Buddy the Dun Paint Arrives

Today Buddy the dun tobiano paint gelding arrived for some socialization with the herd and some under saddle training.  His owner sent him here because he has gotten somewhat food aggressive with his roommate at home, kicking the filly and getting pretty rough at feeding time.  The plan is to let him live with my established gelding herd for a couple weeks and see if that helps him to learn some better social skills.  So far he is getting along pretty well, though Buddy has taken a couple kicks from Cole and Samson when Buddy got a little too big for his britches and tried to challenge the older horses.  Cole is 15 and Samson is 14, and Buddy is just 5.  I don't think it will take much before he figures out how to go along to get along.

Some vidoe of the "getting to know you" can be seen here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?edit=vd&v=Vq7QaAJlBUI

After a couple hours of Buddy settling into the herd I caught him and brought him into the barn. Because I'm the main herd manager and all the horses listen to me, and Samson is my next in command, when I haltered Buddy to take him out of the paddock Samson and Cole politely backed away so I could catch and lead Buddy out.  Buddy incorrectly interpreted this as HIM being given a right of way.  When I was done with him and put him back there was some additional skirmish while Samson clarified that he listens to KIM, not the new youngster.

I worked with him today in the round pen to do his initial evaluation.  He has been started under saddle, but I always do a thorough evaluation before riding myself so that I know what he understands and I don't surprise him by doing something he's not familiar with.

Buddy stood tied nicely in the barn, and was well behaved for grooming and picking his feet.  He was a little goosey for tacking up, but I suspect because it was a little cold and stormy and I don't think he's ever worn an english saddle before.  When he realized I meant no harm he was ok, just very alert.  I also tried my western saddle on him and it fit well, but I decided to work him in the english saddle.

Next we headed down to the round pen.  My dogs were with me of course, which created a little confusion for Buddy.  Mahzi the lab/border collie was trying to back me up by barking and telling him when to walk, trot, canter, whoa, and reverse.  She's still young and learning what her role is as a horse-training dog, and she isn't always telling the horse the same thing I'm telling him.  Poor Buddy was a little confused about who he needed to listen to.  I kept talking softly to him and the dog was bellowing at the top of her lungs.  Eventually he figured out that the dog was to be ignored and to just watch me.

When we were done lunging, having reviewed voice commands and that a loud deep exhale means "stop", we went over to the mounting block.  I lined Buddy up with the block and then Mahzi got to do her favorite job - mounting practice.  Miles the border collie used to do this for me when he had four legs, now that he only has three he has delegated mounting block work to Mahzi.

The way I teach youngsters to stand quietly for mounting is to lunge them from on top of the block.  Once the horse understands to stop and line up with the stirrup near me I pat the saddle with my hand.  I'll put a little weight in the stirrup, and lean over the saddle.  While I'm doing this the dog will stand at the horse's head and tell them to hold still.  Then we switch, the horse stands with his other side facing the mounting block, I stand at his head, and the dog climbs on the block and puts paws on the stirrups and on the saddle.  Mahzi loves this part, and she was very eager to assist today.  We haven't had a real youngster to evaluate in recent months, so Mahzi had been saving up all her favorite skills for her big moment today in the round pen.  Buddy was understandably confused about why the dog was doing this stuff, but he very quickly assumed an attitude of "when in Rome" and went along with it.  It won't take him long to figure out that the dogs are actually pretty helpful, especially when we start riding out in the back forty.