An OLD wise man once said:

A Little is Better Than None

As winter sets in, so does the cold & flu season. DH was feeling a bit under the weather last night and the boys were engrossed in cleaning their rooms (I guess they are really worried Santa won’t come) so I headed out to do chores by myself.

The ponies are always eager to come in for food. I can almost tell you what order they will come in (Cat, Lucy, Bell, and then Abby). Cat is trying to show her dominance over the other horses. As the youngest horse in the pasture she should be getting her butt kicked – instead – she’s doing the kicking.

Bell just can’t get with the program and it annoys me to no end. She’s been going in the same stall since we got her yet she still can’t quite figure it out. My horses seem to pick this up in less then a week. Last night she went into Cat’s stall instead of her own. Cat knew Bell was going to get whacked so she hauled ass out of her stall and into the empty stall on the end. Chaos set in and everyone was panicking to get into their stalls but they couldn’t because of Bell. Once Bell finally found her stall everyone else ran to theirs for safety.

Cat and Abby don’t get as much as Bell and Lu so once Cat was done I decided to check out some of her new “battle scars”. I decided while I was waiting for the others that I’d clean out her teats. She was not thrilled and let me know it by kicking out her leg. The halter came out and then next kick was greeted with a whack on the ass from the end of Mr. Rope. Mr. Rope some how always seems to get her attention. After she was clean I did some flexing. She had a difficult time reaching her belly (I’m still not sure why – it sticks out so far it should be easy to touch) but she did try.

I decided I would go ahead and back all of the horses out of the barn. I started with Cat – she knows the drill so she was pretty good. Then Abby – she wasn’t too bad. Then Bell - ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Please kill me now! I realize she has not been taught to back up off of pressure but man did she go from dull to over reactive. I know where her trailer loading issues come from because we had them in the barn isle last night. As soon as pressure hits her poll she goes flying backwards. I knew I didn’t have a ton of time so I did what I could to get her to back out quietly without over reacting. I finally got it and turned her loose. Lesson #1 – let DH deal w/his own horse! From now on I think I’ll just back out my two and Abby.