Rescuing Rusty

We went for a walk today. It had been a while since the last one. I had backed up a step and worked on other things in the round pen since we weren’t making progress with the walks. Apparently that was what he needed.

On a loose lead we walked down the drive working on voice commands for walk trot and whoa. He stared in fascination at the cows grazing the corn stalks. He had gotten used to them I thought in his pen but it came as a shock to discover they were in other places too! He sniffed the ground, and pawed it one time. For why I don’t know. And we walked calmly and happy even back to the barn.

Not all the way of course. I stopped by the trailer to practice loading. He sniffed a little and walked right in.

Then we went to my newly, somewhat, cleared play area to play with the tire. He hopped over it happily then with work I got him to step on it. Then I discovered that after sitting idle for a few years it needs repacked. That was the end of that. I recently read an article about hand walking and how the lady kept her horse from getting bored at it by teaching tricks. I had thought to bring along my clicker but couldn’t find it as I rushed out the door. She talked in the article about using her voice instead of a clicker and it sounded like a pretty good idea. I noticed, while making the effort, that I stay very quiet when working. But, when I remembered to talk, it seemed to work. So we went back to the other horses.

Almost. First I picked up feet, including the hind feet, for real, for the first time. He has a light colored patch that on closer inspection is  from scar tissue, a wire cut across the back of the pastern. And the strangest shaped hoof on that same side. It doesn’t appear to be from the same injury, just ill formed with one side of the hoof much shorter than the other.

I am holding the hoof square with the ground in both pictures not at the angle that it would appear. Yes he also needs a trim and yes he is base narrow, and walks with the weight on the outside edge of the hoof causing it to wear more and flare to the inside. Not a big deal, either problem, and the oddly shaped hoof probably isn’t either. It’s just weird.

All the time I feel like we are making great progress. He saddles, bridles, lifts his feet, gives to pressure, rein and hand, doesn’t spook much. As we drive past in the feed truck, payloader and four wheelers he hangs his head over the fence to watch. Cows are interesting now instead of terrifying. He’s doing great and has come a little ways, he’s the kind that came broke.

Then the horses run past or chase him a little and my broke, well behaved horse disappears and he runs right over me. No matter how much time I spend working on manners and think that it’s sinking in, as soon as he’s stressed a little it all goes out the window.

We were shipping calves and I walked through their pen to shut the gate, locking them in and allowing us to run calves past. They all came over to say hi and get a scratch.  I turned to walk away, with my hoodie up a big no no on my behalf, apparently Rusty was following with his otherwise best buddy Princess Onna following him. Onna bit him on the behind and, with the whole wide open pen around us, he crashed into me and thundered past while she stood back looking all innocent. I yelled a little wishing there was some way to train at that moment but I couldn’t think of any so I walked on happy to find myself lightly bruised but not hurt.

He is coming along so nicely but for that lack of spatial respect that I have not yet been able to teach him. Will it come? I believe so, but I always believe I can will what I desire into being. I think it is a necessary belief when training horses. The surety that we can convince a thousand pound animal to do as we ask. So we will keep trying.

Yeah, no pictures though. Funny thing about the actual training part, there’s no time for picture taking. Plenty of time during the waiting patiently parts and the messing around parts and the getting other people to come play too parts. I did get a few of our very nice walk we took before the sitting on.

It was a great walk. Night and day from what he had been doing. I don’t know if the round pen work helped that much or if it was because we didn’t venture far from his comfort zone. I saddled him and we went out in the driveway behind our house. It’s my unofficial arena, hard as a rock, well graveled, and marginally enclosed, or at least it gives the impression of being surrounded.

We walked and worked on whoa and go and watched chickens flop and squawk and checked out the wagon the kids had left sitting out.  He looked carefully at stuff but didn’t come unglued. I spotted the posts we had used for Tanna’s lesson last time she was out, for side passing down and backing around. I had drug them out of the way against the fence. They would sure be fun to play with but I would have to drag them back out, surely that would scare him to death. So I tried it. He looked hard but didn’t care.

