Vidal Sassoon I am not

Today Woody and I continued, what was supposed to be, the beautification process.  Most of this involved more pulling of his mane.  I have come to a very important realization. 

Like plucking my eyebrows, I am not to be trusted when pulling a horse’s mane.  See, when I pluck my own eyebrows, I sort of space out and get hypnotized by the methodical de-hairing process.  One time a friend said to me “Lisa, did you pluck your eyebrows last night.”  I replied, “why yes, friend, I did.  Why do you ask?”  To which he replied “Because they’re FREAKING me out.”  And true enough, the look I’d given myself was of someone who was 1) very surprised, and 2) plucked their eyebrows with a deep seeded hatred for them.  It looked like I had one single hair traveling over my eyeball.

Pulling manes is not unlike this.  I pull, and i even up, and I pull and I space out and before I know it, my tolerant and mighty steed has a haircut that people in the military would look at and exclaim “Crap, that’s a short crop dude! Who thought that was a good idea?”

And today was no different.  I’m currently telling myself that once he’s given a good bath and his mane is clean it will fall in a less “My mom was drunk when she gave me this haircut in the dark” fashion.  Right?  That’s what’s going to happen, right?

I give you exhibit A

I’d say that it’s a work in progress, but I fear if I progress anymore he’ll have a hairline of one wispy hair that traverses down his neck.  (not unlike my eyebrows before i learned my lesson).  I will say that it is not QUITE as uneven as it looks, the wind was blowing pretty hard and … and… and….

Woody is still in his special classroom all by himself.  He has moments where he looks sound for all intents and purposes, and then later that day he’ll be lame at the walk.  Today was a good day so I put his bridle on and walked him to the ring to give him a looksy.  There was lots of looking, and a little snorting.  The ring has some XC jumps in the fence line.  One had fallen down only to leave it’s two tires leaning up against the fence post.  This was something something Woody was not so sure about. 

Woods pleased me with his reaction.  He snorted, backed up a step or two and then stood still.  I let him relax and slowly walked him forward towards the Tires of Terror.  When he got tense I’d stop for a minute and let him chill again (but not back up).  In about 1 minute he walked himself the final 5 feet up to the tires and sniffed them.  That I like.  I’d much rather a horse voice their displeasure but choose to check it out instead of run in the other direction.  No matter how long it takes, the want to move forward and check it out is ALWAYS a good thing.

Then I checked to see if he knew how to longe.  I don’t know if he has been taught before or not, but if he hasn’t then he’s a quick study.  Within about 2 minutes I had him walking on a 10-15 meter circle around me.  He was much better to the right than to the left, but the fact that I could get him around the circle at all was more than I was expecting.  He even trotted a step or two without dramatics.  He was a little off at the trot, but not too bad.  Woody, yet again, impresses me with his attitude.

After this he of course got a multitude of treats.  I really am creating a monster.

Then I gave him the aforementioned Hairdo and turned him back out in his paddock.  Woody has his own cat and she followed us to turn him out.  His first night on the farm this cute pusskit apparently slept in his stall with him.

I did get Woody to trot a bit in his paddock to see how he was moving.  Not sound, but not awful either.  Considering he wasn’t too hip about walking two days ago, I’d say he’s doing pretty well.  Here’s a video.

Getting Better

And here is why getting a video of Woody is difficult when I’m by myself . here’s the direct link.

So that was today.  If Woody’s moderately sound this week I’ll get on him and just work on walking WHILE bending.  It’s a tall order, but I think he can handle it.