Month 2
June is a beautiful month in Iowa. As the grass grows, so do my boys. Fat and shiny! It turns out Fin is a pretty easy keeper. Poor Laagie is the easiest keeper ever, so he gets to wear his grazing muzzle through most of the summer. I bought one for Fin too, but didn’t want to use it yet. Even with treats, it wouldn’t take him long to figure out that Emma equals muzzle equals day ruined, and he’d run when he saw me. Our relationship was just starting, so his muzzle gathered dust.
Fin was starting to understand that standing for grooming, whether tied or in the pasture, was a pretty great deal. He loved having his face brushed. And he was getting much better about letting me do whatever with his ears. He was comfortable with me touching all parts of his body, but didn’t always pick up his feet. I know he knew how to do it, and I’m sure he’s had it done a million times, but it was another one of those things that he just got all nervous about. And I’ve got to be honest. This intimidated me. I’ve been stepped on and kicked before. No surprise, I didn’t like it. AND I’d been hugely spoiled the last decade. I knew my horses front to back, but Fin was a question mark. I needed him to consistently pick up his feet like an adult horse, but was he hurting, or was he calling my bluff? Sometimes he picked all four feet up and sometimes he didn’t. And he wouldn’t even consider picking any feet up if he wasn’t tied to something. Loose in the pasture? No way would he give me even one foot. Well…baby steps. I just kept trying for all four, and took what I could get.
We kept going for short walks, with and without Laagie. Sometimes Fin was fine, what I thought of as ‘normal’, and sometimes he’s spook at nothing. It was frustrating because I really didn’t know what was bothering him. How could I help fix it? I’m no trainer, as I’ve mentioned before. So we just kept taking short walks after a nice grooming session.
I thought maybe he’d enjoy getting ponyed with Laagie-you know, getting out and working a little bit, like in his former life. Made sense to me. Maybe he needed work and structure. Standardbreds are known for having a great work ethic, so perhaps he was bored with our tiny walks. I didn’t have any tack that was small enough for him, so I threw my bareback pad on him, but even that was too big! It kept sliding back to half way around his belly, and rather than having a rodeo, I took it off. We’d go naked. No problem!
The three of us wandered around a small grass patch near the pasture, and it wasn’t a complete loss. Almost, but not totally… I ride Laagie with 2 hands. As God only gave me two, you can see the challenge ponying presented. Fin wasn’t confident with this situation so he got strong and somehow pushed my 16.1 hand mammoth horse around to the point of me having very little control. Back to the pasture we went. Ok, moving too fast. Back to baby steps. The next time we tried to pony we did small little circles in both directions, and worked on whoa. Better! For both boys! The third (and last) time I tried ponying Fin he was just not having it. Head tossing, jerking away, then biting and rearing. Laagie was surprisingly well behaved during this nonsense, but things were getting less safe. Ok, no more ponying. Not until we got some other things sorted out first.
Regular walks were going about the same-good then strong then ok. But grooming time and pasture manners were getting better! Brushing my horses might be my favorite part of owning them, so they get a lot of it. And then Fin actually stood with me for a selfie! I know this sounds like something ridiculous, but it really isn’t. For a selfie he needed to let me snuggle up to his off side, then hold still while I fumbled with my phone.
Next up on our ‘let’s give it a try’ list was trimming that bridle path. When we picked Fin up from the feed lot he had a little nub of a forelock and a bridle path that was about a foot long. With his chewed off tail, but looked like kind of a goof. But things were growing out, and he needed a trim. Both boys did, so I got the clippers out and we played beauty shop!
In the days of Laagie and Trouble, I could take my clippers to the shed, plug them in, and the ever curious boys would wander over and get clipped, without even a halter! I didn’t have the same expectations for Fin-not yet at least! But I was confident he’d get there. Since he was part of the family, he needed to get used to all the stuff I think is important for my horses, and being well groomed is one if them. He did quite well! I found it interesting that given the chance to look at and smell the clippers, he gave them the big eye and ear, but once the clippers were above his eye line and buzzing around his ears, he was fine. This horse will never cease to amaze me! And you know Mr Diva Horse Laagie wanted to be right in the middle of things. It was pretty cute-Laagie grabbed Fin’s lead rope from me and stood there with it while I trimmed Fin.
Fin thought it was great fun having Laagie be nice to him for a change so he snuggled into Laagie’s neck. It was adorable!! While it lasted… Laagie had to remind Fin that lovey time was only ok on his terms.
Well as summer can tend to do, it got buggy. Really buggy. One fine but buggy day I decided it was time to break out the fly sheets. Fin’s was a little large, but not in an unsafe way, so I dolled both boys up in sheets and masks, and planned to come back in a couple hours. I doubted very much that Fin had ever worn a fly sheet before, but he’d had harness draped over him. He should be fine. They stood beside each other like to adult horses should, and I left.
A few hours later, when I returned, I could see the boys out grazing, and while they were a little farther apart than usual, nothing look amiss. I probably should have just left then and there, but I did want to look at Fin up close to make sure there were no fitting issues. As I walked out in the pasture Laagie was much closer to me and Fin was out by the fence line. Laagie’s sheet had a huge rip in the shoulder! And quite the swollen bite where the fly sheet used to be! This was weird because Fin had never been the aggressor. ‘Good for him’ part of my brain thought, while the other part was saying ‘oh no, what brought that on?!’
I guess Laagie thought Fin was some new interloper or something, because he had beat the crap out of him. You may think me naive for assuming a fly sheet would change nothing in their ‘herd’ dynamics. I had no idea Laagie wouldn’t know that was his pasture mate under the fly sheet! As I tried to get close to Fin to check on him, Laagie chased him away from me like a crazy horse. He was totally nuts! Poor Fin couldn’t figure out why he was being treated like a pariah. I ran back to the shed to get a halter so I could attempt to catch Captain Crazy Pants, but that proved to be quite the challenge. Fin kept trying to come up to me, and Coo Coo Bird would tear off after him! I finally caught Laagie and tied him up. Poor Fin. He had bites all over his beautiful coat, and a nasty gash on his left from leg.
I pulled both fly sheets off in a huff and told Laagie what a complete buffoon he was. Grrrr, what a jerk! Poor Fin. He was baffled. And I was peeved! Eric and I were supposed to go away for a long weekend for our anniversary, but this wound needed care. Also there is no hose of spigot where I board, just an automatic waterer. ALSO, I barely knew this horse! I’m sure he’ll love me poking and prodding around in his nice, fresh wound! UGH Laagie! Why did you have to go crazy?!
Of course this was going to provide an excellent platform for Fin and me to work on some relationship building! Thankfully Eric was home from work so he came out with me to hold Fin while I doctored. We hauled out a big jug of water and got to washing Fin’s leg. And he didn’t love it. He wanted to be obedient-you could see the war happening in his eyes-but why was I causing him more pain? He just didn’t understand, but he tried really hard to be good. We got things washed and dried and wrapped, per our vet. That took some maneuvering, as he didn’t like the pressure on his wound, but by God’s grace and kindness, we prevailed. We got the other bites and scrapes tended to as well, and left him alone. Poor Fin.
We had 3 days to tend his leg before we were gone for three days. So we washed and re wrapped each night. Fin got better each time. He didn’t like what we were doing but he always willingly got caught, and really tried to stand still. Good boy. He could have been a monster, but he was not at all.
By the time we had to leave, the wound looked much better! Well enough not to be wrapped at least. So with prayers and a layer of Neosporin, we took off for Chicago for our 14th anniversary.