I was thrilled. Leading with one hand I drug the post along side us with the other, letting it back as far as I could. We made a couple of circles then dropped the post and went back for the other on the other side. The we walked over them a few times.

From there I could see the little empty spot thet I had claimed for training grounds with Nev. My tire I had worked so hard to fill with dirt was there and a couple little barrels, all the fun things to play with. Also weeds taller than our heads. If only the weeds were gone it would be so much fun to play over there. So I lead Rusty in to tromp the weeds down a little and sack him out with them at the same time.

He was fine with them. But they were tall and we didn’t venture too far in.

Then we went back to the house to unsaddle and to a convenient gate to get on. I stood on the gate and asked him to step over. I stayed on the same side of the gate as him and, with one foot and a hand on the gate, sat on his back. While I scratched that perfect spot on his neck. He stuck his nose in the air and worked his lips. I patted him and rubbed my legs around on his sides and over his butt. Then turned him loose.

No different. Just tossed the saddle up there and he turned around and sniffed it. I left him to hang out for a few minutes with the saddle on and when I came back he ran up to me on the fence so we worked there awhile. I banged on the saddle, flopped stirrups around, rested my knee on the saddle while I petted him. He didn’t care.

Got down, played with him some more and let him go. Not much to write about, he’s doing great. A few more times of this and we’ll resume our walks, with the saddle on. No point in spending to much time on things that he’s fine with.

The neighbor girl, Tanna, came over to play again.

The last time I worked Rusty I worked on asking him to step over to the fence. It is the single most handy cue ever, for mounting, sacking out and other stuff I’m sure. He wants to be right in top of you anyway, which is why I’ve hesitated to teach him until he has better manners. Not sure that is really going to happen. He is the typical two swirled, double personality horse, normally quiet and well behaved but crazed and crashing into you when he’s upset. So I decided to go ahead with it.

He learned it in a heart beat. I swear he knew it before I asked him. He is dreadfully smart I’m afraid. So today with Tanna over I thought we would try again, she could ask for it and I could get it on video. It kind of worked only we didn’t get to work on training him he just did it.

Oh, and we saddled him. It was such a nonevent, we took sides and took turns saddling him from opposite sides. I am trying not to get her killed, her parents would never let her come play again. So she waited on the fence while I cinched him up, just to be on the safe side. He did nothing. I sent him around the round pen and he crow hopped halfheartedly a couple of times and lost interest.

Rusty is coming along nicely. Tanna is good help and learning quickly. It’s fun training two at once.

A neighbor and friend of mine came over the other day to see Rusty. I’ve been playing with him in the round pen and put her in to work him a little. She rides very nicely just needs time and experience and practice working a youngster. So they both got worked. She worked on flexing and giving to pressure and getting him used to someone besides me. He did great, she did great and then she hopped on my old boy for a quick riding lesson. I love days like this!

He is settling in nicely, even when I don’t work him we go visit the ponies. He is always eager for a scratch. His feet are looking great after their trim, it fascinates me that they are striped. I always think I can see the exact line that marks the time he was picked up from the kill pen. He has deep grooves then they stop and smooth out perfectly in what looks like the amount of growth that could be expected since October.

I didn’t think I had said anything bad about our boy last time, but apparently I was harsher than I meant to be.

We are continuing to take our walks every chance we get. It does him so much good to get out of his comfort zone. I was going to say that he is doing so much better, staying out of my space and not as spooky. Our next walk was nearly perfect. But yesterdays not as much. We go down the driveway through the puddles and mud. His biggest problem is whirling to face the barn every time we stop.

I ask him to move his hindquarters back where they belong and we stand for a moment before continuing. But it doesn’t always just work. Often the yielding of hindquarters is very stressful and we swing the other way and go in circles and he can get very upset. I try to keep at it very calmly until he settles and will stand.

