Wonderful Work in Progress: Week Six

Sam has had a few big break-throughs this week. He became a ballerina of sorts, escaped into the other horses' pasture, accepted a bit, and let us spray him with fly spray.

We were working Sam on moving his hind quarters, and he was doing well, but when he got up to speed, something strange happened. Sam decided he should just pick up one of his front legs, keeping the other one planted. Essentially, Sam was spinning. The front hoof on the ground was revolving as Sam moved his hind quarters, giving him the appearance of a horse ballerina. I wish I had gotten a picture, because this is a little difficult to believe. Sam is a little too smart for his own good.

We had let the horses out to graze into another big pasture, but did not let Sam out with them. However, Sam did not take this with the grace of a ballerina. Sam paced up and down the fence line for a while, then he stopped, so we assumed he would be just fine. No. We looked back out the window literally five minutes or so later and he was out with the others. After a timely inspection of the fence, we found that Sam had abandoned his ballerina ways when he jumped the fence, breaking the top hot wire, stretching the wire below it, and even heavily bending a T-post. That was evidence of a ballerina jumping a fence, it was something totally different. Sam, despite the damage done, was not hurt AT ALL. We were astounded by this unbelievable feat.

Sam's next feat was letting us SPRAY him with fly spray. He used to not let us do this at all, he was terrified. The truly amazing thing is that we have not worked with him on being sprayed. The first time we tried it, we saw it terrified him and have had yet to revisit it until today. And he just let us spray, no big deal, except that it shocked us.

Another bit of shocking information we learned this week was that Sam does not really mind having a bit in his mouth. After only a little hesitation, he took it in his mouth, mouthed it a little and stopped. Sam only really kept mouthing the bit when he got nervous about something.

Another thing Sam did this week was pass under a curtain that was slit in multiple places, even letting it touch him. I had cut up the shower curtain and then hung it up on one of the round pen entrances. I chose the gate that we let Sam in. Sam gets to go in the round pen during the day, so that he has more room and we keep this gate open.The idea was that if he wanted to go into the round pen, he would have to walk through it. The first day he did not want to go through it, I watched him wait for the wind to blow the curtain to the side so that he could pass without it touching him. After he was in the round pen, and he wanted to leave, I watched Sam wait for nearly three hours so the wind would blow the curtain enough so it would not touch him and he could leave. But now, after the curtain being there for a few days, Sam walks under it just fine, even when it hits him.

Sam has become quite the camera lover, as I was taking his pictures, he kept following me around and trying to taste the camera, so some pictures are a little strange, but they are all him.