Baby Steps

So much of my barn time lately is consumed with teaching the baby pony how to act civilized. Just getting her out in the big wide world and teaching her manners appropriate for likable pony. You know, the kind of stuff we expect in a nice horse.

Currently, there are days when this is a face only I seem to love :)

AKA the kind of stuff I've admittedly taken for granted the past few years. Bridget isn't perfect, but she's never been overly motivated to be bad, either. She kind of just cruises along through life on one consistent level, day in and day out. Sophie? Well, lets just say it's been awhile since I had a horse needing quite so much of my time!

I feel like blogging about my horse tying, ponying, standing quietly, eating food other than hay, etc is pretty unexciting. But you know what? I think I need to start celebrating all those baby steps because as anyone who's owned a baby knows, there's often a whole lot of time gone into making those things happen.

So, here we go, a baby pony check in:

Standard behaviour:

-Ties? Meh. Still gets bored and pulls back/tests how secure the tie is occasionally.

-Can groom everywhere? Yes! She likes to be groomed, and will now stand for her belly and udder being cleaned. Can handle back legs reliably now. Spray bottles are fine now too.

- Good for farrier? No comment. She's coming soon and I don't want to jinx it.

- Trailers? Yes, she's a good girl.

- Leads? Yes, her manners are excellent now.

- Wears blankets and boots without drama? Yes.

-Ponies? Yes. She needs the odd reminder about where she should be, and that it's not play time, but generally she's quite good.

- Good on roads and trails? Yes. Still slightly suspicious of loose dogs, motorbikes, and larger trucks, though. Getting way better!

- Goes through water, ditches, up and down banks and steep hills.

Things to work on:

- Tying patiently. She's all about fidgeting.

- Related: tends towards being impatient/pushy. I have to stay pretty vigilant about that, patience and respect for my personal space are not always things she finds easy.

- Being left alone. The screaming can be incessant. Hate it. The temper tantrum part is more interesting...she seems more angry than insecure. Luckily it's improving.

Ponied her to the ring, then exiled her to the penalty box this morning while I rode B. She finds this VERY hard, even though she can still see us the majority of the time.

- Eating food other than hay or grass. She's not wild about grain or grain like treats, most of it is left in her bucket. Will not eat carrots. Will nibble on apples, maybe is developing a taste for them.

Prefers this orchardgrass hay only, if we're being specific. I'm glad I have no actual toddlers, because this pony is enough.

Bridget says it's cool, she'll pick up the slack and finish Sophie's apple for her.

- Wearing a saddle. First time was last week and I'd like to start ponying her with tack.

- In general, keeping calm and thinking things through is a work in progress. She defaults to all the drama all the time, but she's maturing and now comes up with better answers more frequently. I'd like that to continue!

And I can't end this post without a big acknowledgement of Bridget. Turns out she is the best with babies, and a lot of the stuff I note as getting better with Sophie has been in part due to Bridget keeping the discipline and peace 24/7. Sophie was screaming at us over the gate the other day as I led B back to the field. B was so disgusted she reached over the fence and bit her, like "go away and shut up, already!". Lol, thanks Bridget!

B sometimes even shares her hay with Sophie, which is totally out of character for B.