The Battle Field!

This is the paneling on the tops of the stalls. This was after pushing it back in....You can quite clearly see there is definitely NOT enough room for a 16 hand, 1100 lbs horse to fit through!

This is a head on shot of the round pen panel he took out.

Here it is from the side.....

I just have no idea what I am going to do with this guy! He is still limping around but healing just the same.

W T F?!?!?!?

Where do I even begin?!?!? It has been an interesting week to say the least.... well, more like it all happened over the weekend.


My Barrel Horse:decided he was feeling neglected after we missed our monthly races on the 16th so he decided to go over (really through) the back fence onto our neighbors property. He did a bang up job on his right hind fetlock! It is all scratched up and swollen. So Mom gave him the attention he obviously thought he needed. He was doctored and wrapped (there was some slight swelling) and put up in an enclosed stall. Mind you this horse is 16 hands and has the worst case of clausterphobia I think I have ever seen in a horse. He cannnot be stalled, we now know, even in our completely enclosed stalls. We tried before in one of the open stalls while we were geting ready to head to a barrel race and he in turn tried to kill himself trying to get out. Thank goodness we were out there!; as he was tied when he tried to jump out. This time he tried to go through the paneling on the top of the stall. I am talking about a hole the width of about 6 inches and at eye level for him. How he thought 1000 lbs. would fit is beyond me. After that he was moved to the round pen. That too was a little confining for him.. he tried to take out panels by jumping them. (picture of the panel posted later!) Needless to say he was doctored and turned back out into the pasture before he really could kill himself.



While I was there Mom told me Little Bit was the only horse that hadn't been wormed that day because she couldn't keep a hold of her in the pasture. After much trying she couldn't even get close enough to her to get a halter on her. I proceeded to get her halter and treck on out to the pasture to try my hand at this.



I wanted to strangle the horse by the time we finally caught her. She would let me get close enough to rub her neck and pat her between the eyes. But as soon as the halter came out, up went the tail and head and off she went! LITTLE BRAT!



*Her original name was "Little Shit", but i figured I didn't want to hear the kids saying that in public so we changed it*

ok I'm thinking I need to change the name of my Blog!

I have opened my mouth and gotten what I wanted! OMG! imagine that, my new love interest actually listened to me and wants to make me happy! I never new things like that ever really happened! I have a new addition to my animal family!

I have such plans for something I never thought I would own!

First being A NAME!!!! Poor little guy I have not even given him a name yet! I have to start from zero with this little guy! He is 4 years old, still a stud, and has never had anything done with him! His feet are in terrible shape, he was covered in sand fleas (which are beginning to diminish after daily bathing and an equispot treatment), and I have no idea now if he has ever been wormed. He is unregistered at the moment (pending the gift of 2 name choices).

I am completely at a loss as of what to do with this little guy! I know I want him to learn to pull a cart and break him enough that my youngest daughter can ride him, I just have no idea where to start with him. I do know first things first: FEET! He will pick up his front feet for us but not without a little dancing. The back feet though are quite another thing entirely! I have gotten bit and Clint (previously referred to as new love interest) has been knocked on his butt! Clint has worked with him a couple of times with a rope on his back legs and now we can sort of touch his back side! YEAH! Just going to have to work on it some more so we can actually clip them and possibly get some shoes on him!

Speaking of the little guys back side......They may be small but they sure come at you like they were 16 hands tall and bullet proof! He is very territorial about his feed! I'm not a tall person (obviously) but when you see those two back feet flying at your face while trying to exit stage right it is a bit unnerving! Not once mind you but countless times in a span of about 10 minutes! He managed to trap me in his pen with him until my big strong man came to rescue me! needless to say we got an adjustment for the kicking and now he has company for dinner every night!

So, as you can see I am not only LittleBits' Mom but I also am Mom to a 4 year old little man with no name! I have got to come up with something! Any and all Suggestions are welcome! His Dam's name is Flying Arrows Sassaphras and his sire's name is Flying Arrows My Buddy Mickey. My catch is this, His birthday is the same as the old mare I first learned to run barrels on (Sunshine) that died 4 years ago, and he looks like my old shetland pony Flash that I had before her. I am trying to incorporate all of that into a cute little name that he can be registered with and still manage to get a cute little barn name for him too.

Laura, you and Mark may be able to help me out with the training issues here and I know you can come up with some pretty cute name also! I have never taught anything to pull a cart so; anything you tell me to do I WILL DO EXACTLY WHAT YOU TELL ME TO DO!

If any of you have an idea for a new name for the blog shoot those out too! I'm thinking something along the lines of "Insane Woman has to find time to do what needs to be done before she gets too old to do anything about it!"

wish me luck!

Lacey

Summer time is not all it's cracked up to be.....

