Now, you need to read some good stuff!

When I made the decision to have little Lucky put down, I knew I needed an equine friend for Rosie, and fast--she wasn't even a year old and would likely have a hard time being by herself even for a short time.  Horse rescuer Barb, who rescued Rosie from the auction, had another mini she rescued at the same time but from a different farm.  I had met him when visiting Rose.  He was a middle aged, easy-to-live-with type of guy--maybe I could borrow him??  Barb said yes and she brought him the next evening--Thank you Barb!  Rosie did have to go 24 hours alone, although my big horses were in an adjoining pasture and had run-in-stalls on the other end of my shedrow barn. 

Rosie felt confused and lonely for a couple of hours after Lucky was put down, but nothing major.  I sat in the stall with her during that time.  She's has a non-herdbound type of personality and prefers to hang out with her human than a horse.  This helped her adjust to Lucky's sudden absence.  Rosie had become my baby, and seriously, I would have stayed out in the barn with her all night if she had been upset ... well, except for the strong probability of hypothermia--our winter in upstate New York was still pretty cold.  Fortunately, I didn't have to test my ability to be on the cast of Survivor that night because she calmed down pretty quickly ... still a little confused when I left her, but calm and quiet. 

Next evening "Jerry" arrived.  Rosie had lived with him briefly after their auction rescue.  Jerry was true to his "I just want things to be peaceful and calm" good boy personality and blended right in with his much more dominant and "in your face" (and HIS face) little sister Rosie. 

Here's Jerry:

Handsome guy, huh?!  Jerry is in his mid-to-late teens, supposedly trained to drive (pull a cart, not drive a car--for my non-horse-familiar friends reading this, lol), gentle, complete boy scout mentality--"I want to do only good and never cause any trouble.  How may I serve you?"  He's a 36" mini gelding.  A good boy, for sure.  BUT, he has a couple of issues (but don't they all have something to work through?)--He is skittish of things people do.  Carrying a pitchfork in your hand and want to stop and pet him?  No way--he is out of there so fast--"She will beat me, I just know it!"  Even carrying a bucket scrub brush that has an 8" handle will send him scurrying away.  It took him a month to get used to my carrying a water bucket past him without a spook.  My immediate thought was that he had been beaten, and beaten bad, at some point in his life.  But the more time I'm around him, the more I am starting to believe that he has just such a sensitive personality with such a huge will to do the "right" thing that I bit of rough handling, yet maybe not to the point of being beaten, may have been all it took to make him so skittish.  Once he's haltered and on a lead, he is near perfect.  Still worrisome to a degree, but that seems to give him some comfort. 

Jerry craves quiet attention and loves to be cooed to and petted like you would a dog.  He's blind in his right eye, and I think that also makes him feel more vulnerable.  Mac was a trusting blind horse, and nothing I did ever bothered him as long as I spoke to him so he knew I was there.  Jerry isn't as trusting and feels the need to watch out for himself a lot more.  The human skittishness does get old after a while, I must admit, and I often tell him--"Jerry, has one bad thing happened to you since you arrived a year ago??  NO!  PLEASE start trusting me more!   PUULLLLEEEEEEEASE"  He does get better when I spend a block of time with him, but next day he may have reverted back to being skittish about the same stuff again.  Sigh ...  I've never known a horse that spends so much energy worrying about getting into trouble, yet does NOTHING that would ever get him into that trouble he focuses so much on avoiding.  He's very sweet, though, and is a good friend to Rosie.  I am planning to start working with him with the harness and cart and see how that goes.  Since he tends to be less skittish when haltered, I'm wondering if he will actually feel better with a harness on.  I've ground driven him with just a halter and two lead ropes and he did seem to know what he was doing.  Oh, and he is no longer just "on loan"--Mike and I officially purchased him last fall.  When I told my vet he was a permanent member of the family now, she just smiled and said "Was there ever any doubt that would happen?"

Now, to the star of the show (and my world!)--ROSIE!  That little pony girl has grown from a scared, freaked out, unhandled 5 month old crazy filly to a confident long yearling (can't believe she will be 2 in June!) who has surpassed all my hopes and dreams for her so far.  Once she decided to trust me, she REALLY decided to trust me.  We do a lot of things.  She does all the typical things any good yearling should do--stand for grooming, feet, farrier, load in the trailer, lead, tie.  She's been "sacked out" with everything imaginable--noisy plastic shavings bag flying at her body?  Yawn .... "I'll just try to tear it apart once it's on the ground within my reach--that will be fun."  I take her for walks in the neighborhood and she is getting used to traffic--and I do mean TRAFFIC--large tractor trailers, motorcycles, banging metal trailers towed by pick up trucks, in addition to normal cars and small trucks.  I live in a small village on a very busy 2 lane state highway.  We go on the side streets and look for things to use for despooking and desensitizing my future driving pony.  It's amazing what you can find in a church parking lot--handicap access ramp, metal garbage cans to drag around on pavement (that will wake the neighbors!), and then I put the can on her back and bang on it.  We walk under a carport-type overhang where it's darker underneath.  A small cement porch with a couple of steps serves as a platform type of thing that we've used for learning how to move just one foot at a time up and down steps and maneuvering in tight places without panicking.  I've found tree stumps and taught her to stand and balance on all fours.  At home, we have balloons, hula hoops, milk jugs on a rope, bouncing balls next to and shooting them under her, weaving all kinds of things under her belly and through/around her legs.  She has taken everything in relative stride and accepted it all with very little trouble.  Here are a few pictures of poor Rosie being tortured by me last year (remember she was just barely a yearling at the time--and wild and crazy just a few months earlier):

 

 

 

And, probably my favorite photo of all--I had the tarp over her entire body, including her head, and pulled it back from her face for the picture, saying to her "Where did Rosie go?" (I get pretty silly with her--I LOVE this little pony!!!!)  I love the look on her face--"What crazy thing is Mom doing to me now?????"

She definitely trusts me and it has been such a pleasure to work with her through this process. 

As far as "skill" training:  Rosie knows how to lunge both directions at walk only (saving those precious young legs from strain on tight circles); she can do a great turn on the forehand, decent turn on the haunches (still perfecting that one), great back up from voice command or hand motion only, whoa voice command, side pass both directions.  She is light as a feather on lead--she's easier to handle than my 45 pound dogs.

I would say the biggest hole in her training is getting her out around chaos involving other horses and crowds of people.  That's her weak spot, and I wonder if it is a left over PTSD kind of thing from her auction experience at such a vulnerable age and time in her life--never being handled and then suddenly taken from her mom, herded into a trailer, dumped at and run around a crazy auction environment.  I'm currently healing from a two-level cervical spine discectomy and fusion, but as soon as that is deemed stable and strong, I will be getting her out and away from home more to get exposure to this kind of stuff.  Working with a youngster is an evolving process where we are both constantly learning about each other and she is learning more about the big world out there that she never even knew existed.  She is a joy to work with, and I can say without reservation that I have never had a bond with a horse like the one I have with Rosie.  She is my "heart horse" and will likely be my "Horse of a Lifetime."

This is my favorite head shot of Rosie.  (The red thing on top of her head is a toy ball in the distance--photo-shopper, I am not).  The picture really shows off her beauty and always makes me wonder how someone could have thrown away a little pony so gorgeous!