Grooming on a Rainy Day

Yesterday I went down to the stables, and as MiniOwner put it, "the whole ground's saturated." So, instead of the usual cleaning stalls + working the minis, we headed into the upper barn to pull out a couple yearling minis and groom on them.

First MiniOwner took Echo - an E^eE^e/Ch^ChCh⁺ (gold champagne) filly, and I got Ruger - an A^aA^a/To^To-/Z^Z (silver on black) colt.

Ruger was pretty calm about the whole grooming process, and there wasn't much I had to reprimand him for (other than pawing when I stopped grooming temporarily). However, as we'll be showing Echo next year, MiniOwner decided that then was the time to get the filly used to clippers.

Bottom line was that Echo finally got over it. At first, though, she was rearing and freaking out all over the place. MiniOwner just kept going at her (which is honestly what has to be done until the horse realizes that clippers won't kill them. This technique is known as flood training) until she got over it.

After we were done with those two, I got out Reggie - an E^eE^e/To^To (chestnut and white) colt, and MiniOwner pulled out Cayenne - an E^eE^e/Sb^Sb1Sb⁺ (chestnut sabino) colt. For a little while, Reggie was nervous when I was picking out his hoofs; after awhile, though, he just stood there completely still and let me do whatever I wanted to on him. He was shedding a lot (wait...maybe that was Ruger? Grr my memory is getting confused) for merely a yearling, and he really really liked being brushed with the shedding blade. :)

Cayenne, however, decided he was going to act silly when MiniOwner was trying to lead him out of his and Reggie's stall. Short story even shorter, he reared up the first time and struck MiniOwner (thankfully he's a fairly small mini), she warned him not to rear up again, he did, so she pushed him over onto his back.

It may seem mean to a simply "playful" horse for those who don't know much about horses, but they need to learn. And that wasn't just playing, it was also disobedience, and that kind of behavior should not be allowed to reside in any horse; no matter the size.

Anyway, I didn't get any picture of Reggie or Cayenne, but here are a few of Ruger and Echo. :)

Ruger's head. :) Cute boy, but he didn't want to stand still for the picture!

A dark spot on Ruger's neck. I found it a bit interesting!

Echo, the gold champagne filly.

With some minor editing, you can kinda see the hazel-ish eyes common in champagnes.

She has such a delicate Arab-y head.

And big eyes, too!

Some Time with Nolia

Yesterday evening the weather was absolutely lovely, so I went on a long walk. On the way back, I saw Nolia standing right next to the field fence and decided to go hang out with her for a bit.

Usually she'll let me hand-groom on her for a little time, but then she'll wander off unless I give her some grass. However, yesterday she stood still for more than half an hour - just letting me pet on her. I don't generally spend so much time grooming on the field horses, but she was shedding out a lot. Not quite so much as Toy was shedding, though.

So yeah, I just found it really awesome. She stood still for each side (I was both surprised and happy that I was able to make her turn around with simply a handful of grass!), and didn't pretend to spook from cars or anything. 

For five or ten minutes Nolia was facing me, and I was able to scratch under her mane. She absolutely loved this, and started rubbing her upper lip back and forth on the arm of my blue hoodie. ^_^ It was really, really cool, and she didn't once offer to use her teeth! Angel will sometimes do this if I'm close enough to her whilst grooming, but I hadn't known Nolia did nibble rub (what else could I call it?) grooming on people too.

Anyway, I just thought it was pretty awesome. I know that Nolia can and will be wild sometimes (you should probably be wary of her when walking through the field whilst feeding), but she was superbly calm and trusting yesterday. :)

~ IZ

P.S. - Sometime today if I have time, I'll sketch out a stable map for you, and hopefully it'll reduce confusion. :)