Walks are a perfect time to work on voice commands, mostly whoa and walk up, he is picking them up quickly. He’s moving away from pressure very nicely and I’ve worked a couple of times on giving to the bit. He is flexing softly both ways. Yesterday I got my blanket out and sacked him out a little, it didn’t bother him to much. It’s my blanket I use regularly so I’m not willing to flop it down on the ground beneath him like I usually would, it’s still muddy out here. I’m going to have to find something else to use.

With a little help I cleaned out the tree branches from the round pen. Worked him in there today, a quick “hey, pay attention to me not the other horses”, showing him the basic idea of it, sort of lesson. I want to desensitize him more and he’s almost ready to saddle. Which brings us back to my everyday using saddle that, like my blanket, I do like to be careful with, not the old broken down saddle that I used to flop around on colts.  This one is a bit heavier too. Oh well I’ll figure something out, it will make me twice as careful in my preparation.

NOT.

Not only was it not a park, it was our driveway, it was not easy.

I caught him in the pen and went through our usual routine, pick up feet, move hind and fore quarters, give head to each side, lots of petting. He was doing so good. I brought my lunge whip along, waved it all around, rubbed it under his belly and against his hind feet as he walked. Even wedged it under his tail and was able to get it around his hind legs with him walking. He was doing great, a little bored even.

So I decided we would take a walk. Get out of his comfort zone a little. I had noticed when he had his feet trimmed and I thought we would do it in the dry spot behind the house, that a switch flipped in his brain as soon as we went through the gate. Calm quiet Rusty was gone and spooky high headed Rusty took his place. So that’s where we would go.

We took our time through the gate, I had also realized that day that he didn’t understand proper gate procedure. You don’t realize how important it is until it’s not there. He must wait patiently, allow me to send him ahead, then yield his hind quarters to come back and stand with his head at my shoulder as I close the gate. Mine have it down and I do love it about them.

We worked on whoa the whole time. Asking him to stop and take a step back when I stopped. But mostly we worked on not running me over. He looked and gawked and jumped in place and thought he might be safer on top of me. I flapped my elbows shoved at his shoulder and tried to maintain control. In the end nobody died! No that’s exaggerating a little, he wasn’t that bad. My arms are wore out from working to keep him out of my space but it was good for both of us. I’ve been wanting to diet and get some exercise, he provided the exercise. He is learning, we need to do this a lot more often.

When we got back to the corrals we worked on the gate again. My two horses had come up to the front so they provided a little extra challenge. Rusty did good. Then we walked down the lane towards where I had left my “stuff” and I let him go. He left, apparently we are no longer friends.

As I left I made a point of making him let me catch him for a good rub and a cookie. I’ll see if he lets me catch him tomorrow.

Which is a completely untrue statement.

My sister in law found him with no trouble at all after I searched and searched with no luck. He has his own Facebook page. He is a beautiful stud, long and lanky and a very pretty color. I think he looks like an older Rusty. But I also think it’s interesting that she got him out of a bad situation and apparently Rusty has a brother who was picked up by the humane society in Ohio.  That’s a lot of bad luck in one family.

State Line Gold Radiance:

The brother:

There was even a picture of Rusty as a baby!

And his dam, with a different foal:

What fun. Thanks Stephani for finding him!

The girl who owns State Line Gold Radiance has been great. She trained Rusty’s dam  and says that she was very petite and like Rusty “Had no respect for space mostly or proper manners lol but she came along very nicely. The key was trust once I had that. Even when she got scared she would look to me. From there she progressed with ease. No buck or rear no bite. I loved her. I had her for almost 60 days. Had her saddle trained. Well behaved. Loading into a trailer like a lady (getting her in to my place was a nightmare. Tried to climb into the manger) had her started out on trails. Green but she was definitely ok to be out there. Very curious.”

She has nothing but good to say about Rusty’s sire, calm, quiet, friendly, good with kids. It sounds like the colts by him with the lady who owned him before her were mostly unhandled and barely halter broke. Even so that’s, sadly, not unusual for breeders, the place doesn’t look bad in the pictures, and she was putting some money into training, so how did Rusty get from there to the kill pen?