At least the trim went well...

The days are getting shorter and so when I decided to go out and ride at 3:30 in the afternoon, I had to remember that there was only a little over an hour until dark. Right now we have just an outdoor arena to ride in and a large round one at that. Normally, I'd take Chanty to ride in the pasture, but decided to ride in the arena, so I could let Sally run loose and exercise on her own. Unfortunately, she was not feeling up to any running around. It's hard to tell if Sal is improving on her new feed or whether she has significant arthritis in her hocks that some days slows her down.

I know how she feels. There are days when I am just a little too achey to ride for long and I can tell immediately that it affects my balance and my ability to focus on what I am asking my horse to do. It isn't just when your off physically, but on the days when you're feeling a little "out of sorts", it's so easy to blame your horse for the missteps and the resistance you feel with each transition. Things began to go from bad to worse and fortunately I was able to see my own mood creeping into the riding. It was close to dinner, Chanty was watching the other horses leaving the arena and there was no reason to push her to do anything beyond what we had done today, even if it was just to raise her heart rate and run her around for exercise. My job that day was to leave things on a positive note. I still had to trim her feet before the day was over.

Since I first acquired Chanty, she has been very sensitive about her feet, especially the back feet. As a matter of fact, the previous owner had her for almost 5 years and had never picked up her back feet. Chanty had not had her feet trimmed for years when I bought her and since I had not begun trimming myself, I contacted a local farrier for the first few hoof care appointments. He was barely able to trim the front feet and was totally unable to handle the back without a serious struggle. As with most farriers I'd met, he considered it a sign of bad behavior and wanted to physically dominate Chanty, which only served to aggravate her more. Her previous owner told me that she was once trimmed with a twitch on her nose to keep her still during the process.

It wasn't until I'd learned more about Chanty's personality and what it meant to her to have her only source of escape taken from her, that I finally understood why she was reacting so strongly to the trimming experience. Instead of constantly trying to reprimand her for reacting normally to her feelings of insecurity and utter dread, I have been paying attention to her reactions and interpreting them from her point of view. I reward her for standing quietly and for calmly picking up her rear foot and letting me hold it and even place it on the hoof jack while I rasp AND use the nippers to trim off hoof wall. That's something no one was ever able to do during the first 12 years of her life (she is now 15, I've had her 3 years). I consider our time to together during a trim, in which she is standing in the aisleway, untied, eating hay , as one of our many moments of success. She trusts me, she is confident and calm and she remembers how much I care for her feelings no matter what situation we are in.

So, maybe the riding exercise didn't go as great as I'd hoped. No day with my girls or being out in the sunshine with good friends (four legged as well as two legged) is a waste. At least the trim went well....