Monday, May 9, 2011

Happy feet

Scott called me last week to report that he was trimming Bud in the paddock with no halter or lead. This is a huge milestone for Buttercup.

Bud was always great for the farrier and was known for being able to be done right out in the paddock/pasture without a halter or lead. As her hooves pained her more and more, and as she realized the folks handling her hooves were causing her pain, she became nasty and ruthless. Yanking hooves, rearing up, lunging. She was scary ... but she was also scared.

While her hooves haven't hurt for quite some time, she held onto a lot of that anticipation of pain. She has gradually stopped rearing and stopped lunging. But she still wanted to yank and be naughty — though if someone was pounding nails into your sore feet every 6 weeks for a few months, you'd hold onto the fear too! That's like torture.

To hear now that she is "back to normal" is such a relief. One more step towards normal. Maybe we'll actually get there?

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I got a text this morning from Scott: "Her mental change has been her greatest improvement." I think that says a lot about not only how far we've come, but also how far we still have to go on our journey.

1 comment:

  1. i'm so glad for you that she's doing this now, and that she's not in pain. i was so surprised when my trimmer said "i trim your horse out in his field with no halter" !!! i thought no way how is that possible!?

    now i trim him halterless sometimes but in the stall where it's level. if he goes to leave i say "uh uh" and he stops. i thank him for complying, especially after fighting my cat to get a tick off of her, realizing how much better the horse is about things, even painful things. my cat will actually hurt me, wild thing.

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