I made good progress with Zorro today. We practiced trailering again, and he went right on with the first attempt. We have been doing this now pretty much every day since last week, and he has been consistently going on with the first try. Excellent!! Hopefully he will never again forget how to trailer…
I also worked on gaining his attention, respect, and trust. I lunged him (lightly), stopped him, backed him, and held him still, several times… All without a lead rope or stick!! I did all of this using only my body language and a few voice commands. The only problem is, without a lead rope, he gets confused about which direction I want him to lunge. I’ll have to work on establishing a clear signal for which direction I want, and then practice that while also using the lead rope and stick to direct him.
After I was satisfied with his round pen work, it was time to groom, and pick feet. He has still been VERY adamant against picking up his front right foot, and today was no different. I got him to pick up the other three feet fairly easily, and I rewarded him with lots of praise and letting him rest. When we tried for the Problem Foot, he would lean with ALL his weight against me. I kept pushing him, prodding him, trying to convince him to shift his weight and let me pick up his hoof.
Even though he was cleared by the vet, there is still a possibility of a pain issue. We’re going to have a farrier check him out next week. He is still lunging fine and trotting and galloping on his own, but he REFUSES to lift that front right foot. Could be because it really hurts him for some reason.
We tried quite a few times, and rewarded him as best as we could for any effort. That way, if it’s a behavioral issue, we can work on it as soon as we find out for sure. When we were attempting to lift his foot, he did not react with any signs of anger or pain, he just leaned against us. He didn’t seem mad, hurt, or scared… just didn’t want to lift it up. Which is weird since he picks up his other three feet fairly easily.
Oh well. We made progress today and ended on a good note, and that’s all that matters to me.
Hmm… I wonder if there was some traumatic event that happened when he was younger, to make him resistant towards lifting that foot! If only horses could talk, I would be his therapist and figure it out for you
The furrier comes Oct 28th to take a good look at the feet and legs and trim hooves.
Idea!: Play the Hokey Pokey and put extra emphasis on putting your right leg in!
Oh, and a random fact: your blog already appears in Google! A search for ‘zorro and courtney’ has you as the first result.