Social Skills 101 - Girl trouble!

We recently added another new horse to our herd, a recent rescue from Spring Hill Horse Rescue (where we got Bucky from two years ago). They have some very nice horses and we couldn't turn this one down. "Haley" aka Shades Noble Highlight is a registered buckskin Morgan mare, for Bucky it was love at first sight. BUT poor Bucky has a lot to learn about MARES.

He has been living with our 30 year old mare and the mini Sassy so has been the un-contested herd boss for quite a while and both mares find him to be a little rude. As you can see he tailgaits horribly . . . Haley gave him a few warnings with ears pinned and the hoof raised, but he didn't listen . . .

And so he did get a good kick or two from Haley for his troubles . . .

And then Haley decided she'd rather hang out with the other mare, Bucky is still trying to make friends, but not quite sure how to do so politely.

This is what Haley thinks of Bucky . . .








The girls maintaining a respectful distance and checking each other out . . .

Bucky looking on after he finally gets the hint to stay away. Poor fella! It might take a while for him to catch on to mare-talk!

An spring adventure . . .

So with mud season in full swing at our house, Bucky goes off on another adventure. We headed out with our new (used) trailer Saturday for a lesson in an indoor arena (with Heidi Potter - Maple Ridge Stables). I have been able to ride him 2-3x weekly for short periods of time when the paddock is dry. I was hopeful that our work over the winter would help him to behave, this is only his second trip away from our farm. We had a pretty good spooking incident two days before while riding in the paddock, but he stopped himself and I stayed on . . . a good sign!

Here Bucky is all dressed up and ready to go . . .

Our confidence and trust building exercises have paid off in that we have a horse who is now very easy to load into a trailer. After a mishap with a wrong turn and LOTS of backing the trailer up, we arrived! We let Bucky loose in the indoor to tack him up before lunging him. He explored calmly taking everything in. He was very good on the lunge, so I rode him for the second part of our lesson.

He was a very good boy! We are working on taking up gentle contact with the reins and yielding to leg pressure at the walk. I am hopeful we will be able to have more adventure this summer as Bucky continues to learn.