Surviving vet checks

[Sue Brown <sbrown@wamedes.com>]

I was interrupted this morning when I started to answer this and lost the
original sender's "subject" title and return address.  Sorry I couldn't
send it
to you personally.

>This is usually the most traumatizing
>event for both of us b/c he just is too interested in
>everything to just pay attention to what is going on
>in front of him...so everyone at rides thinks he's the
>most horribly behaved horse but everyone at home (when
>we go to the lake to ride) thinks he's the most
>perfect trail horse....I don't know what to do.  It's
>just not a situation you can replicate at home. 
>Nell's theory is that he knows what's happening when
>we grease paint the number on his butt.  I don't know.

I'm going thru that with my horses right now since they're all green to
competition stuff...Blaze is the first one, Darby and Blue will be starting
next month.  Blaze can hardly control his "enthusiasm"...and the eye-popping
experience of so many other horses standing (or dancing) around in one area
revs up his *normally* ultra-sensitive sensory receptors to MAX!!  He's also
herd boss at home but a wus when he's out of his comfort zone.  He now loves
leading and is very brave about going by things that he wouldn't have ever
considered getting within 500 feet of before.  (This is the horse that
wouldn't
step off the grass on to asphalt when I started working with him as a
youngster!)

Thanks to all of the advice here on ridecamp, we knew to practice aspects of
the vet check at home and on our training rides...but we neglected to practice
writing on his butt!!  Every time the poor volunteer started to put his number
on, he would swing his rear away from the pressure.  We finally got it done,
but not without practicing a bunch of turns on the forehand!! ;-)  It took me
poking him in the ribs on the opposite side while growling obscenities in his
ear to get him to stand still!  I KNOW we can practice that at home and his
next encounter should be better.  The first two times he had this done were
fine because there weren't many other horse around at the time...he was more
relaxed and not as over stimulated to begin with.  

The part about the excitement from being around the other horses will get
better with further exposure (I'm convinced.. <g>)  He has improved in this
regard quite a bit already so I know that it's not a totally unsurmountable
situation.  I learned quickly to carry the crop with me and have it ready for
action the instant his brain starts to melt! ;-)  

He's come a long way from the colt who wouldn't step on asphalt and he has
significantly *less* Toad Moments (how I gauge the quality of his behavior
<g>)
on the trail than he did even a year ago.  He can still act kind of gorky at
times but he's so damned cute about some of them that all you can do is
laugh...not a terribly correct training method. ;-)  (He is a very cute
chestnut with lots of chrome who looks like he should be a Breyer pony...and
built like a tank...big time cute. <g>)  He's has truly earned his
nicknames of
Gork, Toad, Mr. Toad (as in "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride"...our first year of
training
<g>), Klutz, and Nitwit.

Sue


sbrown@wamedes.com
Tyee Farm
Marysville, Wa.