Post by AnnB (NE) on Aug 9, 2009 0:25:08 GMT -5
Georgia has come so far in the past year, she's like a different horse.
She's becoming calm, cool, and collected. Nothing like the wild-eyed, skittish thing that would spook at her own shadow and heaven forbid that a bird should fly overhead.
We made it through the farrier, she's doing great with her feet now.
She breezed through the vet visit & vaccinations.
But she turned another corner on Tuesday when she had to go in to the vet's office to have her teeth floated (oh, her poor teeth were in bad shape -- sound, but lots of huge sharp spurs).
She was very nervous about loading in the trailer, she did it without hesitation, but I could tell she was nervous -- the last time she was in a trailer was the day she came here. Poor thing was worried that she was changing homes again.
The vet sedated her for her dental work and things went real smooth and easy, he was done less than 10 minutes after he started working on her teeth. And it was so sweet, when he took the speculum out of her mouth she swung her head around and buried it in my chest. That's the first time she's shown that much trust, and yeah, she was sedated, but the trust has stuck! Since she left and came back, it's like she now knows that she's really staying. I also have a feeling that her mouth was bothering her a lot more than she was letting on.
But she's an angel. All of a sudden she's no longer afraid of having her fly mask put on, she lowers her head and waits for it. She's picked up a handful of voice commands in the past few days. She stands tied without trying to dig a hole to China. She stands still to be saddled and mounted. She's much steadier working on the lunge line. I'm going to try to get her to take a bit again now that her tooth problems are resolved.
She's almost ready to ride, she still needs a bit more muscle development down her back. We've started doing leg stretching exercises to help her limber up, and we engage in a game of "stretch your neck and curl your body around the human to reach the hand with the oats" that does a good job of stretching of her neck and back muscles.
It's sure nice to see such an abused animal be able to muster enough trust to be able to enjoy life again and to seem to look forward to having her tack put on.
Ann B
She's becoming calm, cool, and collected. Nothing like the wild-eyed, skittish thing that would spook at her own shadow and heaven forbid that a bird should fly overhead.
We made it through the farrier, she's doing great with her feet now.
She breezed through the vet visit & vaccinations.
But she turned another corner on Tuesday when she had to go in to the vet's office to have her teeth floated (oh, her poor teeth were in bad shape -- sound, but lots of huge sharp spurs).
She was very nervous about loading in the trailer, she did it without hesitation, but I could tell she was nervous -- the last time she was in a trailer was the day she came here. Poor thing was worried that she was changing homes again.
The vet sedated her for her dental work and things went real smooth and easy, he was done less than 10 minutes after he started working on her teeth. And it was so sweet, when he took the speculum out of her mouth she swung her head around and buried it in my chest. That's the first time she's shown that much trust, and yeah, she was sedated, but the trust has stuck! Since she left and came back, it's like she now knows that she's really staying. I also have a feeling that her mouth was bothering her a lot more than she was letting on.
But she's an angel. All of a sudden she's no longer afraid of having her fly mask put on, she lowers her head and waits for it. She's picked up a handful of voice commands in the past few days. She stands tied without trying to dig a hole to China. She stands still to be saddled and mounted. She's much steadier working on the lunge line. I'm going to try to get her to take a bit again now that her tooth problems are resolved.
She's almost ready to ride, she still needs a bit more muscle development down her back. We've started doing leg stretching exercises to help her limber up, and we engage in a game of "stretch your neck and curl your body around the human to reach the hand with the oats" that does a good job of stretching of her neck and back muscles.
It's sure nice to see such an abused animal be able to muster enough trust to be able to enjoy life again and to seem to look forward to having her tack put on.
Ann B
