Further Adventures with Bridget

How do you get a Bridget to go forward?

Answer #1:  If the Bridget is not used to a rider and legs, even a little amount of pressure will cause a Bridget to go, "Yikes! What was that?!" and walk forward.

Answer #2:  When the Bridget is used to the rider and legs, pressure will cause the Bridget to turn her head all the way around to inspect the leg closely, asking, "What is that annoying thing you're doing with your foot?"

Answer #3:  After you've spent several intervening days pondering the issues posed by Answer #2 and how you're going to induce the Bridget to proceed forward without resorting to Old Fashioned Means, the said Bridget will have solved the issue in her own little head and will walk forward on your first or second request.

Why does a Bridget approve of being ridden?

Because when the Bridget is being lead around, the human on the end of the rope is very slow and boring.

Because if a Bridget is turned loose into the wide world, it's TOO SCARY to go across the farm to the far side all by herself and See What's There.

Because when the rider is up, Bridget can go ANYWHERE SHE WANTS, and her buddy has no option but to accompany her at a reasonable pace and without being slow and boring.

When does Bridget's rider get to lay down the law?

Sometimes Bridget's rider says, "No More Eating!" Bridget will toss her head and maybe say a bad word, but then she's like, "Oh ok, whatever."

Sometimes Bridget's rider says, "Slowly please!" Or, sometimes, "Stop!" Bridget will accommodate such requests without demur.

Sometimes Bridget's rider will say, "Let's make a circle here, just for - y'know - like, practice." Bridget will get into the spirit of this somewhat willingly-ish.

Sometimes Bridget's rider dismounts, takes the saddle off, gives Bridget a shower and then tries to take her back to her pasture. Bridget usually says, "No, no, no, no, no, don't want to." So it might take a loooooong time to get her back there.

Why does a Bridget walk away when you appear with the halter?

Aha! We have a rather different answer to that now. Now what she's up to is getting away from George before she's confined at the end of a leadrope and at his mercy. (Mea culpa? Should I make Bridget feel safer?)

How do you know this?

Because, while I suspected this for some time, it was confirmed the other day when I appeared with the halter and she walked away from me across the field toward the other gate. When I caught up with her, she stopped. Then, just to check, I left her and walked the rest of the way toward the gate. She followed me and then was totally fine with me putting the halter on. And today, when I appeared ditto, she did the same thing and was thoroughly put out when I took George out instead of her.

Why does Bridget have a gash under her arm?

Because that George lunged at her, and she wheeled around to get away, and there was a fence in the way, and she reared up and came down with one leg in the fence. She is almost all healed.

Here is a fun item Bridget found one day while exploring with a rider.
(Sorry, I don't  think the video works - but you get the picture.)

George in the Rain

Although our cold snap has been replaced by more usual Texan temperatures, George knows that winter is coming. The food supply is undiminished, but he is anxious about food again. From the minute I arrive, he stands with his head over the gate, waiting to be taken out to the greener grass. After his grazing excursion is over, he returns to his gate vigil, staring after me, even as I drive away.

Today it was raining quite heavily when I took him out. We were accompanied by the barn manager's little boy, and we wandered about, looking at machinery and eating clover. Then the little boy found a lovely big puddle in the round pen to splash in, and George surprisingly left off eating and expressed an interest in entering the pen too. We did, and I turned him loose.

The boy and I pretended to be horses running around in circles and sploshed around in the puddle in our wellies. George came over to see what all the fun was about.

He dipped his nose in the water a couple of times and then wandered off to potter about the pen - peering over the fence, nibbling strands of grass, and finally settling with his back to the wind, patiently enduring the rain. He was kind and patient with the little boy.

When he finally walked to the round pen gate and stuck his head over, it was time to let him out again to resume his grazing. For a little while, he had chosen to leave his food and spend time with the humans and their enigmatic activities.

A New Friend for George

My husband is not a horsey person. He'd sort of like to be, and he fancies the idea of going for a nice ride, but our horses are not exactly dead-broke, and he doesn't enjoy all the ancillary activities preceding and following a ride - catching, grooming, tacking up, etc. etc. Not to mention all the activities preceding the preceding activities - the stuff I'm interested in - e.g. hanging out in the field, taking the horses for walks, finding out what they want to do, that kind of thing.

