Brief Update

Frequency of postings to this blog is inversely proportional to the occurrence of good weather. Things have been busy around here with barn building and three new horses on the place: Dalton, Gus, and Reno (all Denise's horses).

I will be selling at least one of my horses.... but I can't decide which so I am advertising all of them:

1. Soloman: $200


2. Zekey: FREE


3. Tobiah: $600


4. Cracker Joe: $2000


5. Jemez Dancing: $1200


6. Paisley: $2000


7. Cisco: if you have to ask, you can't afford him

I tried to trade Denise three of my critters for Dalton.... sigh....

Cisco did something mighty interesting today. We moved the highline to the center of the forested area and I've been tying him out to get his grain and beet pulp. After he was done eating this afternoon, I unclipped him from the highline to let him run free and graze around the yard. ..... Mr. Scared-of-Ropes-Mustang sidles up to the lead dangling from the highline and goes to sleep!! Somehow he has become bonded to the highline rope.

We've been training Paisley to go from person to person when called. We've almost got her to where she will go at the speed we ask for. Donna gets across the yard from me. I send her to Donna, then Donna sends her back. Paisley will sometimes get really excited on her way, but she is now learning to stop or slow down when we ask. We did a three person route and Paisley did great with that level of variation as well.

Today was threatening rain so I took my training into a covered stall.... I have a rubber truck mudflap on the floor of the stall. I ask the animals to 'go to mat' and reward them when their front hooves are quietly positioned on the mat. Chester figured it out right away. Paisley and Cracker remembered some of their prior mat training but didn't make as much progress as Chester. Then suddenly it was time to feed so the others didn't get a chance.

In a perfect world there would be time to play with horses, build barns and write on blogs.....