Only Amber...

I thought I was going to miss Dr. Wheeler, because in my brilliance I forgot I had to work until 2. Fortunately, she was still there. I hurried to get Amber. She decided that she didn't want to be captured today.

Amber goes through her moods. Some day she's happy to be caught, some days she pins her ears and speeds away from you. I usually rip her a new one when she does that, and she flails and acts like a moron and then comes quietly. This only happens when she is on stall board. She will come to you when she's on 24/7, and I hate it for her, but that just can't happen. There's no dry lots for her to be on for 12 hours.

She's usually not THAT hard to catch even when she does run. She usually sees me coming to retrieve her, pins her ears and walks/trots away like she doesn't see me. I'll say "STAND" and she knows I mean it, so she stops somewhere and waits. Today, she started to walk off, and it was seemingly her usual "hard" to catch. Then she proceeded to canter rather quickly away. Then Victoria's horse Dylan canters after her. Thanks for offering to help Dyl, but it's probably just going to hinder me.

That stirred her up a bit, and then I tried to corner her up. Usually if I can use my body to pin her in somewhere, she will give in. No. She gallops away and kicks out at me. OH HELL NO!

I eventually had to go get grain to catch her, and even then she was wise to it and almost didn't stand. Man...I let her know something.

By then she had gotten the majority of the horses in her pasture galloping, bucking, farting, generally acting foolish.

I hurried her into the barn and she was, as always good for the vet, other than being lazy and rather disinterested in cooperating with the trotting out part of her check up. She isn't dragging as heavily and she has more flexibility in her hocks, Dr. Wheeler said.

We are to continue doing light walk/trot. She recommended keeping her on the same diet and turnout she currently has. As I suspected, she too thought that gaining weight would be worse than stalling her 12 hours.

I'll be getting a call about our appointment with the chiro and for her stifles. I have a good feeling about this, so let's cross our fingers!

Remember Bob, from Halcyon? He did a drive by today...kind of weird. It was very obvious that he specifically wanted to drive by, since he circled back to the other road. Haha.

I started pulling her mane. Cheater pulling looks great on every horse I do...but her. She has a mohawk every time.

She has probably never had it done. I tried and gave up a long time ago just because I didn't want to deal with it. Well, today she just had to get over it...

She was a WITCH at first. I thought a couple of flakes of hay would keep her busy enough. Nope. She swung around and turned her butt. OH HELL NO. Yet again today. This occurred a few more times, resulting in the same firm whack on her hiney. Finally, she stood for me to do one piece. I praised her and got the halter to save me from further pains. Should have had it all along, but perhaps I was being wishful.

She stood a lot better. She tried to slip away a couple more times, but ultimately didn't spaz and wasn't too hard to keep still. I gave lots of pats and cookies for her standing so nicely - at least compared to the other attempts we've made. I don't think she was threatening me by turning her butt. She's a smart mare and she was careful to keep me from getting on the right side (thus having access to her mane). All she was doing was trying to avoid me. Still disrespectful, but not aggressive. We did about 2/3 of it. Looks better. I'd rather have a pulled mohawk than a cheater pulled mohawk...maybe it will grow out and be normal.

Despite it all, she's in a better mood lately. She's a mare, she's opinionated - it's just part of her being one! And I love mares. They're smart, they're sneaky, and they will let you know exactly how they feel about everything. But that's exactly why she's so quick to learn new things, under saddle and on the ground.

I felt bad for her though during our ride today. We stood in the middle for a few minutes at first while one of the kids jumped a pony around. I didn't think about it, but when we jump we always stand in the middle between the diagonal jumps and wait for the others to finish their rounds. She thought we were going to jump...she was not amused when I steered her away from the jumps.