[Previous entry: "It Just HAPPENS - Okay!?"] [Next entry: "Natural Horse-Manship"]
10/14/2002: "So, How Is Indy Doing You May Ask"
How is Indy doing… Where to begin? Last week we had extremely unseasonably warm weather. Poor Ami was puffing just standing in the barn. Indy? He was romping all over the place like it was cool or something. One evening he got on such a tear, I delayed giving him his dinner - small as it is. He finally stopped galloping to graze with Ami for a few minutes, but when I called them to dinner, what did he do? Raced up the field at roughly Warp Factor 9. Oh well, as I said, I don’t give him much grain anyway.
Yesterday, however, it was windy and very chilly. I could tell Ami liked it LOTS better. And Indy? I think he went to Warp 10. It was around 30 degrees overnight, and Mr. Indy was hopping and bopping waiting for his breakfast. While I was watching him out the kitchen window, he started to race down the front fence line, then, after apparently seeing something strange looking in his path, he came to such a sliding halt he almost sat down LOL! What did he see? As near as I could tell when I got out there - nothing. Maybe the frost on the grass looked different to him or something. Only Indy knows for sure :o)
At the moment, I have a bunch of barn cats that evidentially have NO sense of self-preservation. They drive me CRAZY getting underfoot - and I don’t mean MY feet! They have no respect for Indy’s feet at all - or his head for that matter. The other day, one little cat was sitting on one of the large rocks along the front fence line. Indy came up and started nuzzling her. He kept ON nuzzling, and she never moved a muscle. When I saw her head disappear into Indy’s mouth, my horror reached a crescendo and I started running over to them. Meanwhile, Indy lost interest in the head, and started lipping the tail. Then he lost interest completely and walked away. The kitty continued to sit on the rock - she was barely even wet, and she looked at me like, “What?” Yesterday I was trying to shoo another one from under Indy’s feet, and the Little One ran the wrong way and slammed into his leg. Fortunately, Indy didn’t care and kept right on grazing. They are all TRYING to drive me NUTS!
Then, there was the grooming session. Earlier in the day, Mike has set a bucket of alfalfa cubes over near the outside base of Indy’s hay feeder. We put our alfalfa cubes on old StrongidC buckets for convenience and to keep them fresher. We already knew we had to keep the buckets out of Indy’s reach, and Mike thought that surly was. WRONG. While I was grooming on Ami, Mr. Indy reached through the rails at the end of the stall where he was tied. I heard a noise and came around to see what he was up to. At first, I just saw the bucket lid. Then I saw where the lid had come from - the bucket of alfalfa cubes from which Indy was now munching… Sigh. I moved the bucket.
Indy and I have been continuing with our groundwork, and Indy is doing SO well :o) He now comes to me when I call him - even if I don’t have food LOL! And he is just SO light in my hands on the ground. I intend to school him in a snaffle - partly because that’s what I am most comfortable and experienced with. But I really want to trail ride in a hackamore. That’s what I did with DJ, and he LOVED it. With Indy though, I want to use a REAL hackamore, not a mechanical one. Indy is SO light; I know he will work great in a bosal. Especially now that I know how to KEEP him light.
For years and years I thought about all the things I would do differently with DJ if I had it to do over. Well, now I have it to do over. That’s the way things turned out, and I intend to make the most of it. Indy will get the benefit of all the things DJ taught me in our 20 years together. I think that will be a happy thing for ALL of us - Indy, DJ and Me.
