Nov 25, 2010 - A tour of the facilities

Nov 24 - Rory checking to make sure I'm still there.

When I went to see Rory this afternoon he was munching at the haybale along with both the other two year old, and the older horse.  I called him and he looked up and then came right over.  Totyo (the other two year old) looked like he was considering coming over as well, but decided the hay was more interesting.

I didn't want to do too much today, so we went for a little tour of the property.  Totyo started calling for Rory shortly after we left the paddock, but Rory didn't really pay much attention.  He was busy looking at all the new stuff.  I took him up to anything that really made him suspicious and he touched most of it.  Rory didn't know what to make of the mini horse, and decided not to think about her too much.  We went into the sand ring and around the paths to the various other paddocks, stopping once to say hello to the barn owner's horse.  When we turned back towards his own paddock Rory picked up speed and I had to remind him several times to stay with me.

In the arena Rory whinnied a couple of times, but then settled and we did a little bit of yielding before going back out.  I took him through the barn before going back to his paddock.  In the barn I let him have a good look around and nose blankets and stalls and whatnot.  I drew the line at chewing on halters, and had to drag him away from the one with sheepskin on the nose - that one was attractive.  After I took his halter off Rory had a good drink of water before Totyo arrived.

New digs and an old friend

Rory and the other two year old

 Today was sunny, cold and rather windy.  Looking at the forecast for the week I had decided that Wednesday or Thursday would be my best bets for taking Rory over to the new barn. It's close enough that we can go for a walk down the road, but I was a little worried about the wind, and Rory's tendency to just decide he's leaving.  He's been really good at home, but the escape at the vet clinic put me on edge again for any abnormal situation.  Walking down the road definitely counts as that.  The wind had me considering waiting until tomorrow, until I remembered that Thursday is garbage day around the barns, and if the wind didn't drop we'd have a lot more things to scare Rory.  So today it was.

I stacked the deck in my favour as much as I could.  I still have the first longeline I ever bought - a heavy cotton one.  It's not really very good for actually longeing because of the sheer weight of it, but the thickness and weight lets me get a good grip on it which made it a good choice for taking Rory down the road.  I had the longeline snapped to the rope halter, and a short nylon lead with a chain.  He wore his nylon halter under the rope one and I wrapped the chain over the noseband just in case he blew off the rope halter.  For a little protection for him I put splint boots on all four legs.  It seemed a bit silly, but if he'd jumped and bumped himself with a hoof I would have been really mad with myself for not putting the boots on.  I left his turquoise rainsheet on as well to make us more visible to traffic.

I was a little nervous setting out, and Rory was hyped up by the wind and unusual activity, but off we went.  The actual journey went quite well.  Rory stopped and looked around a couple of times, and I stopped him several times so he could turn and look when vehicles came up from behind.  The little bouncing, yapping dog was a little unnerving, but he settled quickly once we were past that house.  The cow in a field on the other side of the road was pretty scary.  The wind was blowing right from the cow field towards us and Rory didn't know what to make of the strange beast.  Again he looked, hesitated, jogged a bit but listened to me and walked safely onwards.  At the corner Rory received enthusiastic whinnies from the ponies and horses who live there.  He whinnied back once, and pushed into my space a little bit as he drifted closer to the horses.  I had no trouble pushing him back out of my space and we proceeded down the road.  The last stretch was the busiest and the narrowest road we travelled.  At one point a furnace oil truck came barrelling along towards us and slowed down before he got too close.  I waved thanks as he passed, and Rory barely looked at the truck.

It was with relief that we turned down the driveway to the new barn and navigated past the icy puddles and out to the barn.  Rory's old friend - the other foal born about a month before Rory lives at this barn and they're going to share turnout space again.  The other two year old spotted Rory and whinnied at the new horse, and Rory whinnied back.  It seemed as if they recognized each other and kept calling for a bit.  I stripped the nylon halter off and took Rory over to the gate to see the two year old and the older horse that will be his new herd.  The three nosed each other over the gate, and Rory moved away when the older horse pushed so I took him into the paddock and let him go.  Rory wanted to stay right beside me as the other two mobbed him and I ducked out through the gate pretty quickly before they could start shoving.

Rory got out of their way.  The two year old pushed a little bit, but it seemed that he was happy to have a horse he could play with.  The older horse told Rory he was boss hoss in this group a few times, and every time Rory said "Yessir!  I'm getting out of your way!" without hesitation.  He came back to me as the other horses backed off a bit and I took the front boots off, then after they'd run a bit more took the back boots off as well.  I did put his halter back on for the hind boot removal.  I took a bunch of pictures and shot a couple of minutes of video as well.

Before I left Rory was starting to play with the other two year old, and going to the hay when the older horse wasn't eating.  He was looking around at everything, and was clearly a little worried about the change, but wasn't being silly about it.  Rory's the easy one - I knew he'd just get out of the way of the other horses, but Brat's past that point and I'll be a little more concerned about how he integrates into his new group when I bring him over in a few days.

November 18, 2010 - Rory's new clothes



Rory looks good in turquoise!

 The Royal is over again for another year.  I went with the barn owner's two horses again this year as braider and groom.  The girls did well in the CSH classes.  I made a point of watching the Governor General's Cup and the Lieutenant Governor General's Cup classes for three year olds.  It gave me a good idea of what I need to prepare for if Rory qualifies for those classes in 2011.  There was one horse that reminded me of Rory - with similar conformation/flaws - who got pulled into the top ten in the GG's Cup and top five in the LG's Cup.  It's encouraging.  I hit the trade show and did some damage to my budget, but everything was a good deal.  I got Rory's winter turnout the first night for 20% off.  They also had rainsheets on sale and I bought one for Rory the morning we left as it is still too warm for the insulated blanket on a furry horse.

