Emulation

The last couple weeks with TC have obviously been kind of rough. Not only is he having to go through another rehab as a young, obnoxious horse (and this time I'm doing it so he's only getting handled once a day vs three and my poor hippo doesn't get to swim), I'm having to deal with him AND the weight of the decision I made.

Haven't taken many pictures of him since I made the
decision :/ trying to detach is hard, he's so sweet

In many ways, he has been better than expected with the rehab, especially in comparison to how he was last year. He isn't standing in his stall pawing like he was last time, and he's actually handle-able by me.

But he's obviously kind of an idiot, and all last week that was getting worse. I walked him Tuesday and he was okay. We had a lot of dragging me around and biting. Then he saw a bunny in front of him. It saw him too and it ran away from him. He positively GALLOPED toward the bunny and I stopped him, so he reared over me. Okay.

Then Wednesday I couldn't get him out because it was raining sideways so I just fed him and left.

Thursday I walked him in the covered arena by ourselves. Things were good until they weren't and he took off with me again. I could barely keep my footing and certainly couldn't stop him. He ran all the way across the arena from the far corner and nearly out the gate. And that's when I let him have it.

I laid into him and made him do a bunch of lateral work and reining back. Any time he threatened to bolt, he got shot backwards. This made him a lot easier to handle! He was still a dingbat in the cross ties when we got back though, ugh.

Friday I couldn't go to the barn because I had stuff to do after work (this last week I was in early every day so no pony time in the morning), so he ended up having yet another day off. Saturday I went out to the barn in the morning expecting a really awful horse to have to lead around. I was dreading it.

The creek has been flowing ever since the
storms started!

Now, on Friday I had watched that video that was going around about Walter the perfect horse. TC is basically... the opposite of Walter. Even if Walter couldn't be ridden, Walter would find a good home because Walter is a very sweet, calm, reliable, well trained animal. TC is not... even close to being Walter.

With TC coming six years old this year, I can't use the baby horse excuse anymore. And it's on me, I've been using the "he's slow to mature" and "he's just young" excuse a lot recently. I just feel bad for him. I feel bad that he's been basically injured/on rehab since he was four years old. I feel bad that he's been locked in a stall and unable to play with other horses (he does now have a neighbor though! They can touch noses at least). I feel bad that he can't be turned out or jumped or trail ridden. I feel bad that he makes me nervous and I'm sure having a nervous owner hasn't been fun.

So Saturday I took TC out and put him in the cross ties. I started to pull his mane and he started wiggling. I grabbed my whip and his lead rope and as long as he was standing stock still, I just happily trimmed his mane and gave him pets and told him how good he was. When he would wiggle, try to bully me with his shoulder, try to bite me, or try to yank at the cross ties, he got told that this was NOT okay.

By the end of me pulling his mane, he was standing perfectly still, not moving a muscle, and resting a foot.

Our entire walk was downright pleasant. There were two incidents- one where I asked him to rein back and he reared, so he got told NOT to do that while he was in the air; the other where he bit me and I SMACKED him for it and ran him backwards. After that, nothing. Just quietly walking. Even when something spooked him in the spooky area. He just flipped an ear at the scary thing, flipped an ear at me, and chewed.

The same thing happened on Sunday. It was cold, windy, and threatening to rain- typically weather that would send him over the edge. He only tried to bully me once in the cross ties and we just had one incident on our walk when I had him do a turn on the forehand and he said no but I said YES and he did it.

It bums me out to go through these pictures but I don't have
enough media for blog posts!

All it's taking is higher expectations, entertaining him with ground work, and a willingness on my part to put away my feelings about how terrible he must feel about his situation so that I can discipline him properly. He just has to be safe to handle no matter what his circumstance. And you know, he's even seeming a little more relaxed around me. He stood in the cross ties resting a foot and he seems less reactive when we're walking around.

Obviously this is just two days, and he might push back against me and it will be worse. But for now, I feel better about how this whole thing is going. Fingers crossed he continues to be a good boy for his rehab so that when he does move to pasture, he's more likely to stay sound. If only I could explain that to him!