Day 33 thru 45 (Lots of hard work)

Wendy:
Murphy and I have worked on a lot of things since the last addition to the blog. We finally got a week and a half of dry weather and it has really helped Steve and I get some much needed time on our horses. I’ve worked on Trailer loading, picking up Murphy’s feet, standing tied lessons, a lot of desensitizing, lunging, and more. Murphy is doing well, he is becoming more confident, and he’s gone from trying to kill the plastic to accepting it pretty well. I decided that if he couldn’t deal with the plastic then he probably wouldn’t deal with me on his back too well, so even though that has really slowed us down, I continued to work at it until he was accepting of it. I would say starting out our hardest tasks have been the plastic and the lunging. Now I can’t pick out anything that he is having much difficulty with. He is a lot more trusting of me and relaxed around the barn. He’s not spooking and bolting constantly like before.

I noticed this week that as I taught Murphy to load in a two horse trailer, I was able to stand up on the fender well and load him from both sides. Two weeks ago if anyone climbed up on his round pen to watch him being worked he would come unglued. I would like more time to work him so I can get caught up to where I would like to be, but so far it’s just hard to find extra time. I will keep going and maybe I can get some spare time. We have a vet appointment tomorrow morning to pull the coggins and wolf teeth. Should be interesting to say the least.

Day 29 (Hauled the trailer out...)

Wendy:
I didn’t try to work Murphy outside of the barn, it is just too slick and wet, and parts of our round pens and our arena are still under water. When we go out to catch the boys we sink a foot. It’s pretty comical, have you ever stepped in sand and tried to pull your foot out and your boot stays in the mud?

Thank God Steve found someone with a four wheel drive to get our trailer out, it’s been stuck for two weeks. We will start working the boys on trailer loading if we can, and start hauling them to an indoor arena. Murphy still needs to go to the vet and have his wolf teeth removed. He’s gentled down enough now that I think that won’t be too much of a problem. It should be interesting trying to teach them to load in all this mess. We’ve parked it on high ground so hopefully we can get something done.