These blankets are advertised as being adjustable up or down a full size from the listed size, so I bought one size too large for Rory's current size (he's 72" right now).  He's at the age where he's still growing and could need the larger size before the end of winter.  The ability to go up yet another size also opens up the possibility that he could wear the blankets again next year - assuming his buddies don't rip them apart.  I wasn't willing to spend a lot of money on blankets that he quite probably wouldn't be able to wear another year so I went with a "cheap" brand.  So far I'm quite pleased with the blankets. 

I put the rainsheet on Rory when I got home, snugged it down as small as it would go and it fits him quite nicely.  The top chest strap is a bit lower than I'd like, but that seems to be a common issue with smaller blanket sizes. The rainsheet is one of the ones that has a mesh lining behind the nylon shoulder area, and as I expected the mesh attempted to crawl off over Rory's tail as he ran about his field for a few minutes.  Mesh can't move forwards against the hair so the blanket ends up jammed tight around the horse's shoulders, and the high neck styles have the high neck pulled back and rolled in - which funnels the rain neatly down inside the blanket.  I took the blanket off, and took it home with me so I could spend a couple of hours sewing a nylon lining over the mesh area.  Normally I wouldn't buy a mesh lined blanket, but this one was inexpensive enough that I was willing to do the work to cover it.  We had a torrential rain overnight Tuesday and into Wednesday and Rory was nice and dry under the rainsheet when I brought him in on Wednesday.

Rory's still a little uncertain about the putting on and removal of the blanket, but he doesn't try to escape.  Today I sort of squashed it together over his back and wiggled it around and made it rustle before actually taking it off.  We worked a bit on the longeing concepts again today.  Another horse was being longed at the other end of the arena and we occasionally had to stop and watch for a bit, especially when she started to canter.  Rory was good.  He's getting the "walk on" very well (same command as in hand), "out" is coming, and "whoa" isn't too bad either - depending on how distracted he is.  Tightening the surcingle in the arena was a bit of a wigglefest, but I got it snugged up.  He doesn't have sidereins or anything like that just yet, but I have him wearing boots, surcingle and bridle just so he grows accustomed to doing things with tack on.  Many of the jumps have moved into the arena for the winter so the far corners are full of equipment.  Rory was wary of them at first, but was fine once he had a chance to go and take a look - and stick his nose into the box of flowers.

Earlier this week we went for a walk around outside.  Partway down the road, round the track.  Rory half bolted a couple of times, but turned back to me when he felt the pressure on his halter without a lot of effort on my part.  I was quite pleased with that given his baby tendency to just decide he's leaving.  We're facing a longish walk down the road in the next couple of weeks.  I'll pick a quiet time of day, but we're going to be working on the longeing and yielding to pressure on the halter leading up to the day.

November 11, 2010 - Did I hear that right?

Yesterday I went out to feed Rory and found him and a couple of other horses sleeping flat out in the sun.  I went out into the field to take pictures in part because Rory and the brat were lying nose to nose though about five feet apart.  Rory got up when I got close enough, but the brat couldn't be bothered to do more than tilt his head without lifting it off the ground, before going back to sleep.  I took Rory out of the field and did a bit of walking and body moving exercises before letting him have his feed.  I was watching him eat when he jerked his head slightly and let out a minute squeal, so short that I wasn't convinced I'd heard it or that he was responsible for it.  A moment or two later he opened his mouth and dropped out the half chewed feed.  I wondered if he'd found a foreign object, poked through the gooey bits and did find a chunk of something.  I thought it was a bit of badly processed feed, but as I brushed off the feed it was revealed as a chunk of tooth! 

I think it's about half of a molar cap.  It was really neat to see and I was surprised at how polished the grinding surface was.  The outside perimeter and the central bit that are harder than the rest of the tooth were clearly high spots with the bit in between smoothly falling away.  Very cool!  I never got a tooth or chunk of tooth from the brat.

Today we went for a little walk further down the road than we have gone before.  Rory was looking about and very alert in his cautious way, but he was very good.  We passed a neighbour loading clanging metal things into a metal utility trailer, and the little flapping Canadian flag at the end of the next house's driveway, and watched a car come towards us and go past.  He was very good.  I heard an unusual crunch while Rory was eating today, but there wasn't anything to be found in the food he spit out afterwards.

November 5, 2010 - Patience grasshopper

It snowed on the weekend.  Not even the end of October and we had a significant amount of wet snow fall on Saturday night.  Rory was a little chilly when I brought him in to eat his dinner, but by the time he'd finished he was comfortable.  I sent him back out into the snow with the admonishment to go into the shelter with another horse for warmth.  He's not really furry yet, but I know he does go into the shelter - alone if he decides he needs to go in, so I wasn't concerned about him.  I checked on him again on Sunday morning and he was fine.  He will be getting a winter blanket shortly, but it's going to have some insulation and would be a bit warm for him yet.  According to "those in the know" we are supposed to get a winter with normal temperatures and more snow this year.  Normal temperatures being colder than the last few warm winters we've had.

Yesterday I took Rory with me into the arena while I was teaching a lesson.  He had to follow me around, get out of my way and stand politely as I moved or stopped to follow or watch a student.  It was a bit boring for him, but I did ask him to do something specific fairly regularly and rewarded a good response with a tiny chunk of carrot.  If I ignored him for too long Rory started to get a little mouthy, but his only reward for that was a bop on the nose and being sent back out of my space.  It was a good lesson in patience for him. After the lesson was over I spent a few minutes with him getting him to move his body in various directions, and trotting over the three poles I'd set up for my students.  He was happy to move and cantered neatly over the trot poles several times before actually consenting to maintain the trot.  He was very good and got more carrot chunks and lots of rubs for being good.  I fed him and let him back out.