Stickers, yay!

So the other day I was contacted by Buildasign for an opportunity to have some some stickers or decals or signs made for me for free, so long as I put their link in my side bar. (Which isn't a big deal, at all.) So I got some lovely window decals for myself and my fellow horse lovers. :)


I have ten, and I plan to send one to my best friend Jacy, my friend Steff, the barn owner Shannon, and Jeni, who keeps Rosie and Bonnie at the barn and loves on Siaga as much as her own horses, for which I am ever thankful that he's got someone to spoil him rotten while I'm away.

I'm going to keep one or two for myself, and the others I'll probably give to other people at the barn who like their stock horses. :)

Today...

Siaga and I had a lot of fun. I was a little panicked, though, when I walked into a silent, dark barn to find that the mare Dice (arab x qh I think) was in his stall, and upon walking up and down the long aisle a few times, couldn't find my boy anywhere! I finally went into the tack room and looked to see if he was in the quarantine stall. Sure enough, there he was, and the only way to get to him was to go outside and open the big back door instead of going there from the tack room, as so many saddles and lengths of ply-board were in my way.

Anyways, Jonathon took a lot of pictures and I've selected a few to show you all, so you can see what we got up to today.

First, after some frisking and rolling in the dirt, a good petting...


And next? A good bit of walking and trotting on the lead to burn off some energy. He was looking at lord only knows what, right before I bumped the line and took off jogging to bring his attention back.

After that, work time. We played on the indoor trail obstacles. The wooden platform gave him the most problems. He kept trying to walk around it, and I kept saying "If you want to go somewhere, you'll have to walk on it."


But he figured it out eventually... (by the end of our session, he was consistently walking across it, though he stretched out his stride as much as he could to get as few of his feet on it as possible...)

After that was the waternoodle thing. I really don't know what to call it. Siaga was less scared of this, but he did hesitate a little at first.


But even though he hesitated and squeezed his pretty eyes shut, he went through without a problem, again and again and again... and again.


Then it was time to pose for the camera... He definitely looks like a quarter horse in this photo.


Then... fun time! He didn't want to smile for the camera, but it's a cute shot all the same.


As a bonus picture, the artsy photo of the day! You can see here that his name is written on his halter.


And finally... Siaga, take a bow, my boy!


So anyways, I got for him at the TSC, a new 10ft. red lead rope, and a new dandy brush. I can't believe they were out of hoof picks, not a one left in the store. I had to borrow from someone else. At least I put it back! :P

Tomorrow!

I get to go see my boy again. The farrier is coming back out and Siaga was supposed to have more work done on his hooves, but I'm not sure if that will be happening or not. I'm still going to work on him and on picking up his feet and take him to visit the indoor tomorrow.

I can't work on riding until I have a helmet to wear and I hate borrowing one from the BO. Hopefully this will be happening soon, and when it finally happens, the helmet will be going back and forth with me to the stable instead of being left there unless I can get myself a tack trunk to keep my stuff in, as people see no problem moving my saddle and my grooming supplies all over.

This reminds me, I have to buy a new dandy brush, as my last one went missing, and hopefully a new rubber curry, as well. I can't stand that people borrow Siaga's grooming equipment and don't return it. I mean, it's ok if people borrow it, but for Christ's sake, put it back. I've now lost, or had stolen, whatever you want to call it, a helmet, a hoof pick, a dandy brush, a sponge, his old halter (discovered it missing when I brought in his new one) and his lead rope, which is nowhere to be found. I may have to convince Jonathon to buy a new one of those, as well, though it seriously pisses me off that I would have to do such a thing, when the old one was perfectly fine. Just can't do anything about it, it seems. I actually had Jonathon write Siaga's name all over his new halter so that people would know it was his, and I hate marking up the halters as I like to keep them looking spiffy.

I thankfully haven't had to write his name on his saddle or his bridle, though. No one seems to want to borrow those, thankfully. (Maybe it helps that my saddle is black leather and red canvas and his bridle has an indian hackamore on it, so no one wants to borrow them for their gaudy silliness?) Hrmph.

I don't see what I can do, short of hanging signs all over his stall door and by my stuff asking them to please clean and return whatever they borrow. Unfortunately many signs like that tend to get taken down.

Oh well.

So anyways, my camera has this wonderful ability to take video, so I'm going to hope that I can get good film of Siaga in the indoor to show everyone how silly and wonderful he is.

Also, if I can catch the farrier while he's trimming tomorrow, I'm going to watch, I think, and start the visual learning process. :)

Thinking...

About becoming a natural, bare-footed, mustang trimming hoof trimmer. Since Siaga has such a problem with farriers, I think it would be interesting to see if he would be ok with me trimming his feet. I've always had an interest in the business of farriers, but I don't like the idea of shoes, and yes, I firmly believe that horses should go barefooted.

Siaga has never had his hoofies shod, and I intend on keeping it that way. :)

I've been reading about the process of natural trimming and the mustang roll and it seems simple enough, but I'm going to look into finding someone to apprentice myself to so that I can learn from a pro. I don't want to go pro myself, I just want to be able to take care of Siaga's feet and make sure no one gets hurt.
(Poor guy had one farrier, once, knock out both his front teeth at once.)

Hoofy

Went in today and never even took my boy out of his stall. I gave him a brushing and combed out his mane and worked on picking up his feet. He's so good about it with me! I say "Hoof" and give his leg a nudge and he picks it right up and holds it up for me. The farrier, different story. Arg! I may have to learn to trim hooves just so that his feet stay up-to-date!

I also got a kick out his "head banging." I walked a little way down the aisle, turned around, and saw that he was bobbing his head at me, so I did it back to him, and then he paused for a second, and did it harder! It was so cute. So now I'm not only teaching him "Smile!" But "Yes!" as well.

And I discovered that the horse in the next stall over, Paige, I think, has a vice of weaving in the stall. That was the first time I've ever seen a horse weaving, and I really hope Siaga doesn't pick up the habit. -Knock on wood!-

Sooooo

We delayed last week due to the cold and the fact that I couldn't find any of my gloves. So we are going to go visit my boy on Friday. It's still going to be below freezing, but hopefully it won't be horrible.

Anyways, my boy has to have his feet trimmed up again soon so I think I'm going to work on that with him, the barn 'butler' said last time that Siaga gave the farrier hell, which isn't good, even if Siaga has a perfectly good excuse to be afraid of the farriers.

If I were less of a person, I might have him sedated for the trimming, but I think that's kinda cheating. So anyways, I'm going to spend a good bit of time working him with his feet, and I'm hoping that when next we have his feet trimmed, I can be there to work some of his energy off before hand and try to keep him calm and relaxed while the farrier is working on his feet, especially his hind feet, as those he has the most trouble with.

Oh Siaga... you and your silly feet-phobia.

Get to see him again

So very soon. Next week, actually. I was going to ride bareback, but I think that that should wait a while more, considering everything. So, gonna take him to the indoor and work off some of his steam, saddle up, and go for a ride, again just practicing movement and directions and stopping and going.

I've missed my boy so much.