I got a post from a fellow blogger bud.... she asked how it was going on my training. Unfortunately not too far! I thought I was going to be able to really get a jump on things but My oldest daughter got picked for her All Star Softball league! Now I will be driving all over getting her to practice 45 minutes away for 2-3 days a week for two hours at a time! Thank Goodness it's only for 1 month! I am very proud of this don't get me wrong, but it sure cuts into precious time after my full time job and her percosious little sister; they sure don't cut me any slack.

Doodlebug's team got third and only four girls on her team got picked for all Stars!

I will say this though; we had our latest round of treating cuts and scrapes! Who'd have thought aerosol cans were the devil! No matter how much I think I'm not getting done there is always something to learn! I had never considered the fact that we have not had to introduce her to Cut-N-Heal! She decided to stand up for herself and fight for her stall! Got cornered and banged up her nose. All she got for the effort was a bite on the neck! of course that ripped some hide off too, so it was doctoring time! Thinking nothing of the fact that she has never had to be doctored before and that I have just gotten so used to her taking so well to everything; I just reached in the tack room door, grabbed the can, shook it (mind you she is standing still and just looking at me, not flinching even at the shake of the can) and sprayed. Her neck was the easiest to get so that's where I started. You would have thought I had hit her with a Hot branding iron! She jumped so quick it took me by complete surprise! That's when I realised we had never done anything like this before!!!!! DUH MOM!



SO.....................



I figured the best way to learn is by doing. I got a good hold of her rope and grasped her nose...(the only spot left to doctor) and *pppssstttt*! There was a jerking of the head but no bolting... I chock that up to success. I know it's a little nervy to have a blast on your face, cold at that, so I let it go. We did ok to my way of thinking! No snorts or trying to kill Mom holding the demon can.

Any Help is Appreciated...

O.K.
Now that the rain is supposed to slack off for a while, my new romance is settling in quite nicely, and the kids will soon be done with school and all the extra activities that go with that (the only thing left is Fair in the beginning of June) so; it's time for me to start getting serious about putting some hours on Little Bit!
I have neglected her for quite a while now. We still have our feet sessions, typical everyday grooming and general social lessons (i.e. leading, space and touch) we even moved on to noises! She is not spooky of a whole lot....just one thing is fatally threatening her life.... the dreaded PLASTIC BAG!!!! I swear she actually attacks them. The mistake was made late last year when we were going to place new shavings in her stall while she was eating. The bag was put in and she proceeded to paw, well rear up and attack, the bag. I have NO idea what brought it on. She has seen us put these same bags in other stalls all around her and the other horses reactions to them (none). She is mortally afraid of anything plastic. I have no idea what was done to her before She was adopted by me from the BLM, but I would be loathe to think anything untoward would have happened. Maybe a bag was caught on the trailer transporting her, maybe some little kid thought it would be funny to shake a palstic bag at the group of yearlings she was in to get some kind of reaction; I honestly have no idea. I do know, however, I do not want to be on her when one blows by or someone walks up to her carrying one.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated in this area. We, my Mother and I, have been trying to "sack her out" (rubbing her with one, placing it on her stall while eating and even tucking it in my back pocket while leading her) but to no avail. She still will not stand still nor let us get close enough for any length of time for her to see it's not going to eat her! We dance all over the pasture for about 10 or 15 mins. before she will let me touch her shoulder with it and even then it's very grudgingly done. She stands shaking like a leaf and keeps a wary eye on not only the bag but me. I fear it my jeopardize Our relationship as far as her trust in me goes.

Her ground work will begin anew in about another week and I am hoping this will be the toughest hurdle we have to face. I have set my goal high and want to be riding her by the end of the summer this year.

The hair subject....

Not quite on the subject of Little Bit; but her unofficial "Little Sister" decided to give herself a nice little hair cut this past Saturday.

She managed to chop off most of her bangs and the entire right side in the back of her head!!! I thought I was going to die! All I could think was "What am I going to do with her hair now for her dance recital?!?!?!?!"

Thank goodness we found a bueatician that could do something with the botched up head of hair...sorry but I am absolutely challenged when it comes to cutting hair! The end result:

It turned into a cute little bob! I am still fuming over the lobbed off tresses! She finally got enough to pull back into a pony tail and this is what she does...

Oh; By the way: SHE HATES IT!

Just Getting Started

This is so totally new to me! I have no idea where to start!! I created this for my new little Mustang filly adopted 2 years ago as a yearling. She is now 3 this summer and I wanted a spot to post our activities and share ideas on training and any issues we come up against. I got this idea from another of my favorite blogs. FHOTD!!! I Love that site! She has just started another for her 3 year old TB and I thought it would be a grand idea to join in in the blogger world!