Today, we planned to catch and halter Alexios again, something that will need to be done with him as regularly as possible. He needs to come to a place where it is completely a non-issue. One can never expect things to go as planned when it comes to horses, and Alexios reinforced that lesson for us this afternoon.
We went about our routine, feeding Poesia and Favorito first, and giving them some love and some grooming. They are all shedding right now so the attention is not unwelcome. When that was done, we entered what has become the maternity pen. Anastacia was easily put on a lead rope. At first, it appeared that Alexios might nurse a little and then let himself be caught. He'd just woken from a nap when we arrived so was probably a bit hungry. I started to approach him from the rear and offered to give him a good scratch on the butt, something he has grown to love. He was having none of it.
He wandered out of reach and cast an impudent look over his shoulder, as if to say "Catch me if you can."
Then off he went.
I was glad I had my camera in hand as he'd decided he was going to put on quite the show!
The storm from two days ago had left no ill effects as Little Lord Alexios was feeling quite full of himself.
He pranced like a little stallion.
Then bolted away, as if the hounds of hell were on his heels.
He has developed this interesting new behavior, jumping sideways down the fence line...
...and then kicking his heels up and out to the side. This baby no longer has any issues with coordination, thank you very much.
He'd settle down for a moment, let me think I could approach him, and then off he'd go again.
It was obvious that I needed to put the camera down and get serious about our undertaking. We tried all the tricks that had worked in the past to catch him, but he's turned into a smart little bugger. He wasn't wearing down, he didn't stress as much about his momma being turned onto the pasture while he was kept in the pen, and he sure wasn't going to get caught.
We worked at it for over an hour to no avail. Then Deb had a brilliant idea. We have a way to section off the pasture where the other two horses currently reside so that they cannot come forward of the shed. This allows a round bale of hay to brought in to Anastacia without interference from them. We have a little coral set up around the shed so Favorito can be easily contained for the farrier and the vet. We shut out the big horses, led Anastacia into the corral using some feed, and Alexios followed her. This enabled me to walk up behind them, effectively blocking his route of escape, and finally put my arms around him.
We held him for awhile, gave him good scratches, and then let him go. That was it, and I am truly hoping that some day he will finally realize that he is working way too hard to avoid such a benign experience. Next time we will use this same method to catch him and hopefully will be able to spend a little more time working on a few other lessons.
One interesting aside from the day. At one point, Deb crouched down and enticed Alexios to approach her. He started nibbling on her clothes and then they put their noses together and breathed each others breath. This is something that horses do frequently as a way to communicate. This is usually done as a greeting, and a way to reinforce the bonds that exists between horses in the same herd.
No comments:
Post a Comment