Filly looked a lot happier yesterday. She was tentatively putting weight on the bad hoof and was back to her normal ways in a box. Amy said that she and Rick had changed the poultice and there had been some signs on an infection being drawn out of the split. Hope it has not got to a difficult part of the hoof to treat. The vet had muttered darkly about maybe having to drain it, which sounds nasty.
On a brighter note her reaction to a carrot stick was interesting. I had collected a halter and stick to go and play with Billy in his field. I happened to walk past Filly's box so that she saw it. Now bear in mind we have not played for nearly 2 weeks due to her ringworm. She gave the most enormous whinny and started weaving her head at the stable door. The weaving is her signal that she wants to play. That was a most gratifying moment, despite her pain she STILL wants to play. It broke my heart to have to refuse as she is on box rest. As soon as we are sure that the ringworm is dead I will play in the box off course. It will give me an opportunity to work on all those neglected areas of her training, such as lowering her head and keeping it there. Now there's a challenge with the Filly !!
After this pleasant interlude my wife, Ritchie, and I walked down to Billy to play with him. He did not walk so far to me this time, but then due to Filly problems I had not been there for a few days. We started playing with all the usual games which went well, and then moved onto circling again. Now that is going really well. On only the third session he is so sensitive, but quiet and confident on the circle. And unlike Filly they are actually round. She still tries to cut the corner behind my back to make a nice Easter egg shape.
One look at Ritchie made it clear that she was desperate to play with him. It was interesting watching him adapt to a slightly different style. She's a bit shorter than me and that changes the body language a bit. My friendly pose is her stern pose !! He picked it up pretty quickly however and she soon had him doing nice circles at walk. She then moved on to leading him, which the girls at the stable say can be a bit of a challenge !
He does try to get in your space a bit. but is so sensitive that moving him away is easy. That might be part of the problem. If you put a bit to much pressure on him he rapidly becomes unconfident and starts prancing around, which being a largish horse could be intimidating. He also tries to overtake when you halt, but a tiny bit of pressure with the carrot stick out in front of zone 1 stops that immediately. Too much and he gets upset.
For non Parelli folks here is a diagram of the zones of a horse we use as a shorthand Parelli Zones
You should also realise that each zone has a "bubble" around it so you can imagine your horse as one of those sausage balloon animals child entertainers tie. The result is that when I say pressure on zone 1 that does NOT mean that I have clunked him on the nose with a stick, just moved it out in front of him !
Going to work this afternoon so must go and play now
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