It's Been A Year!

I can't believe it's been a year since Skeets came home. My heart just stopped when the trailer door opened and there she stood.  It was for real - she was really mine and we were really going to start this journey.

Surveying her new kingdom.

From the minute she picked me out in the pens she was a cheater mustang.  In the pens, she allowed me to touch her all over, including her legs and belly.  I went into this partnership confident that I could handle whatever she threw at me.  She proved herself to be fairly level-headed even on the first day home when she finally calmed down enough to approach me to say, "hi, I remember you".

I love this picture :)

She even allowed me to take her tag off that day.  I know that she was busy taking everything in, and not totally focused on what I was doing, but she knew I wasn't going to hurt her and allowed me into her space long enough to cut it off. (I didn't even know until just a couple of months ago that you could un-thread the tags to get them off - I didn't look at them very carefully.)

The scratches after the tag was off felt pretty good.

It hasn't always been smooth sailing, but it's been a lot easier than some people have with their wild ones.  We've had our big issues, but I can count them on one hand and still have fingers left over.

About a week after she was moved out of her gentling pen, she tried to pick up my camp chair and when I scolded her, she wheeled around and kicked out at me with both barrels.  It was a warning, and she had no intention of connecting, but it shook my confidence for a while.  She learned very quickly that she had to "face up" whenever I go into her pen.  We've not had an incidence since.

A few months later, just when I was starting to trust her again, she pawed at me while I was closing the gate and scraped the back of my calf.  I got after her pretty hard, and didn't turn my back on her for a very long time.  She wasn't being malicious in any way when she pawed at me; she wanted me to hurry up and she paws when she gets impatient.

And just two weeks ago, the bitch bit me (and Bill).  We got after her pretty hard, but I do have to take some responsibility for it because I'd let her manners go by the wayside.  Familiarity breeds complacency.  I got complacent and it bit me in the ass.  Okay, she bit me in the shin, not the ass, but you know what I mean.  We went back to groundwork and respecting space and you can believe that she'll not be allowed to turn her head toward anyone again.

Even with those three issues, we've had it pretty easy.  Easy enough that I probably should be full-on riding her, but I'm not really in a huge hurry.  Yes, I want to be on her riding, but I'm enjoying the easy pace we've got going.

I really wanted to get a pretty, one year "Gotcha" pictures.  Instead, thanks to Mother Nature and this very wet storm system, this is the one year picture I got: