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Goats like carrots.
Horses….
….should like carrots. You’d think. Zip checked it out.
She had to sniff it real good. Then she said no.
Shortcake may or may not like carrots. She wasn’t sticking around for a snack.
I had the halter looped around my arm. I was experimenting just to see if she would flip out from nothing more than a halter. If I didn’t even look at her or approach her. Just had the halter with me. Zip will follow me around like a dog.
But Shortcake? She’s a suspicious one. She saw the halter and took off.
I gave Zip a peppermint treat and left without giving Shortcake a second glance. I knew who would like my carrots.
I’ve just been trying to warm up Shortcake so far. I’d like to work with her in a smaller space, but right now I don’t have one. I do think I need a smaller space if I’m going to get anywhere. If she’s got the run of the back barnyard, all she’s going to do is wear me out. I’m also thinking about moving Zip out to the pasture with Jack and Poky, leaving Shortcake with only one friend–me.
A while back, when Glory Bee would run off when she’d see the lead rope, I’d just carry the lead rope with me all the time until she stopped noticing it. After she got used to seeing me with it all the time, she didn’t even have a fit when I’d snap it on and lead her around. Not sure whether or not Shortcake would react the same, but I can’t have her running every time she sees me with a halter. That’s not very handy!
Posted by Suzanne McMinn on September 27, 2012
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We’ve got a couple that you can’t walk up to with a halter in your hand. Open the barn and holler “come up” and they zoom into their stalls.
We feed twice a day in their stalls, then most of them spend the night in them. Because we let out a couple of different horses at night.
4:39
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I also want to say that keeping her halter on in the field part time isn’t the end of the world IMO. Could something happen? Yep, but your lower pasture looks pretty safe and as long as it’s days you’re around a lot, I’d go for it. I know a lot of people will freak out, just don’t take pictures those days! Just my opinion of course.
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5:42
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Looking at the pictures of her head-on, though, I do have a question. Do you have any issues with the halter once it is on? I ask because of the line across the bridge of her nose. There is a bone there that ends and can be quite a pressure point if the halter is annoying her. She would be fine under saddle when the downward pressure is off, if you ride with it on. Of course, your set-up could be perfectly fine and she is reacting to previous pain.
If that is it or just part of it, I’m sorry for not having a solution (halter hooked just around the throatlatch can be dangerous in other ways), but I’ve seen that mark before where there were issues. She sounds like such a sweet horse otherwise! I hope she comes around soon!
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I went back and looked (at the Sugary Shortcake post), and it looked like she had white rub marks on her face in a different picture. She’s too young for that to happen naturally and it can take a while for those to occur. To me, it is a clue that she was forced to wear ill-fitting equipment for some time somewhere in her past. Rubbing = sore spot = unhappy horse. The sore spots are long gone, but the memory is still there.
Again, it doesn’t help with your current issues, but it is kind of clues to the puzzle. I’m so glad that she has found a home with you and that you want to work these issues out! Who knows how many others might just give up or take a far too drastic approach.