Mara and Bellis

I was somehow able to avoid riding out again with JS, even though I listened for the phone to ring all day.

Sunday J and I took a family walk - donkey husband horse wife, through the neighborhood to check a couple geocaches. The horse stood tied to a tree by the cache for the first time without fidgeting. But on the way home she did not want to wait by the second cache, she wanted to be on her way. I stood there with her and the donkey until she finally quieted down.

Today I wanted to take her out for a ground drive out, then ride home, but as I was cleaning her hooves, dousing them with vinegar, I saw a little cut on her heel bulb. I touched it and she reacted.

So I got out the Betadine and washed it, and then applied Neosporin (from America - does not exist in Germany). I let her stand there for a few hours on the paddock tiles, hoping that the medicine would work in somehow, but then decided to take her for a walk on pavement only. I know I can't ride her in the arena with this cut, cuz the sand/gravel will exacerbate it.



You can barely make out the wound on the lower left center of her heel bulb. And you can make out a few more things that must be dealt with next week when my very good trimmer arrives. This is what a hoof looks like that has not had a break from mud all summer long. Honestly, we never had a day when there was no mud. I sprayed and then treated the hooves with vinegar and a weak tea tree oil, then I trimmed the bars and frogs.



Mara rarely hurts herself, mostly because she lives with a donkey.



Well, OK, last month she nicked her pastern - as seen here. The blood showed up strongly against the white, just to freak me out.

***

Bellis has developed a stereotypy that makes leaving her alone less simple. I used to leave her in her little paddock/stall arrangement with hay whenever we left her alone a few hours. But she took to pacing, and since our paddock area is on a slope, her hooves were tearing up the geotiles. They were coming out of the ground with her repetitive motion. So I had the idea to keep her in the stall, sorry girl, just for the length of our outing.

As soon as I lock her in, she pees. Then she poops whatever is left in her from earlier. Then she proceeds to stall walk the entire time we're gone, so that when we return, she's plastered a green layer, about 1/2 cm thick, on all the walls and floor.

I'm afraid if we leave her in the field, well, you know, donkeys get what they want, and no fence would hold her.

I've tried tying her while we are gone, and this works beautifully, she can eat out of a haynet, and she cannot pace. But I worry about leaving her tied unattended for more than an hour, even with a leather halter on.

Wish I had a better solution. I'm sure stall walking for a couple hours is not going to hurt her, and it's probably the most exercise she gets, but what a mess.

***

Back to Mara. Today I put up the last divider fence for the season, effectively separating our 5 acres into 3 sections. This is so it's easier for me to clean up poop. Also, the section by the front gate/street is quite small because we won't use it as often, because they tend to stand at the gate and make mud, right at the gate where our fish guys come through every couple days.

Without much forethought, I started to build the 3rd fence today with the horse and donkey right by the gate/street. They thought it was fascinating. Now, when I build the other divider, separating our field into halves, they don't care, so I didn't foresee the problem.

Mara kept coming up to the electric rope lying in the thick grass and prancing over it. And then, she actually picked it up in her mouth. While I was working, and WTH, it's an electric fence, my animals should not be playing with it! They should "respect" it (if I might use that word).



- Picture from our photo shoot in September  -

I picked up the wire in the grass and shook it, sending dew flying everywhere, spooking horse and donkey both. But Mara thought it was a game. She came back and said, "I want to be on THIS side, so, what?"

I couldn't build the fence and stifle her humorous, annoying behavior, so I pulled the last mineral brick out of my pocket and started calling my donkey.

I don't understand why, but today my donkey was not inclined to come to me for a treat. And she knows my treat whistle. (So does the horse, but she was way over there, haughty about her "escape" to the other side of the wire lying on the ground. In fact, she was prancing, tossing her head, and flagging her tail in "defiance" if I might use that word.)

Then the donkey finally decided it was worthwhile. She followed me in through the path in the woods to the paddock/shelter area. 

