I put this condition down to a slip on the wet ground. That is, until I saw her interacting with George this evening.
She seems to be in heat, and George is acting all kinds of studdish. Looks like maybe her hock problem may be the result of a George Incident. I have never seen them contact each other before unless there was an intervening fence, or Rose was on the lead rope.
The wet weather has two upsides - one is that there is a nice little fresh creek running for the horses to drink out of. And the other is that it's not as cold out as it has been. So this evening, I spent time in the field hanging out, mostly with George and Bridget. George is very testy in the colder weather but was also in a mood for some company. Mostly he wanted me to stand by his tail, whether or not to scratch I couldn't figure out. He rubbed his head on me a lot, pulled my gloves off a couple of times, and once indicated that he wanted me to scratch his side, but when I did, he pulled an awful face and pinned his ears. Once he even put me into the happy spot by his shoulder, but that didn't last long. George has this really weird new habit of biting himself when he gets ... I don't know - frustrated? He'll do it sometimes when he's waiting for food. Today he did it when I was standing by him. He snatches with his mouth at his upper arm or chest. I wondered if he was itchy, but uh oh, when I scratched the place where he'd bitten, he got all bent out of shape. He's radiating the do-not-touch vibe these days, so I don't, unless he indicates to the contrary. Maybe one day he'll mellow out. My friend's Arab gelding used to be like this and now is all cuddly, so we'll see.
Bridget and I played. She followed me around and kept asking me to hold her legs or scratch her tail. She was following me to the gate as I was leaving when the above scene between George and Rose started to unfold. She immediately went over and stood nearby - feeling a little left out maybe?
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