However, now that we live in the city, he appreciates a jaunt to the country and an opportunity to let the dogs run free, so off we went yesterday together to the barn. He hadn't been counting on having to do this, but he girded up his loins and agreed to take George out for a walk, while I took Bridget.

It's fun to see how keen the horses (well, some of them) are on going out. Bridget was really eager, especially as it's usually George who gets to venture forth. However, I have to say my poor husband could not be said to enjoy the expedition very much. He felt like he couldn't keep up with George and was constantly being pushed into thorn bushes.

Then when we turned the horses loose again (at the first possibly opportunity at the nearest gate), he wasn't really interested in staying in the field and made a beeline for the far gate. I'm not sure if this is because fundamentally he feels nervous around them, or if he's bored, or what.  I told him to not let them do anything he didn't feel comfortable with and not to let himself get wedged in between them, which unfortunately I think added to the feeling of danger.

Be that as it may, the horses thought it was awesome to have a new person in their field with them. They wanted to follow him and get close to him. He did hand out some treats, but that really wasn't their main interest. George even came up and put him in the friendly spot on his left side. George likes people who aren't very familiar with horses and enjoyed being with him on the walk.

Much more tension in the human than in the horse.

The human is now paying attention to the horse, and look how sweetly
George is taking in the presence of his walking companion.


Here are the horses with their reluctant new friend.

I've yet to get to the bottom of why this human is not very keen on spending time with horses. Even if you remove the threatening scenario of having all the horses clustering round, he's still not interested in spending time with just one horse. He loves dogs. But here's what I'm doing this weekend, which I'm SUPER-EXCITED about: I'm going to a day-long workshop, run by a yoga instructor, which is designed for people who are attracted to horses but fearful of them (part of a program called Authenticity Training Through the Yoga of Equine Wisdom). Maybe I can gain me some insights into how to help my husband enjoy the horses. And the new barn owner has already agreed to give him riding lessons, which unaccountably he's more interested in than ground work/play. Because, gee, you can't fall off the ground, but whatever.

George's Practice

Our new barn in Texas boasts a 60' Round Pen.

Now, a round pen is a useful accessory, and I'm glad to have it, but not nearly as glad as I once would have been. On account of, thanks to Ms. Spilker, my horses no longer really have to do anything they don't want. So, pretty much, those round-and-round-we-go-this-way-then-that-at-this-speed-then-that-stop-only-when-I-tell-you days are over.

What we do we instead, you might ask?

Well, here's something George has been working on, and the round pen was part of his equipment.

Our formerly aggressive horse, George, hates for you to stand by his shoulder and ask him to move it away from you. At one time, such a heinous suggestion might have elicited the threat of a bite. At the very least eyes would narrow, ears would pin back, head would snake - drama drama drama.

I've backed off more and more to the point where I'd be standing about two or more feet away, gently just point a little finger at his shoulder, and whisper, "Georgie pie, would you like to move over maybe just maybe?" Even this would cause the smoke to start coming out of his ears.

He'll move over if you ask him other ways, but that shoulder spot is super sensitive, and it just irks him no end.

Well, the other day we were in the round pen. Sometimes when we go in there, George'll go, "Oh yeah, I know what we do - I'll trot round this way, and then I'll trot round the other way once or twice, and --- that's enough now! What else shall we do?" And of course I don't make him go around any more.

So we might do a little shifting his quarters over, and maybe backing up a bit (all at liberty). We might visit other ways to ask him to move his shoulder, or we might just stand still together. The nice thing about a round pen is that the horse and human are contained within a limited safe space, both free to come together or separate as each desires.

The other day, in the round pen, after a few preliminaries, George came up on my right side and stopped with me in the BAD SPOT next to his shoulder. (Normally he likes to put me by his waist.) Then he reached around away from me and bit himself. After a moment, one of us moved away. But immediately he returned to the same position and did the same thing - tensed up and reached round to bite himself.

This continued several more times. I really didn't say anything - I just stood there and let George use me to probe his fears. He kept returning to the dreaded spot, biting himself each time.

Finally, after several tries, when George came up beside me, he sighed, settled, and dropped his head. Here he is. All his own work.

Later that day we were all out in the field together. When I headed back to the gate, the horses all came with me, and George walked beside me, shoulder to shoulder. He's a fast walker, and after a while I couldn't keep up with him and fell behind. I thought he'd keep going, but he stopped and turned back to look at me. When I caught up, he nudged me with his head, and we set off again together.

George's work is a witness to how seriously a horse can approach his life, his relationships, his fears. George seems aware of the conflict that sometimes exists between his own inner demons and an ideal peaceful world. He faces that disconnect and seeks ways of reconciliation.

I've been enjoying the educational author Alfie Kohn, who has written many interesting books, including one called Punished by Rewards. I believe it's obvious that using negative reinforcement to "train" George to give up his hostile ways would pre-empt and stymie his own dedication to self-improvement. But observing George practicing in the round pen really brought home to me (again) that to offer positive reinforcement is not necessarily benign; it can trivialize and distract from a person's accomplishments and efforts. If I were practicing a difficult piano piece and finally mastered it, how inappropriate and beside-the-point it would be for my teacher to say, "Good job! Now you can have a cookie!" Punishments and rewards are for work that others are making you do.

When my friend who gave us George first encountered him, he was an angry young horse called Buddy. I feel that back in his early, early days, before whatever happened that turned him fearful and mad, there must have been something about him which made the person who named him think of him as a "buddy."  I changed his name, because I call every male animal and every little boy "buddy," but I hope he is re-discovering his original self, which does indeed seem to be a true friend.

George and his sweet friend Rose

Moving

So, yeah, we kind of moved to Texas. There's a certain satisfaction in telling people you're moving to Texas. It sounds kind of crazy and excessive. Actually, apparently half the world have moved with us to Houston, as wherever you go you hear different languages and accents spoken, and very few of the people you meet are native Texans.

The horses have moved too. As we are living in Houston to be near my husband's job, they are ensconced in a "ranch" about an hour away. They're always called "ranches" here, even if just a few acres - cool, huh? My 10-year old cowboy-loving self would have approved.

The first step in moving the horses was getting the health certificates and all the shots needed to come to the barn here. This, of course, entailed a vet visit, which was one of the pre-move hurdles I was kind of dreading. George used to try and bite the vet, and Bridget used to get a little crazy.

Our area in Pennsylvania, which until recently had to rely on cow vets, now boasts a proper equine vet, and I thought we should give her a try rather bring in the guy from over the mountain. She is a petite, soft-spoken young woman, kind but no-nonsense. The horses behaved like little angels for her. Well, pretty much. George started to plunge a little when she went to give him his shots, but he never once offered to bite or nip, and he settled down quickly.

I think he was proud of himself for overcoming his vet fears. Later on when I went out to visit him, he did two things which are rare for him - he put me on his right side, and then he came and stood facing me with his head drooping to the ground, ears lopping out to the side.

Next hurdle: loading onto the truck. When the truck drove up, George and the other horses were tense and vigilant, yet somehow keen. I'd been telling them for weeks that we were all going to Texas. Maybe they were prepared.

George recognizes that this has something to do with him.

The driver was a lovely lady called Marlina Dudash, owner-operator of A1 Horse Taxi, West Virginia. She rolled up in a 4-horse slant Sundowner, loaded up our hay, filled the water tank from our well so the horses would have familiar water to drink on the journey, and then we coaxed the horses on board.

George went first, followed by Rose, then Bridget, and finally Chloe. Each one sniffed the trailer before cautiously proceeding, and Rose stood shaking for a little while, poor dear, but we had no real problems.

Marlina was wonderful and kept me posted with texts and phone calls and photos along the way. She had offered to pick them up Monday, spend a short night on the trailer with them en route and get them there Tuesday night. However, I elected to have them stop twice on the journey, at horse motels, once in Tennessee and once in Arkansas, and arrive on Wednesday. Marlina booked them into some quite tony establishments for their overnight stops.

Rose in Arkansas - a little bewildered.

They arrived on schedule in Texas, and here they are getting acquainted with their new home.

Marlina was quite taken with George and friends. She said they all behaved very well on the journey.

Manners

Today I had occasion to compliment a horse I was working with on his nice manners.

It occurred to me that when people talk about a horse's nice manners, they usually mean that the horse has been trained to behave, to be obedient, to be respectful, to be compliant.

But that's not what I meant.

My grandmother of blessed memory had many wise sayings. One thing she used to say was that good manners were simply Christian principles put into practice - one is polite and mannerly because  it's a way of treating others as one would wish to be treated oneself, of putting others at ease and - well - of being nice to them.

That's what I meant with this horse. I felt he was being kind and accommodating to me. He was willing to put himself out, shifting his weight onto his sore leg when I asked, just because I asked. He picked up his feet and left them on the stand without fussing, even though he wasn't used to the stand and was suspicious at first. I felt he did all this not because he felt he had to, or was afraid of any negative consequences, or because he was trained to, but because he wished to treat me nicely.

Horse Party

Today the horses and I had a festive gathering.

First of all, I let them out into the yard and played some tricks and training with Bridget. Then I tried to mow the lawn. When the lawnmower broke down (yet again), I pondered for half a second whether or not to go inside and do inside chores, and ditched that idea in favor of staying outside and messing about with the horses.

The center of fun was the open back of the station wagon. Bridget pulled my trimming bucket out onto the ground, so I decided that if she was so all-fired interested in the trimming equipment, I may as well try and tidy up her toes. She let me, after a fashion. George came over to see what was up and amused himself by pulling everything else out of the back of the car and then licking the carpet to see if years of spills had left any tasty remnants.

Rose, uncharacteristically, came over and planted herself in front of me, so I did her toes too. I don't think she was saying, "I volunteer to stand quietly while you trim my feet" - it was more like "Hey, my feet are just as important as Bridget's, right?" George had a little manicure too.

So we did a spot of trimming, and threw objects around, and stuck our heads inside bags, and attempted to dismantle parts of the car, and just generally had a convivial time.

The Human's Training Progresses

I don't know what it is, but despite all the Spilkeration that has gone on in my life, I still have a tendency to want to turn the horses into minions. Not to beat myself up about this, but there it is. I'm working on it.

One form this hegemony takes is the desire to Make George Do Things. One thing I like to ask him to do is to move his shoulder away. I ask him to do this because he hates it, and for some reason I think I should be able to randomly make him do things he doesn't want to, just because he's a horse and I'm a human. Whenever I suggest he move his shoulder away (unless, of course, there's a good reason for it, in which case he is impeccably courteous), he gives me his best "You are such a bitch" look.

Yesterday evening, we were out having a pleasant time together - George getting his tummy scratched, me dancing about to keep my be-sandaled feet from being trampled - when I decided we would practice doing a teeny bit of shoulder moving. Only this time I was determined to be reeeaally nice about it, and make it completely optional, and not, well, not be such a bitch about it.

So I stood by his shoulder and pointed, not at his shoulder, but in the direction toward which I was asking his shoulder to move, holding my arm in front of his chest. Pretty soon he did move in the desired manner, with the result that his butt came round to a good scratching position. That works.

Later, I tried again. Before granting me my whim, George first had to focus on some other agenda items. First we had to stare into the distance at some deer, and then we had to scratch his chest. And also he first had to make me move away from him. He achieved this by the not-so-subtle means of nudging me over with his head. Fair enough. And then finally he did move away in the desired manner, again bringing his quarters back to scratching position.

But only for a moment. He disengaged from scratching, carefully backed up to re-position me by his shoulder, said, "Allow me to demonstrate once more," and again moved his shoulder away from me. Then back to scratching.

So he schooled me in patience, reciprocity, and shoulder moving, without ever once telling me I was a bitch.

This morning, as I returned from yoga, Chloe was waiting for me and marched up to the fence while I was parking the car. Clearly she was a pony on a mission, and as I assumed it involved Improved Grazing Opportunities, I opened the two gates which face each other on either side of the drive and ushered George, Bridget, and Rose out from their current pasture over into the barn pasture. Chloe did not follow - the normal rules do not apply to her - so I shut the others in and let her stay out.

She nibbled a little clover but then walked purposefully over to me. It's been quite a while since she's let me climb on her back, but today I was getting the feeling that maybe it would ok. So I got into - well, it's not mounting position cos that would be giving me too much credit - let's call it scrambling-aboard position. Chloe stood still while I plonked myself like a sack of meal over her back. Feeling that it might be nice if there were less flailing and more dignity involved in the next step of actually getting one leg over Chloe's back, I went in and fetched out the kitchen step stool to aid in the process. But when I put it next to Chloe and stood on it, she walked forward. Only a couple of steps though. She walked forward, stopped, and waited. Ok, no step stool.

I got back into scrambling-aboard position, and Chloe stood, planting her feet, giving that kind of solid, reliable feeling that seems to say, "That's ok, take all the time you need. I know you're a complete klutz; I'll just stand here til you're up." Once I was up, Chloe turned her head to inspect my leg, looking at it  rather indulgently. Then she set off. She's very careful not to unseat me, and at first she stops every step or two, as she can feel my wobbliness. (Tall person on short pony makes for an unstable situation.) She walked over to the gate where the other horses were and stopped. I got off and asked her if she wanted to go in, but the other horses were crowding the gate, and she didn't want to.

For a little while, I pottered about doing other things. Chloe wandered down the drive a little, and when I went to see what she was up to, she seemed to invite me on board once more. So I scrambled on. Chloe turned to inspect my leg again and then carefully walked up to the gate. This time the other horses were out of the way, so when I got off and opened the gate for Chloe, she went right in.

I don't know what Chloe's plan was, or even if it was a plan. But it sure seemed like one.

More Fun and Games

Today, I went out to the pasture intending to work some more on George and Bridget's stand-stay. But it just wasn't working out quite as well as it did the last time. I eventually realized that the difference lay in the fact that the first time I introduced this, I was all motivated to instruct George and Bridget to behave in an appropriate way when I wanted to give out treats to all four horses; and standing and staying was part of that. Today, however, I went out with the intention of just "practicing" their stand-stay. To practice it mindlessly caused - not so much them as - me to lose focus and direction. If I had focused on making sure that everyone (i.e. George and Bridget) behaved nicely while I handed out treats to Rose and Chloe, I feel that things would have been clearer. By the time I realized this, I'd run out of treats, and so I put the issue aside for another time.

Instead, we just started goofing around. I played with George with the game of choosing between pinkie and thumb, each one standing for something. (You have to watch the video.) I have absolutely no idea if he had the slightest notion of what the heck we were doing, but he was pretty engaged. I also played drawing on the ground with a thick stick, which made George want to play at chewing the same stick. And we (that is me) put sticks in a bucket, and George took them out. And of course I had to spend time scratching him.

George has a new way of being with me, which is that he comes up head first and drops his head and stays in that position for a while. He still does his sliding alongside maneuver too. Another new thing is that he is more worried about the proximity of Bridget. When he was with me today, he kept giving her the evil eye, and a couple of times he left to run her off. Whereas in the past, he had supreme confidence that she wouldn't dare interfere. I notice lately that the two of them seem to be getting a little closer. One time I even caught them fraternizing over a fence without me standing in between them. I wonder if this rapprochement is making George more susceptible to Bridget or giving Bridget more confidence in her demeanor towards him.

George finally got tired of playing and picked up Rose and left. Which allowed Bridget to come over. She offered me her legs and was very interested in me talking about them, as in, "Yes! That's your right leg! And now, look! You're picking up your left leg!" We also discussed her ears and her nose and her mouth. The fact that she didn't turn her butt around to be scratched evinced her high level of engagement in this naming activity. I had the grooming box out with me, and of course Bridget had to empty it out and chew the contents and try to pick up the empty box.

I must try to think of some other interesting activities they might enjoy. I think they might get a kick out of a tarp.

"Pony Flicks in Fetlock Joint When Walking"

Once in a while, out of curiosity, I take a look at my blog's statistics - how many page views, how much traffic is coming from China and Russia (seriously?), what sites are referring people to mine, what pages are most looked at, and so on. I would say that close to 100% of the time the No. 1 page viewed is the one about Buck Brannaman and the dangerous colt, a subject I've written about a couple of times in this blog.

Another interesting piece of information is what search keywords lead people to find me. Today, as usual, the first search keyword listed involved Buck Brannaman, and, and in the No. 5 spot were the words which are the title of this entry.

These words immediately caught my eye, as this issue was exactly what lead me to start trimming my own horses. Our elderly mare had started to "flick in her RH fetlock joint when walking."

When I started trimming Misty, I discovered that she had very high heels and layer upon layer of folded over bar and false sole in the seat of corn. It took me a while to get brave enough to dig it all out, and looking back, I may not have succeeded.  Misty's walking did improve; but she was well into her 30's by the time I started trimming her, and I think there was permanent damage to her fetlock joint or her navicular bone. She never did walk completely normally, and in the last few months of her life, the problem got worse again.

I think that the "flicking" was due to Misty landing on her toe, whereupon her fetlock would flick, or click, back to allow her heel to drop, before she could pick up her foot again. I imagine - and this is only speculation - that she had considerable heel pain, from all that junk packed into her seat of corn, which would have caused her to avoid landing heel-first. And I know that a toe-first landing, followed by the heel dropping and being picked up again, can cause navicular disease.

The flicking foot didn't look especially long, as her hoofs grew very upright. Her former owner told us that Misty was said to have one or more club feet, which would be one way to describe the vertical habit of her hoof. She also held her pastern very upright - another sign of heel pain, as the horse tries to bring weight forward and up off the heel.

Here is a photo of Misty's hind feet, taken not long before she died in 2009 - she looks overdue for a trim here. You can see a "healing angle" growing in on the LH. You can also see the upright pastern and bruising under the wall. The toe is much too long, and the heel is underrun. Sheesh. I think it likely that at the time this photo was taken, I was not able to see how underrun that LH was. You can see that the RH (the one which flicked) is rather upright - the heel looks very high, but in the next photo, which shows the sole, it's hard to see how you could take the heel down much more. The second photo shows how crazy-too-far-forward breakover is, yet who would guess that from looking at the foot from the outside?

If confronted with these feet nowadays, I would probably (I hope!) handle it a bit better, although I'm still clambering up the learning curve and don't expect to reach the top. But the main reason I wrote this post was to say to Mr. or Ms. "Pony Flicks in Fetlock Joint When Walking" if they're still out there and happen to find this post: Find yourself a good trimmer - your pony probably has really sore heels!

Gold Stars All Round

Yesterday, I girded up my loins and sallied forth into the pasture, armed with three new tubes of ivermectin, generic brand - purchased, to my surprise and delight, for like only four dollars each.

I felt there was some necessity for loin-girding in as much as my little darlings are all totally spoiled and accustomed to molly-coddling and to having their opinions taken into account at every turn. They are like the offspring of those earnest middle-aged parents whom you encounter in 57th Street Books kids' section, intent on having an intellectual discussion with their 5-year old on the merits of a Paul Klee art book. Which is the way I want it, mind you, but sometimes, well, sometimes you kind of have to summon up a bit of emotional slash mental energy to discuss Paul Klee with a five-year old.

Pah! Silly me! George was, like, a complete little angel. He opened his mouth and ate his medicine and then his carrot, and then stood aside and let me get to the mares. Bridget, too, was a perfect little paragon about the whole thing.

Rose, of course, did not want to have anything to do with the procedure at first. She did her cute, rather pathetic, Rose thing of turning her head away so that her nose is all the way over touching her shoulder. Or the not so cute thing of jerking her head up into the air. So I let her do all those things to her heart's content and persisted with naming and explaining, inspired by Kayce Cover and the rhinoceros. (Synalia  press site, scroll down a little.)

I thought perhaps we might actually be there all evening, but after not so very long she stopped turning away, stood quiet, and opened her mouth. She even let me back to squeeze a little more in after a dollop had dropped on the ground. Wow!

Chloe was let off the hook as the tube of wormer I had on the shelf turned out to be past its expiration date.

And on the topic of Kayce Cover, here is a really cool video, which inspires me to try out the awesome game they are playing therein. Whaddya think?

George's Delicate Bubble

George has not been speaking to me lately. I assume it's partly because I haven't been doing much of anything with him for a while, and also partly because he has been very annoyed about the lack of spring grass this late in the year. He has only had one thing to say to me for the past couple of months: "What the heck? Get me some grass!"

A few days ago, I took him out for a grazing walk. After I returned him to the "pasture," he was very gentlemanly in allowing the mares to each have a turn to come out as well. However, once everyone was back in with him, he stood by the gate and stared his most meaningful stare at the pasture across the driveway, where the grass had attained an inch or two more in height than in his current abode. I'd been intending to wait a few more days, and possibly until it had rained again, before moving the horses. But really, it's too hard to make them wait - they need that green grass now that spring is on its way, and they can see it staring at them on the other side of the fence. So I moved them over.

George approved. When I went in this evening to play with Bridget, George came over, shooed Bridged away, pressed his side up against me, and stood peacefully. After a bit, he moved forward so I was positioned next to his tail, where we stood for a while longer.

George has been looking rather beatific lately - even despite the lack of grass (for which I personally am entirely to blame, so he has had no particular need to look annoyed except when talking to me). In general he's just been looking a little more radiant or sunshiney or something.

When I took him out for the grazing walk, we played the Bored Game first. Then I asked him to back up, which he's gotten more philosophical about than in the past; then I suggested he move his hindquarters over, which he did - that's not much of a problem for him. Next, I asked him to move his shoulders over, and them's fighting words for George. I was very careful not to touch him. I simply pointed at his shoulder and said, "Scoot" in a friendly voice. George pinned his ears and grumbled and wanted to chew my clothes. I persevered, so he turned his head away, whereupon I gave him much encouragement in the way of intermediate bridges (thanks, Maire, and more on this later) and then he finally moved his little tootsies over and away from me. No difficulty in making him understand what I wanted - just a finger pointing from several inches away - but so difficult for him to bring himself to comply with my request.

Today, when we were relaxing together, I felt - is it my imagination? - that George might be growing a thin bubble. In the past, I've always felt that he had no bubble at all and that that is why he is so uneasy around the other horses. He's ok with Rose, who has a fairly thin bubble herself, and who doesn't pose a challenge to him. But the presence of Bridget, whose bubble is the size of Texas and who has a very forceful character, causes him to become tense and defensive. He feels exposed. But today - again, is it my imagination? - I felt a kind of warmth or aura around him,  just a tiny, tiny bit (microns only!) larger than his actual body.

I don't want to intrude into his precious personal space and make him feel more exposed than he already does. I like the new feeling of warmth coming from him, and I'd like to encourage him to cultivate it. So this evening, instead of asking him to do anything, I thought maybe we could do a little bit of "Name and Explain" (thanks again, Maire, and more later maybe). I started with his knee - I touched it and said "This is your knee." No problem. Then I touched his elbow, saying "This is your elbow." This triggered the stink eye and pinned ears. So I thought we'd better name first and touch after. So I said, "I'm going to touch your knee" and did so. Then, "I'm going to touch your elbow," and did so. This time he didn't react. But the third time I touched his elbow, he just up and left. Which is ok.

The unfolding of George has been and continues to be a mysterious process. When I first knew him, he was very bold and in-your-face. He liked to keep you in front of him, in the crosshairs. He was still liable, on occasion, to bouts of aggressive behavior. He seemed outgoing and would approach people confidently, but I've come to learn that George's head is his shield rather than an organ of communication (as it is with Bridget), and that it is when he puts you by his tail that he is letting you in. Bridget is all in her eyes - they beam out through her charming screen of forelock to make contact with you. George is somewhere deep within himself. His eyes can signal menace or anger, but when he looks happy, his eyes are innocent, his look diffuse.

The next day, I was sitting on the kitchen step drinking my tea, and a warm breeze was blowing. I closed my eyes and felt the wind on my face and listened to the birds singing in the trees and the geese calling in the distance.  I have been becoming a little jaded about the visible world around me. It has been failing to enchant me. I realized, as I sat, that I rely on my sight to connect me to the world around me, and that there is a whole tangible world of perception that is not experienced through the eyes.

Perhaps I have been coming at George head-on, eyes-first. I must learn to be more diffuse like him, to approach him obliquely, to listen and feel rather than watch. A bubble can be a fragile thing - perhaps even from a distance a pointed finger is too sharp.

Manners 101 Revisited

In a blog entry three years ago (gosh, have I been doing this for that long?), I talked about how I discovered that in horse etiquette, a broadside approach is less mannerly than an approach which starts face-to-face. I was talking particularly about Gus and George, who preferred, if I wished to stand beside them, that I come directly to their head and then slide down their flank.

I forgot this lesson. Duh. But the other day I was trimming a large red mule (yes, my first mule!), who didn't like it when I approached his hind legs, although he'd been fine with his fores. I tried "asking permission," but that didn't really work. However, I found that I could approach his head and then slide down his side, keeping contact with my body, and that then he would allow me to work on his hind leg.

You'd think I'd remember the things I've learned. I need to go back and re-read and figure out what else I've forgotten.

Once again, I am without the means of getting photos onto this blog. So, speaking of Gus, whom I don't see anymore as he is 1,000 miles away in Mississippi, here's a photo of him for old time's sake.

