I'm happy to report that Andy's behavior yesterday was just temporary insanity. Today I brought him into the empty barn alone and he behaved perfectly. Absolutely no buddy sourness. In fact, he was a sparkling example of ground manners. I rode him for a little bit. He's still sore, but slowly getting better. It was almost like he was apologizing because he knew how mad he made me!

I guess we all have off days. I was feeling pretty off sorts yesterday too; so maybe he fed off of my bad mood and frustration as well.

Buddy Sour

Today was one of those days. Andy was a giant butthole tonight. He was acting buddy sour and herd-bound, which he never does. I'll preface this by saving that Andy is usually a lazy doll on the ground. Even my trainer said he had good ground manners. I usually take him from the pasture in the afternoon. He's not barn sour, and he doesn't have a reason to be, because 6 out of 7 times when I bring him in he just gets fed and groomed. So going into the barn alone is a good thing. Sometimes he may seem a little worried that there's no other horses, but he seems to forget about it pretty quickly. He also doesn't really care about other horses in the pasture, and I see him off by himself most of the time (although he usually is somewhat nearby Lance, but that might be all on Lance's part).

When I went to the barn at 4:45, it was pouring down rain and all the ponies were still outside. They are almost always in before four, and they rarely are out in the pouring rain. So all the horses were throwing a fit. I've really never seen anything like it. They were racing around, and as soon as they say me taking Andy to the gate they rushed it. Everything was just very odd- they were all acting strange, and I was a bit worried that something happened to the BO, because it was so late.

As soon as I closed the pasture gate behind Andy he started to freak out. He was trotting, getting into my space, and neighing loudly to the other horses. When I went into the barn and went to shut the door, he almost ran me over to get back outside. Completely unacceptable. I yelled at him, and made him back up for quite a ways. I will not tolerate a horse that runs over me on the ground.

In the arena he was turning in circles, screaming to his friends, and was obviously freaked out, so I knew he wasn't going to tie and stand nicely while I groomed him. So I decided to do groundwork with him until he calmed down. We practiced leading nicely and stopping and walking on my command, not on his, until he dropped his head and relaxed a bit. We backed and worked on moving over off of my hand too. There were moments when he seemed calmer and responsive to me, but then he would remember that he was alone and the other ponies were outside, and he throw his head out, start breathing faster, and call to them loudly. It was very frustrating and after about 30 minutes I didn't think that I would be able to get him calmed to the point that he would tie nicely without other horses in the barn. So I put him in his stall, hoping his hay would distract him. Nope; he still kept neighing hysterically, until the herd finally came in about five minutes later.

I was so ticked that I just fed him, picked his hooves, and left. I ideally would have lunged him or ridden him hard to let him know that that shit doesn't fly with me; but I don't want to risk flaring up his lameness just when he seems to be improving. Hopefully this isn't going to become a regular thing. It was a weird night, and all the ponies seemed to be riled up. He's never been such a butt on the ground before, so I chalk it up to them being upset that their routine had been changed.

A Labor of Love

As a horse owner, it seems that one winds up doing a lot of stuff that normal people might consider disgusting or cringe-worthy. A few weeks ago, I found myself scooping turds out of an automatic waterer, bare handed. Gross, but necessary. When the weather turns a bit warmer I will also have to (horror of horrors) clean Andy's sheath. Or, more appropriately, pay the vet to come out and clean it, so they can properly show me how to do it, and also give him a syringe full of sleepy-time juice. Today, while I was cleaning Andy's stall I realized that what appeared to be clean, dry dirt actually had a layer of rotting bedding underneath. It was pretty impossible to break up with a rake, but I found that if I grabbed the edge and pulled, it came right up, sort of like peeling an onion. So I spent 30 minutes bare-handed peeling up pissed-soaked shavings. In a week I will have to do the endless dance of worming with Andy, and try to get more dewormer in his mouth than on me.

Why do these things? They're not fun, and put me in an other situation and I sure as hell would touch any animal waste with my bare hands. But this is for my horse, who depends on me for everything. In turn, I owe him everything. I've always felt that humans owe their pets and livestock a whole lot. We have domesticated them, and turned them into creatures that are dependent on us for survival. Therefore, we have to provide them. So I will fearlessly grab poop by the handful,if that's what Andy needs!