about it and she said they do their own shots using a more common 5 in 1 shot. I asked her if she would do my horses and she said sure. So, when we got back from the ride, it was time for shots. Beamer and Ebony - no problem.
Mariah, well, she HATES shots. At the vet we have twitched her noes. When she sees that needle coming at her she moves through the twitch. With great energy and determination. We end up chasing her all around trying to get the needle in. Carly and I didn't have a twitch so we decided to keep her between the fence and the trailer. The way the trailer is parked there is not enough room for a horse to move around much. Mariah was watching me, looking for her customary after a ride peppermint and Carly was standing next to her. Poor horse, she really had no idea what was coming next. Carly calmly reached up and stuck the needle into Mariah's neck.
Mariah's looked like she had been shot. She coulnd't belive she had just been stuck with something sharp when there is no vet to be seen. She tried to raise her head up out of harms way but Carly's arms were long enough so that didn't work. She tried to go forward but I was in her way. SHe tried to spind around but the fence and another horse were in the way so while she could swing her butt around, she couldn't get her nexk around. What was a poor horse to do?! She decided rearing was a good thing to try. There was about 4 feet between the fence and the trailer and there were two horses and two humans all packed into a space about 8 feet long. And one of those horses was rearing. Fortunatly her heart was not in it. She reared a little but she didn't put her whole heart and soul into it. I had a good hold of her lead rope and she came down quickly and easily each time. So we survived and Mariah got her shot.
And Carly gave me one more tip. Around shot time, I will start poking her neck with the blunt end of a pen. She will get used to getting poked in the neck and she wont know when the sharp poke is coming. I guess we will find out next fall if that works.
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