Ho hum. What to do? What to do? What can I work on with the boys? I don’t really have anything new and exciting to do. I still want to do more practice with the trailering, especially moving the trailer, but the truck won’t start and the newly retired hubby is up to his eyes in taxes and other things to help me out. And, of course, he has to be in charge of that project.
So, back to the ponies. Hmm.
I kinda didn’t want to go back to the tree targeting. I do need to work to put it solidly on cue, but I just wasn’t in the mood I guess. I couldn’t think of anything new to do with the pedestal (now I can). I could have brought the mattress out and Atticus likes that…
Well, Ollie was three-legged lame and was trimmed a few days ago. I’d better play with him a bit and try to figure out why he’s lame on the left hind, and treat his feet, and work on grooming, and staying in the wash stall, and, and, and…
I remembered that Ollie tends to walk off when at liberty, especially with grooming. Oh, yeah, I could work on that.
Not only could I work on his being more comfortable in the wash stall, but I could also spend some time on standing still while I walk around. And I could spend some time of lifting his feet at the slightest touch. And not banging me in the head with his head. And not mugging.
And then there’s the sheath cleaning. Oh joy.
Poor Ollie. He’s been kind of the fifth wheel around here and I do need to spend more time with him and practice more of that stuff that’s going to make both of our lives easier and better.
Then Atticus could use some practice as well – foot lifting, sheath cleaning, tolerance of grooming.
The grooming gets better for both of them when I use tools that they can tolerate – nothing to too stiff or pokey, now. And lots of CT.
My point is that even though we think we’ve run out of stuff to work on or train, there’s always stuff to do, even if it means revisiting what we think we’ve already trained and do it better this time.
Even though I think “been there, done that”, we (the horses and I) can still benefit from doing it again.
A little video showing ways of shaping hoof lifting using a pedestal:
