Reincarnation of a Perfect Mustang

Today is a moment to remember: Cisco got his back right foot cleaned for the first time since he arrived last fall. Clay was doing the cleaning. I was giving him intermediate bridge cues and scratching his withers. Somehow the mustang let us do it. FINALLY!

Cisco has been rather mad at me for the last few days though because I've been putting on the mustang rebirthing kit to hold on his starter saddle. The mustang rebirthing kit, my long time readers will recall, is three ace bandages, one wrapped around his girth, one as a breastcollar and the other as a britchen. They are all snuggly and stretchy so they can't possibly be uncomfortable. The term rebirthing refers to that thing people were doing at the end of the '90's where they wrapped them selves up really snugly and then simulated the birth process, being born into a better world. Flaky, perhaps, but the mustang has needed a little rebirthing. In the latest sessions I have been putting a fleece English saddle pad on, then cinching it down with the rebirthing kit. All snuggles... but he isn't too happy about it.

I started by asking him to target the pad with his nose, then his shoulder, then his hip, and then, introducing a new body part, target with the withers. He would scoot himself under the pad just fine.... we also did the english saddle, which he moved to contact with his withers, but we didn't leave it on for long.... I wanted him to have special yard-wandering privileges for saddle pad wearing. So we just got it on and let him free.

I've been working almost totally at liberty with him. He rarely needs a rope and if he jumps away he almost always comes right back. So this saddling was done with out restraint. It was getting to be almost dusk and I needed to unsaddle him and feed. He was standing on the patio and it was a bit breezy. I untied the britchen bandage and it dangled in the wind.

THAT WAS IT.... HE WAS OUT OF THERE!!! He ran around, craning his neck to look at the bandage end, and snorting loudly. He ran across my arena space, around the laundry garden, up the hill, down the trail, around the building, and back again. He got near and I asked him to target my fingers... he did. I picked up the bandage end and asked him to target it. He did. He touched it several times with his nose, and then I tried to move into position to untie the other bandages. THAT WAS IT... He ran off again. This time moving away any time I got near.

It was getting dark, so I fed the other critters and put some hay in a stall Cisco could access. I found myself a bucket, turned it upside down near the stall door and sat down to wait. It is the dark of the moon, so it was getting hard to see until I turned on the barn lights. I just sat their waiting. Pretty soon Mr. Blaze-faced Mustang wandered in out of the dark. He let himself be unsaddled then turned to the feeder for dinner.

DAY TWO OF MUSTANG REBIRTHING UNDER SADDLE PAD
Yesterday I penned him up to feed him breakfast and went out early to put back on his gear. The pad has two loops on each side for the girth and girth straps, so it really works well when you just run your bandages through the loops. He got it on, still willing to put his withers to the pad, in exchange for a horse cookie, then I let him free in the yard again. There is about 2 acres in the yard, so they can graze, stand in a forest, climb a hill, run down a trail through the sage brush, etc. They love to be out, but yesterday you could see him standing with his head down, lethargic and depressed by the saddle pad. I kept things in my pockets, so I could go out and tell him how great he looks in a pad, rewarding him with carrots, cookies, grain, and raisins for his participation in the rebirthing activity.

Then it started to rain, so I brought him back into the pen for unsaddling and let him return to the herd. I didn't want to take a chance unsaddling at large again because I didn't want to be sitting on a bucket by a gate in the rain.

Today I expected him to be stand-offish. It was too wet to have him wear the pad. We only wanted to clean his hooves. He came up to be caught when I held the rope out and called his name. He let us clean his panic-prone hoof. He's such a good mustang!