A Fresh Start

I feel like I'm in a bit of a weird space at the moment. Not bad, just weird.

To be honest, saying goodbye to Phantom a little over a week ago has been a bit of a relief.

There were a few times over the winter that I thought she really wasn't comfortable and that I might to have to make the decision sooner than later. After Cisco left in March, Phantom seemed to have a harder time than usual sorting out the new hierarchy with her longtime companions.  I don't know if Cisco looked out for her more than I thought.

There were also moments where I wondered if she was having some vision issues in her left eye. She would sometimes make a point of putting me on her right side when I went out to catch her, and when leading her on her left she sometimes bumped her head into me.

She just hadn't been engaged or interested in much for quite a while.

Except her hay. Her very large belly for the last couple of months was indicative of that.

If Cisco hadn't gone I might have made her appointment in the spring. But I couldn't do that to myself at that time. However, when I refilled her Prascend in April, I only got the small box.

The original plan wasn't to get another horse right away. But, since plans changed, I knew that this summer would be Phantom's last. Once her Prascend ran out, it would be scheduled.

So I had about 3 months to get used to the idea. Thus, I've dealt with my grief and I'm ready to move forward.

A big part of moving forward has meant cleaning out my tack box and getting it down to one horse worth of stuff. I don't really want to get rid of anything yet until I figure out what Stitch will end up going in, so that means bringing it home and trying to figure out somewhere to store it. I have enough blankets to fully clothe 3 horses, all the same sizes, that are too big at the moment but will probably fit Stitch next year. They're all getting washed and stored in vacuum bags to try to squish as many as I can into a few containers in the garage. I think I pulled out 3 halters, 3 breastplates, and a couple sets of reins just off the one door - they all got dumped in a bin.

This was two grooming kits that I had to thin down to one. I found the Swat I knew I had but couldn't find - that stuff is coveted up here because we can't buy it any more!

I also now have the ability to take a night off from the barn since I don't have to dispense medication - not that I have as of yet. It's been my routine for the last three or four years to be out almost every day so it's taking a bit to break that habit. It's going to happen this week though, as I have an event to attend on Wednesday evening and a late work shift on Thursday. Not to mention I fully expect to wake up on Tuesday morning with a stuffed up head to go with Monday's sore throat and croaky voice. That might be a good reason to take a day off.

So things just feel a bit weird. The greys, who were very much a pair in my mind, are gone. I have a new horse, in a new colour, who I am very excited about. We're taking the slow road, but that's OK- I've already told him he's not allowed to go anywhere for at least 15 years. I might be over this year by that point.

The End Of An Era

It's the end of an era for me. I no longer have any grey horses.

I've known for a while that it would be happening this summer. Despite her daily dose of Previcox, for the last few months Phantom just hasn't seemed very comfortable, and I know that she is a horse who has always disliked anything that made her uncomfortable.

I hope that Cisco was waiting for her and they are forever sharing their piles of hay.

Hand Me Downs

With a new horse usually comes the need to purchase a bunch of new things.

However, with a baby horse, new things might not fit for very long and require another purchase of new things within a short time period.

I am trying really hard to not buy new things for Stitch just for the sake of buying new things for the new horse. The kid still has a lot of growing to do.

It looks like the WOW saddle I had for Cisco is going to work for Stitch. I suspect that they will be of a similar shape - round and wide. I might need a 24" girth for him when I start him this fall, but I'll probably try to borrow one for a month or check out the local consignment options. Next year my multitude of 26" gitths should fit with no issues.

Bridles won't be a concern. Phantom's PS of Sweden bridle looks like it will fit him just fine. Again, I have many more in storage to choose from if need be. No idea what bit he'll choose, but a quick glance in his mouth makes me think that he doesn't have the fat tongue issue that my last two had. Fingers crossed that he's a bit more straightforward about what goes into his mouth.

Then there's blankets. Sigh.

As much as I want to spend all the money and buy Stitch a complete wardrobe, this is the one place that I've made a conscious decision to be frugal. I did buy him a new 69" 100g turnout for a really good price in the spring which he wore a couple of times in cold, wet weather. I also bought the same blanket in a 72" for a really good price for next year. I find the 100g blankets to be the most versatile and use them as a shell over a liner all the time.

