The Week Three Tango

Week 3. This has been an eventful week. Sam got his first actual bath! Sam found what he thinks is love AND Sam got his first hoof trimming!!

Sam was a perfect gentleman when he got his first bath. This one was with the water hose, not just a bucket and sponge! He had just finished working, so he was all hot (mainly due to the fact that the heat index here is over 103 degrees F by 9:00 am) and he appreciated the cool water running all over his body, until it reached the point of hitting his butt. Sam was not very sure about letting the water run over and down his rump, but after a while, he stood still and just let it happen. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of this (I did not want the camera to get wet).

Sam's love story is laughable. Sunny, the only mare on the property, is actually kinda mean to Sam. She doesn't make contact, but she pushes him around by making these frightfully mean looking faces at him. This is strange for Sunny to do, because the sweetest horse of all time, Buddy, is her pasture mate and he is in charge of her (Buddy does not push Sam around, they do not have an established dominant horse). Anyway, Sunny went into heat this week, and when she does this, she tends to cling to any male horse (gelding or stallion) that will let her. Guess what, Sam liked this attention, so you could say 'he was flirting with the mean girl.' It was hilarious to see the literally overnight change in their relationship, from one-sided hostility to lovey-dovey. Sam is gelded, so he couldn't impregnate Sunny even if he wanted to, but we separated them, just to prevent any possible injuries.

Sam has been consistent with his training, anything he learns stays with him and he gets fairly close to mastering them with in three days. At Sam's lesson, we worked on desensitizing him to movements that could occur while he was mounted. Once again, Sam was pretty good, until it came to his butt. The rope fell over his butt and that inspired a lot of movement, after a few minutes of working the rope around his butt, he calmed down and was good to go. This is one of the most amazing things about Sam, as soon as whatever was bothering him is gone, so is the panic, its almost as if it never happened. This week we have done more of this type of work and even rode him around the round pen for a bit, just at a walk of course. We are working on giving into pressure, so that we might be able to get some steering on Sam. At week two, we could never have steered Sam, but now its more like with enough patience and clear signals, a turn or two might come out of him. He is progressing very quickly, they said Mustangs are fast learners, but man, we did not expect Sam's training to go this quickly.

The most recent accomplishment of Sam's is his hoof trimming. All of the horses here are barefoot, meaning we do not have them wear shoes. The farrier we use is very patient and gentle. He also works with a veterinarian's office, so he was able to confirm our suspicion, that Sam has a weaker back end than most horses. This is most likely just due to lack of exercise and balanced nutrition, so by the time three months is up, he should have a beautiful back end. That being said, Sam was as perfect as could be, he only tried to pull his foot away a couple of times, for the first foot-his front left. We likely made a mistake with the next foot, we moved to the back left foot, like we do on all of the horses, but Sam has a weak back end. With the weak butt and back legs, it was probably harder for Sam to hold himself up and trust the farrier, so he got a little worried, not too bad, but worried for sure. As the farrier kept working on the back left, Sam got more worried and a bit of panic set in. We moved on to the right front, but it was too late, Sam did not want to let the farrier work on him anymore. After a fair amount of struggling, we finished the right front and left it at that. He probably would have been just fine if we just did the front and didn't try the back until he builds up the muscle to make him more comfortable.After the farrier left, it was right back to the normal Sam, hungry and curious.

Here are his week three pictures:

Sam hanging out in the shade

Being lazy

Sam's front feet before trimming

Sam's front feet after trimming

Sam's scars at week three

Sam showing me his disinterest

Sam looking for food

Sam waiting for food

Sorry the last picture looks funny, he was not worried about posing, he just wanted food.

Sam your are doing so great, so much better than expected! Keep it up Mr. Sam!