# Tryna Make It In The Horse World: A Journey



## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Having the donkeys in a barn with lights = Game. Changing.
Just until a week ago or so the donks were in a different pen so it was always a struggle to fit training and spending time in when it’s only bright for so long but now I’ve been able to work with them in the evenings as well!
Next time I just have to remember this, and work with the minis first while it’s still bright lol!

Anyhow, today I just worked with Daisey a bit. Haltered her and picked out all 4 feet. I’m hoping to get her trimmed pretty soon here whenever the farrier comes to do the others. We’ll see how it goes. She’s never been trimmed before so we may just do the fronts, I don’t wanna overwhelm her or make it a bad experience. We tried to work on leading a little bit, she’s seriously the most stubborn donkey I know, and refuses to walk, even to the side. Gonna have to research some different ways to work with her. Tried moving her side to side as well as using a butt rope and nothing works with her lol. 
After that we just spent some time together. She’s honestly so smart. When you go in to feed or water, Daisey is the first one to run around, hide in corners, beat up the other donkeys, she’s an absolute terror until you put a halter on. Then it’s like she instantly knows that it’s time to work and she calms right down and is super friendly and cuddly. So since she was in a good mood, I took advantage of it and groomed her and loved on her a bit. She truly is my one in a million donkey, and I couldn’t ask for a better baby.

After that I just picked out the other donkeys hooves. They were all begging for treats and it may seem weird but I try and listen to them. If one of the donkeys, or horses, ask for a treat (nuzzle my hand, sniff my coat, act cute, etc), I’ll get them to do something so that they ‘earn’ the treat. That way they get the treat that they wanted, but not because they were nuzzling me. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it works for us. 
So I picked out their hooves, gave them their treats, then left to feed and do the rest of the evening chores.
I left all their halters up there on the gate and I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret. Daisey was a little too interested in them and I won’t be shocked if something is chewed up tomorrow lol.
I’m also hoping to work with them more regularly and hopefully Queenie will come around. I can finally get within 2 feet of her but have yet to even pet her. This is mostly my fault as I haven’t made the time to work with her as I should be, but that’s one of my goals for this year, to work with the donkeys more and we’ll see how it goes!

It has also come to my attention that I haven’t properly introduced everyone so I will work on individual entries for each of them


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## baysfordays (Oct 14, 2021)

I love the pictures of them..so cute!!!


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Went down and rode horse today.
He had a couple bad moments, but overall did pretty good.
We just went bareback today for about 30mins.
First off, I mount him by just climbing on his hay feeder and getting him come up and “collect me” he’s doing really good! 
Then we just cruised around a bit. For the most part he was really good, except for two spots. 
One, Sammy came running up behind us and then Chance wanted to run so that got a little entertaining. And second time, my dog started running and Chance wanted to run with him. He has so much energy right now but there’s too much snow/ice to really work him. 
I have noticed that I really need to work him on his right side better. I can circle him to the right really well and he’s very flexible but on his left side he’s very stiff and doesn’t turn easily at all. So after our ride I hopped off and we did some groundwork. 
I’ve also started doing stretches with him every time I work with him. At first he was really confused (I’ve only done it for about a week now) but now he totally understands. 
One thing I should have done differently was done the stretches very last. I’m using treats for now and once we were done I’d lost his attention completely so I just decided to call it a day and finished with him. 
Overall it was pretty good but we definitely have things to work on. 
I however, have improved so much as a rider. Obviously I have so much to work on but there’s no way I could have rode him like I did a year ago.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Spent some time with horse the other day. Was gonna ride him bareback but it had been raining earlier and he was still kinda moist and I didn’t wanna get wet, so opted for groundwork instead. He’s a little hesitant to ‘get over’ so we’re working on that a lot. He’ll do it. Just takes him a minute to remember what I’m asking. We did some of that for a bit then I just hung out and loved on him. He and Sammy both were in such a cuddly mood they were really fun to hang out with. 
One thing I noticed with Chance though is that his feet are kinda funky. I noticed that there’s more space than usual in between the sides of his frog, and his hoof. I’m not sure if that’s just cuz the snow has cleaned his hoof out more than it usually is, or somethings happened 🤷‍♀️
I feel like it’s nothing to worry about because all four of his feet are this way, but the farrier is coming out tomorrow to trim donkeys so I’ll get him to take a look at Chance too just in case 

Last night I was dealing with Lilly, she hurt herself so was just taking care of that. And while I was with her, Queenie was brave enough to squeeze in behind us! There’s probably a 5ft gap between their hay bale and the walk of their pen. Lilly was standing with her head right against the wall with her butt to the bale, and I was right beside her. And Queenie squished in between Lilly and the hay bale! That’s huge for her because she’s never been comfortable enough to come that close to me, so that’s a huge win!

