All Play and No Work...

This photo is a good example of Roo's curiosity. We are resting after lunge work.


Roo and I have been working on more aisle work and standing, which has helped him tremendously in standing to have his halter taken off before turn out. He was so effervescent about turn out, sometimes he would forget to stand. But Lori reports the standing exercises seem to have made the difference as she just says "Stand" and he does, even if Sin or Sam or Andy are running full tilt down the field. This is good!

Yesterday I gave a lesson and had to return Belle to her field after the lesson. You must walk through the Four Musketeer field (Roo, Sin, Sam, Andy) to get there. Roo, of course, is the official WalMart greeter of this field and feels the need to be the escort service of every horse brought in and taken back out during the day. Sometimes this is okay, but on this particular occasion it was a pain.

Belle is quite simply a hussy. She is only four years old and loves all geldings. So Roo trotting up her side like "playtime" was not good for me, the handler, taking her back out. I decided it was time he learn to keep his distance.

Just flicking a lead rope at Roo has no effect. He is not afraid of much. Yelling has no effect either. To Belle's credit, despite all I was trying to do to keep Roo (and now the other three M's--who joined into the fun) away, had no effect on her and she just kept walking next to me.

Finally I decided to use the lead rope end on Roo's shoulder with some consequence. At the same time I made my "eh-eh" noise. Well, that did the trick. Roo trotted off down the field with his pals and I was able to quietly resume my walk to Belle's pasture. On the way back, I stopped by Roo and gave him a pat so he would know that things were okay, just that he needed to learn this lesson.

So all day, during lessons, I took the horses back and Roo thought about approaching only one more time. I simply whirled the end of the lead rope near me and made the noise. He stopped, turned and went back to eating from his hay pile. Good response.

I am able to handle the horses coming up to me in droves in the pastures, but some owners may not be able to do so, and some horses (especially the mares) will plant him with a good swift kick if he gets that close. Of course, that would teach him too, but it also might hurt him, so I'm trying to have him learn to keep his distance.

I fed Roo an apple tonight. If you leave the apple whole in his bucket it will stay there for days. So I tried cutting it up. That did the trick!

I also put his blanket on him for the evening, as it is very cold here overnight. Next week we are going back up to the 60's which is unusual for us in November, so he won't need his blanket at all next week. I have to buy a blanket rack for his stall, as right now I am using Eagle's blanket rack to hang Roo's blankets.

We did some more ring work yesterday, this time off lead. I let him wander, then free lunged him again and asked for him to follow me and whoa without being on the lead. He did pretty well, but just like any kid, his attention span is about 15 minutes long....LOLOL.

There are about five people who want him, but I keep telling them they can't have him.