Czoltar's Spa Day

 

I'm pretty sure he thought he was being harassed. Such is life for baby horses. Z has been nothing short of an ugly yak this spring and after I played with Riesling, I decided it was time to spruce him up. 

He is still learning the basics of everything but I decided he just has to be treated like he knows his job to some extent. He is still reluctant to be haltered but doesn't fight and attempts to run away. But he makes it about five steps before he turns his head to look at me and I pat my thigh and tell him to come and he happily obliges. This must just be his weird baby horse game. 

We have only worked on tying twice but experience is the name of the game. I looped the leadrope around the panel twice to provide enough "you are supposed to stay here"-ness but allows him to not break his neck or freak out if he spooked and tried to pull away. There was a few times he wanted to pull back and leave but he felt the pressure on his poll and was like "oh I have to stop going backwards" and then stood still as I brought him forward again with no issues.

I decided to slowly introduce everything to him because its been about a year since I last brushed him (and he was loose in his stall at the time). He was apprehensive at first but just stood there and accepted his fate after ten seconds. I also wanted to trim his dread locked mane and while he thought scissors were super scary at first he just kind of got over it. I even brushed his poor butchered mane and again, he was not a fan at first, but then I think he started to like this whole pampering thing. 

He's only had his feet picked up for practice and for the farrier and I decided today we would step up the game and I'd pick out all four feet. 3 feet he was super on but his right hind he was being an ass about. I had to encourage him that polite ponies are good ponies and after a few minutes he got with the program. 

I decided he had enough torture for the day so I put him away with lots of pats and good boys. Hopefully none of the other horses make fun of him for his atrocious hair cut. Sorry Z.