Friday, January 16, 2009

Holy Cow it's cold...

Sammy is styling in her nice new turn out. It fits her wonderfully, and I know she is glad to have it. We have been having single digit days and today we only got up to 18.

She has been such a good girl when she has had to stay in her stall. All of the in and out of the stall that has to be done to put on and take off blankets. I really thought we had totally gotten over the kicking.

However, I do think I have finally figured out the trigger. She is fine with me in the stall so long as I don't mess with her feed bucket. I can come in put her blanket over her head fasten the snaps, walk around and get her water, bucket bring in hay, or whatever else. She is fine with that but tonight I did something different without thinking. I went in to get her water bucket so I could bust the ice out and I walked between her and the feed bucket and shooed her as I did so. She immediately squealed and spun. Of course I spun on her with the momma AAAAKKKKK you better not. She stopped long enough to realize what I was doing and what she almost did and went to the back wall and stood parallel as close as she could get to it, until I left the stall.

She reacted. That was just it a reaction. She still has that fear of being hungry. She tries so hard to be good and do what I as. She just reacts like any animal that has been starved would. Bless her heart.

BUT, she stopped. She didn't kick, and she warned me before she went to far that I was upsetting her. How awesome is it that she has come so far? I know some of you may be thinking, this woman is crazy. She is happy that her horse squealed at her over food. Well, I would much rather her squeal than react the way she did last time she felt she needed to tell me she didn't like something.

This, as close as it was to being bad, is good. She is learning to communicate, to not feel as threatened. She is learning. That in itself is a huge accomplishment.

I imagine that I will always have to be very vigilant with my attention around her, but she has come such a long way. Food aggression is not something that is easy to overcome.

Well that is it. Not much else happening except the ice. I will keep you posted.

1 comment:

Ed said...

Fantastic story, you do wonderful work with horses... :-)