My horse was still flaunting her position in the street-side section, and not willing to join us. Then the look crossed her face, where she saw us leaving and she was conflicted.

Finally she came neighing and thrashing down the slope, leaving huge stripes of mud in the grass.

Both of them out of the way, I completed my fence easily.

***

After capture and cleaning of her wound, I put the surcingle on her and decided to just simply ground drive her through the neighborhood on pavement only to keep the wound clean. The movement might work the medicine in, and going out to our pasture means going through a muddy slide system.

I'm so glad I just decided to drive her today. She was nuts. She saw a garbage can, spooked, then nuzzled it a long time. (Note this for later in the story.)

She froze up at the sight of horses grazing in a field. And a bench, and a flower...

I finally got her down by that field where the horses all pressed up to the fence to greet her, but she was absolutely terrified of these two parking boulders on the side of the street. All the horses were doing their best to get her attention, and she was insanely scared of those rocks.

We'd been there a few times before, and seen those same rocks, and had this same problem. I don't get it - is my horse mental?

I spent 30 minutes trying to get her to approach those rocks, with very little pressure from behind, cuz if I tap her too much with the driving lines, she'll flip out and threaten to kick. I had time. And we took the entire time, I had her do serpentines back and forth past the rocks. I marked time by when she was able to move within 5 meters, and then within 4, and then 2, and then she was grazing the long grass around the boulders, but her eyes were huge with worry. Eventually she reached out and touched one of them. OK now, good, just ..the other too. It took a lot longer but finally with me "steering" her grazing from behind her, refusing to let her drift, she was close enough to the ultra scary rock to touch it. Then we moved on.

But then, oh dear, there was a bend in the road. She could not go forward. We spent another 20 minutes just trying to get around that bend. Cars kept coming and passing us, and she was too scared. I was tempted to get angry, and did call her "Child of Idiot Parents" but eventually we made it around the bend. Turns in roads and trails are as terrifying to her as large boulders lying in wait.

We went through the little town, which was my plan originally, cuz little villages scare her so, and sure enough she spooked and slid across the pavement when people popped out of their homes.

Our local hunter has a house there with a young hunting dog out front. The dog waited silently for Mara, and then sprang at her. But we'd both seen it, so her spook wasn't serious. I felt my own adrenaline shoot through my arms though.

The dog jumped the fence and started circling us, barking the entire time. I pointed my horse's face at that dog and wouldn't let him get behind her. I waited for the owner to come, and someone did, and she tried her best to get her dog off my horse.

A truck/trailer combination came between us at one point, and my horse stood calmy while the dog ran in front of the truck erratically back and forth, owner shouting come, come, the entire time.

Finally she caught him and swatted him in the butt. The trucker asked me if he could pass. I nodded and smiled.

You'd think backtracking would be easier for Mara, but a bunch of goats had moved close to a fence by that road curve, and she really, really hates goats. They're not quite sheep and not quite deer. And the horns!

I made her stand there a very long time as the baby goats came closer, curiously, and then the adults, and then they eventually, finally lost interest and went away. My horse thought her life could not get any worse when they were close, but I knew when they wandered away, it would be a good lesson for her.

Then I took her back by those two boulders and she shrugged, "What? So?"

But then we made it back to that garbage can on the street and she did that splay-legged-Bambi move, all legs stiff, body angled back in terror. My gosh, you just ate apples off it an hour ago! (I'd placed a few apples on top.)

Then our neighborhood walker-lady walked by us, and she always wants to talk to me, but I couldn't, I was done. Mara spooked at her walker, as usual, but calmed down when we spoke.

"STILL not riding that horse?"

"No, I really don't feel like riding her. Have a nice evening!"

Mara stopped and stood a few more times between the old lady and home, patiently waiting for me, and when we got home she got a face rub from me, a thank you for being good, for at least part of the day.

I put more Neosporin on her and soon I'll let them both out to the pasture, where they'll find themselves in their least favorite third.

Hope the fence is powerful enough after all her antics.