Went to the rescue yesterday and got to learn how to pony another horse! We started out in the arena to just figure things out and then we went out onto the trail. It was so fun and I really loved it. I’ve never done anything like that before so it was really neat. At one point we had to walk over a small tree. It was maybe 6in off the ground, so really not that bad at all. But of course, the horse I was riding decided to jump over the log instead of stepping over like every other horse would have. I was NOT prepared for that, so ended up yanking on the horse I was ponying lol. Other than that it went really really well and was really fun!!


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## younghorsetrainer (5 mo ago)

Such cute fluffy horses! How cold is it there? Some friends I have in Canada said that it is around -15 ish.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Thank you! Currently it’s pretty warm actually, only -8c. Usually it’s -40c this time of year, and it was a couple weeks ago


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

Farrier came out today
Trimmed Ruby and she actually better than she usually does so that was good. She can be a little stubborn sometimes cuz of her bad hoof, but she did good today.
Also trimmed the baby donkey Daisey for the first time. She was mediocre. I’ve been lifting her feet and working with her a lot recently and she’s been really good about it. She wasn’t sure what she thought of the farrier tho. She tried to ‘break’ away a couple times but overall I wasn’t mad about how it went.

I also got him to look at Chance. Usually when I go down to the field to see him he’ll run across the field to see me but of course today when I needed him to come he decided it was ‘stranger danger’ so I had to walk across the field to get him.

Oh and I asked him about Annie. She does a weird thing when she walks, she’ll kick her back legs up really high. I forget what he called so I’ll have to text him tonight lol. He said there’s nothing I can do for her but I’ll do some research and try to figure out why she even started doing it, cuz she hasn’t always.


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## AbbySmith (Nov 15, 2020)

I was rereading my last post and realized I said the farrier looked at Chance but never actually told y’all what he said 🤦‍♀️
Apparently he looks completely normal in every way and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about so I was happy about that!

I also did some research last night about Annie. She has something called Stringhalt. It’s like a muscle spasm thing that causes them to pick their legs up really high when they walk. Minor cases it affects one hind leg, major cases affect both. Annie is a major case then, because she kicks up both her back legs.
from what I read, no one really knows why it happens. There’s a weed that can cause it but Annie was on hay at the time she started so it definitely wasn’t that. Everywhere I read said that it could be due to a neck/back injury. I don’t think Annie did anything cause she was only in with Barney and they’ve always been friends and never really ‘played’ so unless she rolled or something I don’t see how that could have happened.
highlight of my research was to find that it doesn’t cause any pain so that’s a relief. They say it can eventually just go away, sometimes takes a couple weeks, months, or years.
I don’t understand how it can be that vague, I’m sure there has to be something we can do for her. I was thinking of seeing if Chances chiropractor would be willing to work on her and see if that helps.
Annie walking

But anyhow, I rode Chance today. Just bareback for 30mins. He did ok. He won’t turn to the left and I have no clue why. Even in a bridle he struggles with turning to the left and in his halter (we were riding in a halter today) it’s even more of a struggle. So after our ride I kind of stood beside him and grabbed the ‘reins’ (his lead rope tied to either side of his halter) and asked him to turn left and he did it! So I don’t see why he won’t do it while I’m on him. I think it might be that he’s more flexible on the right side. I’m not really sure. We’ll keep working on it in the ground and hopefully he gets better.
We also did his stretches and he’s getting so good!! I’ve been using treats and getting him to ‘follow’ them with his head. At first he would move his feet and whole body but now he understands he’s just supposed to move his head/neck.
After we were done, he kept doing the stretches by himself and then would look at me like “I stretched, aren’t you gonna give me a treat?” And I did. I can’t resist lol.


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