Freedom to Refuse

On Saturday I went out on two last-minute trimming calls. Two different barns but, coincidentally, two recent rescues who needed trimming, preferably before Christmas.

The first call was to a new mini, adopted a few days before by a man who already owns three. He has a lovely, neat set-up for his pets and takes very good care of them. He's a softie when it comes to dwarf minis, and he heard about this little one who was being fostered by a dog-rescue lady until a permanent home could be found for him.

His name is Bashful, and he is the teeniest, tiniest mini you have ever seen. Five years old and fully grown, weighing less than 60 pounds. It was obviously a very, very long time since his last trim - perhaps he'd never been trimmed before. Both fore hoofs were growing out to the side, and he was walking on the side wall of both hoofs. Both hoofs curved to the left. These dwarfs can have distorted joints, but he has mobility in the fetlock joint, and I think if his hoofs could grow straight, he might be able to walk on his heels. But HOW to effect the transition? This will require some thinking and consultation with others more experienced than I. On Saturday we settled for getting rid of most of the excessive over growth to get things started, but I didn't want to take it all away, as it wasn't clear what would be left for him to land on.

He was so little, his owner just picked him up and plonked him on his side. He didn't seem to mind, and when we were done, he stuck around being curious and friendly.

The second call was to a newly-adopted pinto Shetland pony. When we started, he was very distracted by his absence from his pasture-mates, and he reared away occasionally while I was working on his forefeet. I encouraged him to "ask politely" and pretty soon he got the hang of doing just that, and we were able work on his feet, taking little breaks when he wanted.

The hind legs were a different matter. He turned out to be a kicker, and when it comes to kicking, ponies are champs. At one point, he kicked out with both feet at once, and the stand went flying. So - time to back off and re-group. Seemed like he had had a bad experience in the past with his hind legs being worked on, which is turning out to be a not-infrequent experience, with ponies especially. The first thing to do was to ask him NOT to pick up his leg. I put my hand on his leg and asked him to leave it on the ground. Kick. Try again. Kick. But after several more tries, he left his foot planted.

At this point, the pony became pensive, calm, and inwardly listening. He turned to look at me sometimes. I started asking him to pick up his foot, and each time he refused. I backed off, asked again, he refused, I backed off, asked again, received a refusal .... and so on. I've come to see this as a powerfully positive experience for both horse and human -  this opportunity for the horse to respond to a request with a refusal. Klaus Ferdinand Hempfling talks about obtaining an almost immediate "healing" in horses when he works with them. I've always found this very puzzling, but in this dialog of "Will you?"-"No, I won't," I'm finding there is a balm and a peace for both species involved. Perhaps this is akin to what KFH talks about?

After a while, I started to put a little suggestive pressure on to his foot - not trying to make him pick up his foot, but to illustrate what I was asking. We set up a little quiet conversation between my pressure and his resistance. I was saying "Do you think you might shift your balance a little so that your foot could come up?" He knew it wasn't going to escalate to an argument, and so he was able to respond with, "Well, maybe, let me see, maybe I could, just a little."

And then, with no fuss, he picked his foot up; I plonked it on the stand, and there it remained of its own accord until I was done trimming. Work on the other foot proceeded more quickly.

The thing is - for this to "work," it can't be about getting it to work. I have to be willing to walk away with the work unstarted or incomplete. I remember Lynne Gerard saying something to this effect (I believe it was in response to a comment I left on her blog). I had succeeded in "getting" a friend's mare to take her medicine (which she normally resisted) by holding her on a loose rope, politely asking her to take the medicine, and by expecting her to take it. Lynne congratulated me but wisely reminded me that if my intentions were sincere, I had to be willing to not succeed as well.

This is the way we should treat our fellow humans too, I believe. Unless someone is going to cause harm to themselves or others, there is no cause for coercion. That is why I admire the special ed school where my daughter teaches. The kids are given ample opportunity to act goofy and play, but when it comes time to teach The Basics (manners, sharing, anger control, arithmetic, reading, etc.), the teachers do the equivalent of me standing with my hand on the pony's fetlock, waiting. My daughter has been punched, bitten, kicked, and cursed at. But she and the other teachers don't react; they stand quietly, waiting and suggesting. These children, who have failed at (been failed by) all the other programs they have attended, gradually blossom and improve. I wish all school children could be treated like this.

I am thankful to the little pinto pony for being present, for trusting for listening, and for communicating.