What I love about having horses at home is how much better I can see their personalities. When Carmen first arrived she was quite reserved. As she settles into life as a Canadian she's showing us her personality.
I always hose off the horses after a ride when they are sweaty. At first Carmen was all "ow ow, stop that! you're getting me wet! Hey watch where your pointing that thing!"
Now she moves her body around to show me where she wants to be washed. She also likes to drink from the hose:
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| she sticks her nose right in it. |
She's becoming curious about new things rather than fearful. I did some work the other week on umbrellas. At first she was wary but it didn't take long for her to want to check it out.
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| 'do you think we could get me one of these for when it's raining |
I've been introducing her to the concept of ground tying. I really go slow with this and let it happen over time. This is from after our ride this week. She stood there while I untacked her, put it away and got the hose ready.
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| don't worry- she's not as exhausted as she appears. |
Tonight I was calling the horses to come in and both came running to the barn. Irish headed to his stall and then decided at the last minute to amble the other way. I smacked him on the butt and said 'get in your stall'. Carmen dove for hers, not wanting to caught in the cross fire. Irish stormed into his looking insulted.
Horses can be so funny. Peoplethink they're dumb because they "have a brain the size of a walnut" (don't worry, I don't believe that and correct anyone who says that), but theu really are intelligent and full of personality.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested that you ground tie your horse. I've heard it's a dangerous thing to do and you should never do it. I don't agree, myself, because I think it has practical uses and could mean the diference between having to chase your horse after an emergency dismount and him/her staying right where you need if. Of course, this is only when it would be safe to do so. Anyway, when I was training with my local police department, they trained their horses to ground tie.
There is danger in almost everything you can do with a horse. I've heard of the dangers of ground tying, single tying, crossties, tying in trailers, not tying in trailers.
DeleteMy view is that if something happens to me and Carmen needs to be sold she should know how to single tie, ground tie and cross tie. So I do all of it. Now with the ground tie I'm not as good at it as the western trainers and I probably don't work quite as hard at it. But it comes in handy.
Having horses at home is the best. We are blest.
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