Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Izzie

Izzie is getting more friendly. She seems to have decided that she will wear a halter to eat her dinner. She is very fond of food, so I should be able to use that to my advantage. The minute you let her go though, she wants nothing to do with you. Funny part is that she tries to get the other horses to run away with her. I can almost hear her telling them to run for their lives, and they stand there with me getting petted and scratched and loved on.  Fiera especially stands her ground because she loves to be rubbed.

I started using some of the Dr. Deb Bennett mannering techniques on her tonight. all I do is put a halter on her and get her to look at me. I scratch and rub her and get her attention and then wait. The goal is to get her to keep her attention on me for up to 8 seconds at a time. She does between 2-5 seconds before she starts looking around. Then you just shake the lead rope a little to get their attention back on you.  Seemed to be pretty easy.

Next week I won't see them much because of my gallbladder surgery.  Greg says he'll feed and Dee also said she'd stop by. They will be fine. Liberty is the only one who really needs his nightly grain ration...I suspect the others will live.

I still haven't worked out their feeding quite yet.  I separate izzie from the others, but I also need to separate Dixie since she's getting the nutrient buffer with her food. Liberty and Fiera can eat together just fine. I want to make it easy for Greg next week.

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