Copper Has A New Trick

I came home from work today and both horses were soaking wet.  It was warm and they still have their winter woolies, but it wasn't hot enough for them to be absolutely soaked.  The area around the water trough was an absolute mud pit, so I wandered over to investigate, thinking that it was leaking or something.  The closer I got, the more clear it was that someone - ahem, Copper the water baby - had learned the joys of playing in the trough.

Skeeter was soaked as well, but not quite as thoroughly as Copper.  It looked like they had learned Jesse's trick of putting both front legs in the trough to play and I was surprised because Princess Skeeter does not like her feetsies to be wet.

As I was laughing at them and wondering what the heck they'd been doing, Skeeter was kind enough to demonstrate her new trick. She buried her face in the water and exhaled through her nostrils to make bubbles. 

"Did you see Mom?"

I tried to catch it on video, but she doesn't perform on demand, no matter how many times I asked.  I finally kissed their soaking noses and went back into the house. While loading the dishwasher I heard a noise I couldn't identify coming from the pen, so I peeked out the window.  It seems that Copper learned to empty the water trough with his head.

Washoe the Wonder Idiot Does Water

Beel describes Washoe as the kid who runs around with his fly undone and has no clue.  I just call him the Wonder Idiot.  But to be fair, he didn't have a very good start.  His first humans treated him like a lap dog and kept him alone - he had no instruction from other horses as to how to behave.  He truly had no "horse manners", he had no clue how to interact with Jesse and Ranger and it took him a long time to learn.  His human manners were even worse when Mom bought him.  He'd been treated like a lap dog, as I've said, but he got big and pushy to the point that he was dangerous to his first owners.  Moving in with Jesse and Ranger and Mom and Bill was a bit of a culture shock to poor Washoe man.

Washoe's always had a bit of trouble with water, too.  Again, not his fault.  Mom had asked the barn boss (a total asshole who we ran off after he threatened to hit one of the wranglers) to help work Washoe.  When Washoe balked at the water, he wrapped his lead rope around a tree and started whipping and winching him across the small stream.  Mom just about killed the barn boss for that little stunt.  I'm surprised she didn't take the whip to the ass.

Since that time, Washoe the Wonder Idiot has had issues with water.  We've worked him through most of them with a lot of patience and firm guidance, but never whipping or winching.  Because of his little problem with water, it's always a joy when we get to do things like this water obstacle.

Lining up...

...between the rock and over the log...

...front is clear...

...and now the back is clear.

I called it a water obstacle of moderate difficulty.  Mom disagrees, as I didn't have to duck under overhanging branches.  That, she says, would have increased the difficulty to moderate.  This, that I did, was merely average difficulty.

That woman is so picky some times.