'dem bones

Earlier this week I harvested a whitetail buck and I now have the opportunity to start *Tekara's training to be a pack horse, with a little fresh game. Pack horses are often born naturals and I wanted to see where *Tekara stood overall. So, today, I started her pack training. We always do this type of training, very slow..the first intro to fresh game was today, and *Tekara handled it quite well. I place the bones of the harvested buck on the bad of the 4wheeler..then we simply walked by. She was actually quite curious about the whole thing, so she inched herself closer and closer until she was willingly touching the bones....we then walked on by and continued our daily routine of eating in the stall in our hay barn, and then a good grooming session. *Tekara did sense that "something" was different and she was a little quieter in her stall than usual. When I brought her out, she fluffed up a bit, but never missed a step while I lead her past the bones again, this time on the other side of her body. She knew something was different, and I commend her for that. I want to train, not simply plop some fresh game on a dead head horse that never seemed to notice anything different about the situation...so, training is started. All our horses have had a different reaction to fresh game, we had one gelding here years ago, that literally got jello legs....but within a week's time, he was packing fresh game with the best of them! *Tekara has a good start, and I am quite pleased with her reaction...she noticed a difference, yet handled the situation with out fuss or drama.....