Day Two
Today was a good day with the new horse. We still haven’t named him yet, but we’re working on it.
I got up early this morning before sun-up, and took him out of the stall to get a few minutes on the grass. Then I tied him, and worked with his feet. I was surprised that he let me clean all 4 feet with the hoof pick! This evening, we did our second round penning exercise, and it went much better than last night. He is starting to get more consistent turning in to me, rather than turning away from me, and he is beginning to walk slowly toward me when I release the driving pressure. I got him to follow me, at a distance of about 4 feet. He’s not comfortable getting all the way up to me on his own, but we’re real close. Then we walked the perimeter of the field to introduce him to his new home. He couldn’t believe this whole field was just for him and Holly. Of course, it will be 2-3 weeks before we think about turning him out. Several things must happen first. (Quarantine, Negative Coggins, and spending more time each day eating grass). I need to make sure he doesn’t founder or colic by eating too much all at once. I’m not sure when the last time was when he got to eat green grass.
Then I got a bunch more hair off of him, particularly on his belly. I picked up all his feet, and found out he is really scared of a cotton lead rope. So he got rubbed a lot with it. When he relaxed, I quit rubbing and praised him. This went on for about 15 minutes. Soon, I could pick up his feet with the rope.
He now has his farrier and vet appointments. All in all, it was a good day.
Frank