Things I Sometimes Take For Granted

There are some qualities that McKinna possesses that I am very grateful for, but sometimes forget to be. Things that she does that Bailey never did and possibly never would, just because of personality. Things that most horses will never do, perhaps because their owners wouldn't take the time. Stuff like that.

It's not that these are things I wouldn't normally expect of a horse -- because I would. It's just that I am grateful for so many of her traits, and I wanted to list a few of them!

So --

• Never, ever pulls back when tied.
  
• Never panics when she gets caught up in something.
• Pretty much never bucks.
• Leads perfectly. Stops on a dime, backs up, forehand turn, haunch turn, sidepass, whatever I want, she does it.
• Stands (albeit with a long-suffering look on her face) like a statue when we spend an hour washing her entire body. Yes, owning a grey sucks.
• Never offers an ears-pinned nasty face to a person for any reason.
• Sound. Knocking on wood.
• Neck reins. (My horses forevermore will neck rein, whether they're English horses to the gills or not.)
• Cheerfully goes through water, over bridges, past all kinds of noisy motorized vehicles, etc.
• Stops when I say ho.
• Has no bad habits.
• Actually enjoys being groomed (Bailey hated grooming, period. The only time he ever enjoyed it was when I was scratching a really good itch, and that was only when he was shedding).
• Has really adorable form over fences.
• Trailers perfectly. Every time. (As much training and practice and work we did with Bailey, he just was never comfortable in trailers. He'd load right away, he'd stand fine, he'd unload safely, but he still disliked them.)
• Is an easy keeper. I love only feeding a handful of orchard grass pellets, instead of six pounds of Ultium.
• Stands politely for the farrier. Less politely for the vet, but doesn't fight shots of any kind.
• Tolerates worming. With disgusted faces.
• Comes when she's called, mostly (I plan to play around with this and see if I can get it really sharp).
  
• Respects fencing, regardless of substantialness of said fencing.
• Tolerates my random experiments, like cantering bareback in a Batman costume.
• Gets along well with other horses, minus squealing at all the boys when she's in heat.
• Stands rock still for fly spray, clipping, brushing, braiding, etc.
• Has a cheerful, "What's next?" attitude.

Okay, so that was a bit of a ridiculous list, and a lot of things on it are things I'd expect from any horse (holds still for farrier, holds still for fly spray, stops, goes over stuff, and so on). But the fact remains that it's so easy with her.

Even though we worked through so many of his issues, Bailey was just not the kind of horse that settled down easily. So even through all his improvements, he was still nervous in the trailer, he was still kind of an ass for the farrier, and he still hated grooming. On the other hand, he did learn to trailer, mostly stand for the farrier, stand as still as McKinna for bathing, never fought the vet (even for that terrible intranasal Strangles vaccine), and so on. He wasn't a demon, after all, he was just a high-energy horse that I hadn't worked all the kinks out with.


Anyway, here's an example of just how chill McKinna really is:

She hates having her face washed. Hates it. She'll tolerate it if you do it with a washcloth, but that's it. No hose near her head is okay.

Tonight I finally got fed up with washing her forelock by pulling it backwards towards her neck. So I started working on the hose-face thing. Turned the water down low, approach and retreat, the usual. I had my mom give her treats when she relaxed.

Not exactly the most sophisticated training regime, as you can see. But with matters this simple, I know McKinna is easy to convince. Once she 1. understands what you want and 2. realizes there's food involved, she's sold. She knew damn well what I wanted, and she was nervous, but she was willing to ignore her fright if she got treats out of the deal.

Within five minutes, she was holding perfectly still while I ran the hose on her forehead to rinse it, with water streaming down her whole face.

Sigh. Let that be a lesson to you. I accepted her face-washing phobia as an idiosyncrasy, something that was just 'one of those things.' I should have realized that it was an oddity for a mare who's normally rock-solid about everything, and known that it would only take a tiny bit of work to get her over that fear.

Oh well. At least I have a horse with a clean face now!

What little 'idiosyncrasies' do you turn a blind eye to in your horse that you could probably fix if you set your mind to it?