Farrier Visit for Highboy & Dewey Practices His Tricks

Yesterday morning the farrier came out to trim Highboy, Garmin, Cosmo and Rain.  My ten year old student, Phoenix, was helping me since I'm still needing to go easy after back surgery and I couldn't have horses pulling on me.  Highboy, however, is a bit too much for Phoenix and needs more psychological management.  I handled Highboy, and I had him go first.  It was crazy windy.  I went to his paddock and haltered him, then brought him into the barn and tied him to wait for the farrier to arrive.  Highboy was dancing around, pawing at the ground, generally exhibiting behaviors consistent with a young horse who desperately needs to go back to work.

I am still not in any shape to wrestle with him, or even try to make him stand still, so I ignored him while he fidgeted.  The farrier arrived.  I stood off to the side and said very clearly and sternly, "Highboy, I am not able to mess around with you today.  I really need you to STAND QUIETLY for the farrier so we can get this done."  Astonishingly, Highboy paused in his antics and turned his face to look at me.  He gave a loud sigh and blew his nose as if to say, "All right, but don't get used to this."  Then he put his head facing forwards and stood like a rock for the farrier to do everything.  It was Highboy's best appointment ever.  The only time he had a lapse in memory was when the farrier was rasping a front hoof, and Highboy was sorely tempted to pull off the farrier's hat.  I reminded Highboy that even that sort of shenanigan was a no-go today, and darned if Highboy didn't just look at me again with a disappointed sigh, and then go back to standing quietly.

Later in the day after I'd rested I went out to play with Dewey in his paddock, and he is super excited about all the new tricks he's learning.  Cole must have told him the secret to getting the human to dispense cookies is to do the tricks as fast as you can.  I asked Dewey to stretch left then right, and he did.  Then I bent my knees to ask him to stretch his head down between his front legs, and he did a super deep stretch right away, like he had been practicing all this time I've been reading in the house!  Of course he got some cookies, and then we did it all again with me standing in different places.  He is a quick study, and kept looking at me as if to say, "yeah, I understand, when do we do the hard stuff?"

I had brought my camera out to take photos of Dewey doing his tricks.  However, he's crusted in mud, Highboy has ripped Dewey's blanket in a couple places, there are small bite wounds on his neck from all the WWF horse wrestling he and Highboy do over the fence, his mane needs to be pulled and bridle path clipped.  I couldn't bring myself to photograph him looking like such a ragamuffin, so when we were done playing I went back to the house without any photos.  Maybe next week I'll be feeling up to giving him a thorough grooming and then we can carry on with the paparazzi side of training.