Dolly Update: Deworming, Trimming, Children, Riding, Line Driving

The other day, Dolly got her hooves trimmed (professionally). I hadn't ruined anything by attempting to trim her front hooves -- but I didn't take nearly enough off. I learned a lot by watching and talking with the farrier.

Today, Dolly got dewormed. Yum yum... She was surprisingly patient with me about it. She let me open her mouth to stick the syringe up there, squeeze in the paste, and she barely complained (well, she made it clear that it was completely disgusting, but didn't struggle or anything). We had a handful of vitamins ready to wash it down (she likes them).

Children. There is a young boy who was hanging around the other day. The kid hung around me & Dolly when I was getting her ready for the farrier. He had a b-b gun (unloaded) that he was playing with. Although it made me uneasy, I didn't ask him to quit because Dolly needs to get used to such antics. She did really well, doing no more than raise her head high when he made sudden movements at times. When the farrier got there, the farrier had the boy hold Dolly, so that my husband and I could look at the hooves and see what he was doing. The farrier taught the boy how to hold Dolly and how to make her back up if she started creeping forward at him. AMAZING. A completely inexperienced, young boy held Dolly while she had her hooves done! The farrier has a lot of faith in Dolly being good-natured. (We did have to help him make Dolly back off a couple of times, when she decided that she wanted the treat bag that was a couple feet away.)

The child also said that he's been using my horse trailer as a target for his bb-gun. :-/ I wasn't too pleased with that, so I asked him if he's noticed any paint coming off of it. He said that his father stands on the porch watching him, so it must be okay. I didn't know what to say to that. So I asked him to look at the paint every now and then, and to stop shooting at the trailer if he ever notices paint getting dented or coming off.

The farrier doesn't take off enough hoof to cause Dolly to be sore or anything. I got into the saddle after the farrier finished. I just wanted to try walking her around for a couple of minutes. She stood still for me at first, because the barn owner was there. The barn owner walked us around a little bit, until her ears nearly froze off of her head. Once she was gone, Dolly pitched a small fit. She didn't want to go where I'd directed her, which was in the direction of a large snow drift. I wanted her to walk around the snow drift; she wanted to walk up the hill to the side of it. She actually reared up a little bit. I'm not a good rider and I have no courage, but it wasn't a scary rear or anything. It took a lot of mental control for me to convince her that I wasn't asking her to walk through 10-foot-deep-snow. After that, I had to ask her to circle that property and try it again-- because I'm a big chicken, I know that I have to repeat the tough tasks so that I don't fear them later. We did it. By the end, she was behaving much better and almost listening. (I haven't ridden her in a very long time, mostly because of my chicken nature.) But we ended on a good note, and she wasn't stressed or upset or anything.

Today, the young boy came out when he saw us. He told me that his father's friend thinks that Dolly looks like a sheep. :) I thought that was cute. I had the boy hold the vitamins that we gave Dolly after the deworming, and he did a good job of holding his hands correctly for her to lick them up out of his gloves.

Today I put on a surcingle and attached some driving lines to the halter, fed them through the surcingle and held onto them behind her. I haven't done this with her in years, but it seemed like the next step to try with her since she's been so good pulling the plastic sled. I had her walk out in front of me. She did great at that, although I could see her tilt her head a little bit from side to side with her ears facing backward, watching me -- she does that when she's insecure. At first, I had the lines attached to the base of the halter. It took me WAY too long to realize that that was making things much more difficult. (She was fighting me a little bit -- I think she was confused about what direction the pressure was coming from at times.) Once I hooked them to the sides of the halter, she didn't have any more troubles. She did so well! I walked her all around like that. We did circles (again, she was HYPER and wanted to run). We went straight (which tends to be more like, "a little to the left, now a little to the right, etc."). We went around that property again, and again she threw a fit at the sight of the giant snow drift. What's silly is that she actually side-passed ACROSS the snow drift to throw her fit (I had asked her to walk beside it, so as to avoid it completely). But today it was so frozen that she didn't sink into it anyway.

At one point, we reached a wind-swept patch of grass large enough for her to circle at a distance, so I let her trot. That's the only time she gave a couple of small bucks (I had the tail piece on her [crupper?], which she doesn't particularly enjoy).

All in all, I think it went great! I had to quit because my shoulders got so tired. The driving lines are not light weight, and I exhausted myself prior to clipping the lines to the sides of her halter.