Sunday, November 20, 2011

Not again

Tying troubles redux.

Cross tie

She'll never outgrow this I guess. Someone did me a favor recently cleaning L's stall for me. They put her on hard cross ties rather than her sliding cross ties and I guess they didn't last a couple of minutes. Someone reached over a stall door to bite L's butt and "plink"..."plink"...bye bye cross ties. Both of them. Then I guess she just stood there quietly with the snaps hanging from her halter.

Those things are hard to break and she breaks them like it's nothing. The thing that worries me the most is one day having a loose end or broken buckle snap back into one of her eyes.

I always clean her stall with her in it rather than tie her. When the weather's too bad to put her out. I found it's a great training exercise actually. My trainer always told me controlling the feet is controlling the horse and I have to control her feet and her position to clean her stall. I maneuver her around. She makes ugly faces but she does exactly what I tell her and it's very funny sometimes.

And from time to time she'll give me "the look" which, unless I bark at her first, will be immediately followed by her abruptly and deliberately stepping right in my way. It's ridiculously transparent. It's not a simple careless move. If it gets that far I smack her butt good and she's just mortified.

When I first started doing this I noticed handling her was easier and controlling her position in her stall had everything to do with that.

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