Tuesday 20 January 2015

Cray-Cray

Or summat to that effect - hopefully the videos will work today so that I can share with you the "wildebeests" the girls become after 2 days without turnout
/sarcasm


Video I (LINKed in case embedding fails)

As you can see Kika really let loose with the head shaking - what a wild one she is *wink*
I can't but laugh at these videos they are so typical of both girls. Nancy wants to let loose and run for fun; whereas Kika is all "do not pass go & do not think about going faster. This is all about being lazy" cool-girl-hair-flick


Video II (LINK)

Yeah, Miss K is a total Diva...is it just me or does Kika look a little off in the videos? It might be general stiffness due to a combination of the colder weather and lack of turnout so far this week. Sadly due to kitchen fitting at the flat i have been unable to turn them out during my lunch break this week - not looking like changing till at least Friday at this rate #sadtimes :-(

Angel-face looking like
butter wouldn't melt

Either that or Miss Priss has done herself a bit of a mischief with her pawing. I checked with the barefoot trimmer on Saturday, as i am forever worrying about her front foot with the white sock. Of course this is the leg she paws with 9 times out of 10. The trimmer reassured me that despite this fact she somehow managed to wear the hoof in such a way that it was still in pretty good nick, if a little imbalanced when compared to the other one which had obviously had more opportunities to grow *roll-eyes*
Kika currently resembles Cinderella, as a friend has lent me a lone boot (her horse lost the other on turnout last year), and after checking with the trimmer that putting only one boot on wouldn't leave K imbalanced...i proceeded to put it on her when she is stabled (likely to paw at feeding/hay time) and when she is tied in the cross ties for grooming/tacking up. I do not ride her in it nor turn her out with it on, she *knock-on-wood* doesn't paw in those scenarios.
The jury is out so far as to whether it'll make much of a difference, hopefully she gets tired of pawing before she wears through the rubber sole. Even if it only protects her hoof a little bit, that's a win in my book as she obviously cannot be trusted to protect herself and stop pawing when her hoof gets too small. This horse has remarkably poor self-preservation when it comes to her feet.
She is however priceless when she starts to paw with the boot on, as you can read her thought process that it isn't making the right noose and therefore is not having the desired effect. It then takes her a few minutes to get the brain in gear to switch sides - the muscle memory isn't as ingrained with that side and so is much harder for her and she gives up faster. *fingers-crossed* she might eventually stop altogether *mumble-grumble* Bloomin wagon ...

"Whosa Pretty Pony?"
/creepy sing song voice

Nancy was her joyous self as i loose lunged them, all she wanted to do was stretch her legs and play but Kika kept getting in the way! She did have one moment of mad fun which of course I managed to watch through my camera-phone screen but never actually hit record *headdesk*
She did get a freshly laundered and fixed rug change. The purple rug is perhaps a little lighter than I'd ideally like for her to be wearing at this time of year. But she is a much warmer creature than I giver her credit for and actually has a bit of a rash/hives from being too hot under her other rug with the pesky un-extendable front closure & high neck that she doesn't even like. So Kika has inherited the 6ft6 one Nancy had been wearing with the neck as it is thicker than the one she had been wearing. These things will balance out when I can turn them out again as Nancy's turnout is newer than Kika's and appears heavier & thicker...this may just be because it is two sizes bigger - but who knows! Hopefully they will  both be happy and cozy within the new setup...


PS: I also fixed the video link of Nancy's Midday Greeting from Friday Fail/Flashback post (LINK).






14 comments:

  1. I can totally imagine the girls'personalities from your descriptions, quite the attitudes! I hope you will share some before and afters on your kitchen, I love renovations! When my husband was training near an ikea we went there all the time!

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    1. You could be sorry for making that request. I have taken photos and made a little video each evening to track the work being done. It could be a Wordless Wednesday post next week if not sooner...i guess it'll depend on when it's finished. I've been awkward today and asked them to move the island further away from the back wall as i won't be able to open drawers and move around them as it stood this morning! #oops

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  2. So cute! Thanks for sharing those videos! Made me smile this am (here)

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    1. Yay, I love making people smile & thankfully it would appear my horses do too. Particularly Miss Kika, she always has so much to say for herself ;-)
      She really cracks me up in these videos, all poor Nancy wants to do is run but Kika cuts her off every chance she gets - such a wagon!

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    2. I am so lucky they get on so well.
      ♡ them!

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  3. aw cute videos!!! i love K's sassy head tosses during her otherwise lazy trot lol. good luck with the pawing thing - i can totally visualize my mare going through the same mental process if she tried to paw with a boot lol

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    1. She is expressive & completely cracks me up. In all honesty she is way too smart for me, i am only ever barely a step ahead of her *blush*

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  4. Nancy and TC are super similar! It's probably their friesianness. Love the videos! Such happy horses.

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    1. I think that so often when I read your posts about him. Love the super friendly personality ☺

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  5. Hmm that will be really interesting to see if the boot stops her from pawing... I never thought about it being the noise they like!! Fingers crossed!

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    1. I don't know is it the noise she likes ot the reaction that follows the noise. When she paws she gets told off (attention). If i were the only one to use the yard i would.ignore her behaviour 24/7 and she might have stopped by now - sadly not the case as I invariably yell at her (her preferred outcome is attention. My telling her off is giving her what she wants) but as there are lots of other livery people on our yard i can't just ignore her forever as others invariably have something to say so it ends up being a win win for her.
      I can leave her tied without anyone around and she won't make a sound as there is no one's attention to catch *sigh*

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    2. That must be so frustrating!!!!!! Now that I think back on my mare that pawed I remember something that helped. With the clicker training that I do now they say if an animal does a behavior you don't like then teach them a conflicting behavior, such as if you have a dog that jumps up on you, teach them to sit. That way you can ignore the jumping and reward the sit. The jumping then eventually goes away.

      What I did with my mare was teach her the ears forward cue. She only pawed when I was feeding and she was the boss mare so she was RUDE to the other horses. I hated that she always had her ears pinned so I stood on the outside of the fence and ignored everything. Ignored the pawing, the pacing, etc. Then as soon as her ears flicked forward for even a second I dumped the feed in her bucket. Eventually I could say ears and she would put them forward. She was so busy concentrating on keeping her ears forward that she stopped pawing!! This was all before I even knew anything about clicker training hehe. :D

      So if you teach her some little trick like putting her ears forward, smiling, nodding her head or whatever, then when she paws you can ask her to do her trick and reward the trick. That way you aren't rewarding the pawing. Since she's doing it for attention instead of food it may take a lot longer for the pawing to disappear, but with consistency (might be hard with other people around) it might work. Chrome used to mug me for treats and now he just smiles when he wants treats. I love it!! :D

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    3. That's a pretty cool idea to teach her ears forward if i can as she too is a Boss mare and always angry when others pass her stable or when she is tied in the grooming bay. She really endears people to her *eye-roll*

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