Last week I posted proudly that I was having none of the problems I imagined I was going to have while trying to bring three horses in from the pasture in an orderly manner. Now I’m having them all and more that I never even imagined.
The main problem is that Rosie can’t be left alone. She will jump through the fence. Not over. Through. It is a three strand electric fence. I’ve seen her be shocked by it. She jumped back. But I guess she has decided that getting to the barn is worth the shock. Now it has progressed to the point that if one horse is taken out she breaks down the fence. She doesn’t even have to be left alone. So the obvious answer is to take her in first. As much as it annoys me to have to cater to her whims I was willing to do that to save myself the fixing of the fence yet again. That’s where I ran into another problem. Namely, Spirit.
For some reason the order that horses come in from the pasture is directly related to their dominance in Spirit’s mind and he’ll be damned if he’s going to let Rosie go in before him. I hate to break it to him but she’s bossing him around in the pasture and is clearly the dominant horse. I think this is his only way of fighting back. So yesterday when I tried to bring Rosie in first he planted himself by the gate and refused to move. I pushed on him, yelled at him, slapped him and he just calmly looked at me. So I put a halter on him and tried to bring them both in together. That requires one hand on each horse and a third hand to close the gate to keep Prize in the pasture. I might have pulled it off if Rosie hadn’t been convinced she was being left behind and bolted when I opened the gate. So I lost hold of her. As I used a lot of colorful language, I managed to swing Spirit around and latch the top strand of the gate. I knew that wouldn’t do much but I was mad and I didn’t care. Prize proceeded to crawl under the gate and trot up to Spirit and I and come with us to the barn. Rosie came too. I don’t know what to do to fix this.
I also found out this weekend that Rosie has pretty much been dumped on us. The deal when she came here was that her owners would clean her stall at least 3 times a week. We’ve seen them 4 times since 12/19. If this were a normal boarding situation I’d kick them out. But we’re doing this as a favor for the husband’s business partner (Rosie’s owner’s grandfather who is footing all the bills). Now I hear that the owners are moving. That move does not involve taking the horse with them. The grandfather wants to sell the horse but she hasn’t been worked with so she isn’t prime horse-for-sale material. They were also ripped off when they bought her and want to recoup their money. Not going to happen. Anyone who would pay what they want has more money than brains and will not be a good home for this horse. She needs a teenager that knows what they are doing and wants a horse for local shows. That type of home will not pay her asking price.
So they want to know how much extra I will charge to clean her stalls. My response was there is not enough money in the world. I’m lazy enough when it comes to my own stalls. I don’t need another one to take care of. I also know that if they want to sell this horse she needs worked. I don’t trust her. I don’t want to ride her. I will do ground work with her to get her safe to ride. I’ve enlisted a 4-Her in my club to come ride her when I feel she’s safe. I have no idea when the last time she was ridden was. But if I want her gone I need to get her ready to sell.
I agree with you completely. You can lead a horse to water, but if you can get him to float on his back, you’ve really got something.