It was late morning. When I got there, I was told that Tico had already been turned out and Dusty hadn’t gone out because the turnouts had been too wet in the morning.
No big deal - I figured, switch Dusty for Tico in that turnout, Dusty will get to stretch his legs and I can ride Tico.
When I saw Dusty in his stall, I changed my mind: he was coated in mud and loose hair. I decided I’d vacuum him first (I have a Shop Vac just for that use) and get the dead hair and mud off him, then I'd switch them around.
There was a LOT of loose hair and dirt, I had to empty the vacuum after doing one side of him, then again after the other.
Of course a few carrots and Kashi bars were passed his way all the while, and praise for being such a good boy, just standing there. Then I picked his feet and we started to go out.
It was then that I saw Tico in all his muddy splendor.
I hadn’t recognized him at first – he was so coated in mud I wasn’t sure if it was Tico or the appaloosa Comet, another boarder, I was seeing. But there was a blue halter on the muddy face, and when I called his head came up and he came running over.
The switch went well - Tico can sometimes be a twit with Dusty, he's very jealous of any treats Dusty gets, and has been known to act out about it in his stall. I didn't want to see any such bad behavior with them out in the turnout, so I made sure to give Tico a treat, switch the lead line, and keep a good hold of his halter to make him pay attention - and he did.
The amount of dried mud on him, I didn’t want to just move it around and have it end up crusting on his skin so I decided to vacuum him too.
This was not a decision I made without some trepidation. He’s not good about being vacuumed and we've had some cross-tie breaking incidents involving the vacuum.
The vacuum has never done anything to deserve this kind of attitude.
While I've been accused of being a bit of a fluffbunny in my dealings with horses, I don't have a lot of patience with a horse who was good about something *once*, and then not. He'd apparently come to the conclusion after some thought that he didn't care for being vacuumed. Breaking crossties and going on walkabout on the property was definitely the option he preferred when the vacuum was presented.
Not being vacuumed was not an option as far as I was concerned. Still, I just didn’t feel like having to fix broken crossties again; so Tico, the vacuum, and I (with a pocket full of carrot bits), all went into his stall together.
I turned the vacuum on. He eyeballed the vacuum and cowered against the wall. He did a little tippy-hoof dance, and shot me the stink eye. I produced a carrot, and approached, vacuum nozzle in hand. The carrot reached his face as the nozzle touched his skin. His skin jumped, but he stayed put.
We continued this approach, for a bit - he'd get a piece of carrot if the eyeball was too buggy, but the vacuum was relentless. When he'd start to really get himself wound up, turning, or backing up, I'd growl "Whoa!" and he'd stop - he'd listen. Which makes me even more sure that it was all an act: if he was truly afraid he'd have knocked me down and gotten the hell outa Dodge.
I had to get him turned around to get the other side, and it all started again of course. The equine brain is a wonderful thing: things they see with only the left eye are completely surprising when they're turned around and catch their first glimpse - again - this time with the right eye.
With the continued application of well-timed carrot bits, we got through the ordeal. By the time I was done, he was still standing against one wall, but with his head down, relaxed.
So I took him out onto the crossties, and noticed a big nasty streak of black on the inside of his back leg. Crap! Out came the warm water, and he got a quick cleaning *down there*. :)
Of course this all took some time and I had things to do. I debated not riding at all, but decided I’d just do 15 minutes. I brought him out back, and we trotted and cantered a bit, and he was pretty good – a bit high headed, but moving up and not doing anything really naughty. There were gusts of wind, and everyone knows they carry horse-killing monsters, but all in all he was pretty well behaved.
I was just about to go back to the barn, but I thought I’d try something.
One of the other boarders had set up some jumps out back, including a tiny thing – basically they’d taken a couple of the X-shaped bottoms from some jump standards, turned them on their sides and set a rail across them. It was about one foot, maybe a foot and a half high.
Since this is a horse who doesn't like lifting his feet up all that high (and so every so often trips over things real or imaginary) I decided I’d have him walk over it, to get him to lift his legs.
We walked up to it. I gave him a chance to really look at it.
The first time, he bumped his front legs, not lifting them up high enough. He stopped for a moment after getting his front legs over, then tried his backs.
With his back legs again, he rapped against the rail. I think he was hoping he’d knock it down with one of his back legs and wouldn’t have to step up with the other, because he kind of ended up almost standing on it on the way over, and then getting a bit tangled in it. It stayed right where it was.
He didn’t like that at all.
I asked him do it again. His front legs he lifted right up and over, quite handily.
Then we stopped. You could almost hear the gears grinding in his head.
I didn’t do anything, just sat there waiting to see what he’d do.
He started to move... sideways. As nice a sidepass as you’d like to see. Until we got to the X, which was of course wider and higher than the rail itself.
He stopped again, thinking. He must have stood that way another 20 seconds, before I gave him a little nudge.
He *very* carefully lifted first one back leg, then the other, up over the rail, not even a tap.
For that, he got to grab some grass on our way back to the barn.
