Positive Thinking and Plastic Bags

I had some errands to do on Thursday so spent the entire day in the car, boo. But I got to see TC! I headed straight out to the facility after the gym, lunch, and picking up carrots, which got me there just after 2:00. It wasn't as warm as it could have been, although quite warm in the stalls (even TC's water was warm, poor pony, he still drank it no problem though), so the fan was on. Excellent.

Return of the fan desensitization

I brushed TC and he's still shedding, which is kind of ridiculous. It's probably just warm enough out there where he's trying to lose extra hair to cool himself down. He looks really good, good muscle and even a bit of fat on him. The owner of the facility came over and asked me if he was too fat and I said no. He can be a bit of a hard keeper in work so I'm glad he's got a little extra. And they work with so many racehorses that their bit of extra weight is my throw that starving horse some more hay.

We talked about TC a bit, nothing is very interesting with him. He needs more of all his supplements so I ordered them and then cried. The magnesium may or may not be working so I ordered SmartCalm Ultra to see how that will work. Honestly those supplements are mostly for me at this point.

He's trotting 7 minutes now, and he'll make the move to 10 minutes (in two sets of 5 minutes each) probably this week or next. His leg looks good, no swelling and no heat, other than what I manage to convince myself I see/feel. He hasn't had any problems, and is even letting them walk him down to their third walker down below and he hasn't been an asshole about leaving his comfort zone. Well, not too much of an asshole. It's TC, the five year old, very fit, very nervous hippopotamus, of course he's going to be a little bit of an asshole.

He's never going to look not-awkward, is he?

I worked TC a little bit at liberty in the stall, and actually ordered a book about working horses in hand. TC is so in tune with me on the ground, it's really fun but it's also intimidating. I'm not very good at recognizing when I've made a mistake or he's made a mistake. Mostly because I honestly have no idea what I'm doing and I'm just guessing at whether it's correct or not.

Either way, he's so sensitive that I feel like he tells me what is right. At this point, all I have to do is a hand signal and he backs up, turns on the forehand, and he's getting better at yielding the shoulders (like a bad turn on the haunches), which is really important to me since he likes to bulge toward his handler. Mostly I just want him used to focusing on me whenever I'm around, but this is actually getting kind of fun.

I love how fast he learns and have had two separate people (a friend who is a trainer who breaks horses and a client who is into NH and does a lot of rescue rehab) offer to help me on the ground with him and bombproof him. I want to let BRH trainer work with me, but I have a feeling that's going to be mostly riding, so I'm excited to bring a friend out to learn a little more about it. But I have an idea for the next bombproofing lesson: umbrellas. Friend who breaks horses was working with a horse this weekend so I got some ideas.

Want carrots

TC's fan was on so I did some plastic bag desensitization. I was SO proud of him. He might be flighty and strong, but he learns fast and trusts me, at least in the stall. I got almost no reaction out of him while it flew across his stall. He definitely watched it, but more with curiosity than worry. The only time he reacted with anything other than oh this lady and her obsession with plastic bags again was when it flew up and landed on his face. Then he sort of backed up and away from it, then snorted at it when it landed on the ground.

At one point it landed on his body and stayed there. He just did this:

Why mom, why?

I fucking love that look on his face. That's his what the fuck is happening to me look. He stayed calm though, and I even got him to lick and chew. I'm super impressed and immediately wanted to bring him home. Like load him up into my car and let me at this horse. After returning to my comfort zone work-wise (still interviewing, so I won't be teaching this much for long), joining a gym, and riding a LOT, I'm feeling more and more confident about TC and my future.

Instead of running, he just watched it, go pony!

After TC I ran a few errands and then texted L since we had talked about hanging out that night at her barn. I was super hungry so offered to go get us dinner while she battled traffic. I picked up burritos for us and we ate while hanging out with Ramone. I took some pictures of her riding, but I literally have so many fucking pictures to edit, it's bad. So those will come out like way too late because I'm the worst.

After riding Ramone (me in my mud boots and jeans lol but he's a good boy and just went to work), we went to put him away and two little horses had escaped and were having a grand old time galloping around the property. FREEDOM! Oh dear. L threw Ramone in a stall and we both grabbed halters. One horse galloped into the paddock they came from so we locked that one in. The other one we managed to grab when he galloped into a turnout. He was NOT okay with me cornering him but eventually let me catch him.

Quite an adrenaline rush so late in the day!