Skeets and I ended on such a good note last Thursday, that I couldn't wait to give it another go on Friday. A little voice told me that it might not be a great idea, since I'd be getting home from work later, about 5:00 p.m., but then another little voice reminded me that I'd promised Skeeter we'd go out again. I rationalized it as the sun wouldn't be setting quite yet when I got home, and we'd have 10-15 minutes to take a quick walk.
Skeeter happily met me at the gate, and practically haltered herself. Perfect!
Our walk from the pen to our driveway (about 15 yards) was brilliant. I just knew we were going to have another great walk like the day before.
Then her head went up and the geese took flight, followed immediately by shotgun blasts. Ironically, the GunDiva's horse hates guns. Hates them. She settled down pretty quickly, but I decided that going down the farm road was a Bad Idea, and changed our plan to just going for a quick trip around the back yard.
Turns out, that was also a Bad Idea.
Cows had moved into the pasture north of us, about a quarter mile. Never mind that cows aren't new to her. They were in a new spot and that was concerning.
I let her watch the cows for a bit, until she relaxed, then attempted to continue a lap around the back yard.
Cue more geese and gunshots, and we were off to the rodeo again. I'm really happy that I use a 12-15' lead rope. Sometimes I cuss it, because it's a lot to handle, but for moments like this, I really love having the extra length.
She circled, concerned, a couple of times. Then her head went straight up, her nostrils flared, and she must have scented the coyotes on top of everything else. Suddenly, her concern went straight to fear. Oh, holy hell. She could not keep her feet still and wanted to get away, but was still respectful enough of the lead to not yank it out of my hands. She also never tried to run me over, which I mentioned has happened when she was younger.
I let her circle at her speed (trot/canter) in an attempt to get her anxiety/fear under control. When she would stop for a breather, I would talk and pet. I did deep breathing exercises, hoping she'd follow along.
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| Not thrilled, but trying. |
We actually made pretty good headway with relaxing, and started to head back to the pen. A neighbor to our northwest took that opportunity for a mag dump: pop-pop-pop-pop-pop. Rapid fire. I don't know if they were just testing their pistol, or if they were shooting at something, but it didn't matter to Skeets. The shooting came from behind her and she was just barely starting to relax.
It was off to the races again. I've never been at a total and complete loss with a horse before. I'm trying to be less 'cowboy' and more 'understanding' of the horse's needs/feelings, to be more of a partner and less of an authoritarian. It's worked well with Skeeter for the most part.
I knew I'd have to get Skeeter's focus somehow, but was afraid of increasing her fear/anxiety even more. If she was just having a temper tantrum, I wouldn't have hesitated to get big and get after her, but this wasn't a temper tantrum, this was fear/stress. She's terribly food driven, so I thought that if I could only figure out how to get to the tack room to get a handful of grain, I might be able to catch her focus.
I don't believe in bribing horses.
At all.
And I felt like a failure for even considering it. Just as I was trying to keep hold of my black horse kite, and pull out my phone to text L.E. for help, L.E. walked out of the house to see if we needed anything. I caved and asked her to grab a bucket of grain. She did, and when she walked back out and shook the grain bucket, it set Skeets off again. For some horses, the rattle of a grain bucket means yummies. I've never once rattled a grain bucket for any of the horses, because, well, I don't believe in bribing them and they don't get bowl food.
It took a few more laps around me for Skeeter to realize that L.E. might have something good in that bucket, and she stopped to look at her. Once she saw the handful of grain, she decided that her stomach was more important than her fear.
As soon as I saw the switch flip from "freaking out/OMG we're all going to die" to pushy food mare, I found my footing again. I didn't mind getting big and making the corrections she needed to behave to get her back to the pen.
I'm an idiot who should have listened to the first little voice (intuition) telling me it was a Bad Idea. But, like most women, I ignored my intuition, and rationalized why I was being silly. It almost got us into a lot of trouble.
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