New Mare in the Corral: Rita Mae

There is a little liver-colored mustang mare in the ox-pen corral. She arrived this afternoon with Billy Hibbler. He has had her for a while and not had the time to get her past her wildness, so she is a resident in therapy now.

We started out with a little work towards conditioning a terminal bridge. I edged up to where I could feed her some grain while I was standing facing the other way. She was snorting, but she must have had grain before because she sniffed toward me like maybe I wasn't a mountain lion after all. I said "X" in my normal voice and she bucksnorted and hit the pipefence on the other side of the corral, falling down in the process. Next time I managed to get close enough to feed some grain, I merely whispered "x" and gave her a handful. Pretty soon she was standing and waiting for me to say X and dip her out some more sweetfeed. Good start.

She is going to be my experimental animal for ESCT (Equine Stress Control Therapy). My new manual arrived today and we are going to see what it will do.

The good part about this mare is she is really little. Cisco the mustang came over to sniff her across the fence. He is 16 hands tall and starting to fill out. He looks like a monster compared to her. Her old name was Bugsy..... that just isn't going to do it, no wonder she acts like she is buggy and bug-eyed! I think I want to rename her after my best friend, who sometimes goes by the alias Rita Mae.

More tomorrow,
Patricia