Ecclectic Animal Update

Wednesday night Bill surprised me by offering to go for a ride.  I bet he knew I was eager to try out Starfish Latte’s skills after her refresher course.  Bill took Traveller out – which usually spells disaster since both Starfish and Traveller think they are the one in charge and often snap, bite & kick at each other.  I think Trav was so excited about being ridden he didn’t even notice Starfish was near him…and for her part, Starfish was well behaved.  I braved the “big” pen [our first trip outside the small pen or round pen] and she handled herself admirably without a single head toss.  I was thrilled, and it was nice to know that under saddle Trav and Starfish completely ignored each other.  Next step is taking Starfish outside the property.  Hold a good thought for me!

Bill’s new puppy Sirius is growing larger and funnier each day.  He’s got a great personality.  I love that he races through the kitchen at break-neck speed for a solid 5 minutes and then just drops to the floor, tongue lolling, paws splayed, and 30 seconds later he’s sound asleep.  It cracks me up every time.  He’s got an assortment of puppy toys [because Bill brings him home a new one every week], but his favorite toy seems to be an empty Perrier bottle that I tossed to him on a whim.  Zoltar [our greyhound] and Justice [our pit/chow mix] literally roll their eyes when they see Sirius coming because they know they’ll be on “puppy-sitting” duty for a few minutes. *giggles*

I worked with Oolong yesterday.  I’d been slacking on training because our life was a whirlwind of activity for the last two weeks – being out of town didn’t help her training much, but it helped me not miss Starfish so much.   I went in to Oo’s pen yesterday with the intention of taking her for a walk outside of her normal comfort zone.  I realized she had her fly mask on, and I wanted to be able to see her eye so I could judge her temperament.  So it turned into a fly mask lesson – again.

She handled it very well.  I read somewhere that you need to repeat the lesson three times for the horse to understand it, but 20 times to truly ingrain it.  So I started on her “good” side and worked on it until we got to the point where it could be hanging over one ear without her flinching and then I removed it.  Then I moved to her bad side and worked on it – which took twice as long, but we got it.  She’s still not thrilled about me putting on the fly mask from her right side but she tolerated it.  Then I worked on the mask from directly in front of her.  She seemed to like that best. 

Then I drug out the ominous saddle blanket and tossed it on her.  We purchased a really heavy blanket in Mexico when we were there last month.  Oo can move all around the stall with the blanket, even trot, and the blanket doesn’t move much.  Then I snapped a lead onto her halter and sat on the side rails of the stall.  I gently coaxed her towards me until I could rub her head.  We were in the process of coming closer when Bill returned from work and said he wanted Chinese food, so I hopped down, hugged my Oo for being such a good girl and bounced over to the truck for dinner.  I love when Bill cooks – it means we eat out!

I discovered that Oo likes to be called “Beautiful” – she stands perfectly still and pays full attention to me when I tell her how beautiful she is, or that she did something beautifully.  Just something to keep in mind for our next session.  She was awfully smooshy yesterday – she kept trying to give me “hugs” and finally sniffed my cheek again.  It’s been months since she and I did our “thing” of standing cheek to cheek breathing each other in.  I don’t know what I did to cause her to stop doing it, but it looks like she’s forgiven me.