But I have not been able to bring myself to spend any more money on blankets for him, including flysheets that will only be worn for two months this year. If I know what size he'll be next summer maybe I'd bite, but I already have a bunch of 75's ready for him when they fit. 

But the bugs have been bad. So I got crafty.

Phantom's Rambo Protector didn't really make it through last summer, which was probably it's 7th or 8th. The mesh on top of the tail flap and the butt above it had basically disintegrated. However, the rest of the blanket was still in pretty good condition, especially considering it's age.

I don't know what the mesh is made of, but it feels like tail hairs were woven together.

That blanket is a 75. Stitch fits about a 69. So I figured I could cut a few inches off the tail end of it, rebind it, add a tail flap, and Stitch could wear it for this summer.

So I did. And you know what? I'm pretty happy with the result.

I ended up moving the leg strap attachments up higher before he wore it.

I admit his butt sticks out just a wee bit. But I didn't really have much of an  option on how much to cut off to get rid of the damaged material. To compensate, the tail flap that I added is a bit wider at the bottom. It's only stitched across the top so that he is able to lift his tail up to poop. I'm hoping it doesn't get tugged off by a pasturemate.

The best part of giving this blanket a new life was the cost. I salvaged the binding from the piece that I cut off and the textilene that the tail flap is made of came from my fabric stash of to-be-completed projects I'll probably never start. I paid a whole $5 for the binding on the tail flap and that was the only thing that I didn't have on hand.

It's not super pretty, but it's more than functional. It just needs to last for two short months and then I can give it the funeral it deserves. 

Positivity

Stitch has been learning to do big boy things. And he's done them all with little to no drama.

We are still a couple of months away from me actually sitting on his back - he doesn't officially turn 3 until the last week of July - but we've been working on things that will hopefully make that day easy.

A couple of weeks ago we started ground driving. This meant wearing a surcingle and a tight belt for the first time. The wearing of the surcingle was no biggie - no bucks at all. The tightening of said surcingle wasn't his favorite.  Not that he was really bad about it, he just walked circles around me. I gave him a couple of days of this then used clicker training to encourage him to stand still. He figured it out right away.

He's worn a saddle - it was just so I could figure out if I will need to get a shorter girth for him. I think that my multitude of 26" options will work this fall.

This kid is smart. And food motivated. He loves positive reinforcement. Especially the kind that ends with a cookie in his mouth.

We've also been working on lining up to the mounting block. He got the idea pretty quickly, but not quite right. He was always one step too far back and his butt was swung away - all the better to make the mouth cookie-accessible. But he knew that the mounting block was the place to be, often stumbling over the steps in his eagerness to get there.

To get him to swing his butt towards me, we went away from the block and used the method where I tap his butt with a dressage whip, and reward him when he steps towards me. Some horses find this difficult to figure out as they only want to move away from the whip, but the idea is that you keep tapping until they take the slightest step towards you and then take the whip pressure off. Clicker training works really well with this method - they figure it out really quickly.

Sure enough, Stitch figured it out fast. On the second day, I tapped him once with the whip, then just held it up and he continued to swing his butt towards me.  Smartypants.

He was so proud of his new trick, that for the next few days, every time I stood next to him he swung his butt towards me in the hopes that it would earn him a reward. Or towards the person we were trying to show our new mounting block trick who was holding a poo-picking fork. Or the person in the barn I was chatting with - although that was probably more asking for butt scratches.

Now, I'm not talking swinging his butt to put you in kicking zone by any means. It's a definite attempt to line himself up with the person keeping them at his wither area, where he is supposed to line up at the mounting block. 

Much to Stitch's dismay, he doesn't get rewarded for these attempts. He only gets rewarded when he is asked for the behavior, and it's generally ignored otherwise. 

He is now starting to make adjustments at the block to get himself correctly lined up. I've also started to give him his treat on his right side by reaching over his back, which eliminates his desire to turn his butt away from me/head towards me, though does create the problem of me getting knocked off the block when his belly (which is getting rounder every day) shifts left when he bends right.

 

And when he's standing there, it would be so easy to slide a leg over and just sit on him....

Soon!