Tails

Tails are awesome. Horses use them to communicate, tails show tell-tale signs of a horse's breed, and they are also useful to swish flies away.

Here are some pictures of tails. :)

Pretty tail hairs.

All Breed Pedigree

All Breed Pedigree is a free, easy-to-use website that has lots and lots of horse pedigrees. People can add horse pedigrees themselves, and I've found nearly every horse pedigree I've searched.

The pedigree features are self-explanatory and simple. Beside each horse's name are its color, breed, and year of birth. On an individual's page you can also view its height, information, and picture if available.

The standard view is five generations, but you can opt to only view four. Also, all duplicate horses in a pedigree have their names highlighted.

Today I researched Feather's bloodlines with All Breed Pedigree to learn more about her genotype. Feather's pedigree isn't on the site, but her sire's and dam's pedigrees are! I was able to trace their ancestry all the way to Arabians in the 17th century or so.

Here is Feather's great-grandsire, Jabbo, modeling for me to show you how easy All Breed Pedigree is to use.

Viewing Jabbo's picture. 

Viewing Jabbo's information.

Viewing Jabbo's 5-generation pedigree.

Heads or Tails?

Or, rather, heads or shoulders? Lately it has seemed Feather would prefer to give me her shoulder than head, which isn't all that awesome when I'm trying to halter her.

MiniOwner suggested I try something new: spend a training session or two without the halter; showing her that I'm not out to hurt her and she doesn't need to be head-shy.

Today I didn't have the time or light to work with the filly - instead I helped clean most of the stalls in one of the barns! Which wasn't bad; it's nice to muck some stalls! Not all the time, of course, but occasionally. :)

Anyway, I was able to do this with Feather last Saturday. She moseyed over to me as usual, and after a few minutes of scratching she let me gently hug her head towards me. I had one hand on the far side of her face (not squeezing the bridge of her nose), and as soon as she gave in to the slight pressure I would release some of it. The other hand kept scratching her and encouraging her when she gave the right answer. After a few moments her head would  wander away from me, thus I would gently cue it towards me again. We did this back and forth for about 20 minutes.

I'm hoping she'll remember it the next time we work. I don't really like returning to the basics, but at the same time I know it is important and for a horse to be head-shy is not cool, at all.

I'll let you know as more things progress. 'Night :)

Bites

It was a cold and windy Saturday. Much windier than usual. At about four-thirty in the afternoon I arrived at the new barn and grabbed up Feather's halter and lead. As with the previous times, she didn't want to be caught. I got her somewhat cornered in the shelter and had her stopped with the lead around her neck, but *every time* I lifted the halter she turned her head away. Which makes it really difficult when you don't have four hands!

Five minutes of her game and still no results. Finally she let me halter her when MiniOwner brought her hay down. (And no, Feather did not get to eat until after we were done working.)

Once haltered, Feather behaved decently. She didn't mind the wind at all, which was a nice surprise; but I didn't feel she would follow me without the lead, and thus didn't attempt it. A bit annoying that I haven't been able to do what I did awhile ago with her lately, but ah well. We've returned to a slow start and reviewing the basics.

Since it seemed Feather felt unwilling to do all I asked of her, we didn't do anything extreme. I led her up and down the slight hill, occasionally halting her and squaring her up. She still doesn't like it when I first reach for her lips to "show teeth", but that doesn't worry me.

Things had been going fine until I stopped her and was asking her to back. She had remembered that hay, lovely sweet hay, waiting for her in the feeder, and wanted to go pay it a visit instead of backing for me. She became mad and impatient and decided the best way to deal with that was to bite the side of my jeans!

It didn't hurt much, but as soon as my brain registered what happened she got a firm "no" and a slap on the jaw. Yes, it's not the kindest, but if a horse doesn't receive discipline for things like biting the horse will start to walk all over humans. Obviously I don't want that happening with this yearling!

After she realized biting was the wrong answer, she still backed for me. Even after being disciplined she still should do what I had asked her to, so I re-asked and she did it (yay!).

Following that we did more leading, halting, and backing. She bit my jacket sleeve twice in an attempt to let me let her go eat sooner. Didn't work! Both times she got in trouble for it and also did what I had asked of her.

I'm really hoping things will go better for us this Tuesday. I don't mind the biting much (that should be simple to fix), but it kinda sucks when she doesn't listen and I feel we're not progressing much. On the other hand, she's a yearling, has a short attention span, and could have been having a bad day. That doesn't give reason for her to bite, but does offer a few possible reasons the last training sessions haven't been amazing.

Planning to keep things slow again this next time, but hopefully we can work on showing teeth and working with her hooves. Wish me luck!