one down five to go

I dont know where to begin...What a day. im not really sure how i want to write this post either. Do i just want to documnet what happeneed,do i want talk about my thoughts on the wild horses, my philosphies.Or do i want to explain my training techniques step by step, how it all works? As to the last, i probably dont, mainly because i write it one way, and some else interprets it differantly, my training techniques work for me, because i have been doing this sort of training for years, i do not want some else trying to follow my advice and it going all wrong...Well, one thing i am decided on, is the that the sweetest wild horse definetly got off the truck at my place.

The little chesnut, is now tucked away in my barn, with his head in the hay bin. He has proved to be the easiets horse i've worked with yet. However being sick, and unable to see out of one eye, probably makes my job a bit easier.The poor little guy's eye had swollen completly shut overnight. At 7am he was walking around the yard picked on by the other horse in ihs pen and bumping into the wall on his blindside. Bad.

Then by 10am when a freind showed up to help me, the eye was oozing big lumps of puss. Worse. with a wound oozing and eyes oozzing my origianl plan of letting him settle in and hope the swelling would go down naturally, wasnt going to work.So my wild horse training kicked up a gear.

I dont do anything magical when training horses, its just timing, and knowing when you ask and when to back off. so with the help if a freind, we got the little guy, in one corner of the pen alone, started by just scratching his neck, then slipped a halter on. the whole time he was sniffing my hands, and watching me. I have a little habbit as well, i always talk when i work with horses, mumbling, usaly nonsense, in a low tone. It seems to work for me, better than being quiet and the suddenly saying something and startling the horses. So i scratched my sick wee freind, mumbled a bit of nothing, and suddenly we had a haltered, not so wild horse..

Sadly through the whole process, i could smell the rotting flesh from the wound on his head, a putrid stink, that im well to used to from recent trips overeseas. every time he licked his little lips and chewed, showing he was thinking, a horrible squelching sound came from the the open gash on his head.

So now he was haltered it was just a matter of teaching him to move off from pressure on the lead rope,rewarding every step he took in the right direction. then we just led the wee boy home, following behind my old arab gelding, we walked the 600m to the barn, which meant walking along the road, through the neighbors property filled with peacocks and assorted birds, crossing a creek, and finally arriving at the barn. Just like it amazed me two years ago, so it did again today. The little wild horse horse just accepted it all, never spooking, or acting in any way wild, just calmly walking along behind me. Remember this is a horse that is not only straight from muster but functioning on 50% of his normal vision, behaving better than a lot of our domestic horses ever would.

Im lucky i have great vets nearby,that know me well, i gave them a call explained the situation, and the state of my little wild stallion. They happily agreed to prepare a antibiotic injection, that they could supervise me giving to the little colt. Perfect, ive had enough practice in the past, and more recently in Egypt, jabbing animals with needles that i was happy to do it, with a vet watching. More importantly even though the wee man had behaved impecably, i was much happier with me handling him, than asking a vet to administer a drug to a horse that four or five days ago was runing wild.

Coming back to the barn with my big syringe and needle, i found my boy standing in the middle of the stable head down sleeping. This is where i felt like the big bad wolf, not only was i going to wake him up, from much needed sleep, i was going to jab him with a needle, on his first day being handled by people. But you know what,better to get a jab,than lose an eye to infection. I walked in scratched his neck, mumbled some more, jabbed the needle in, squeezed with all my might, to get the medicine through and into in his neck muscle, he stood there the whole time quietly. miracle, Poor boy.

Now we just wait and see, fingers crossed theres no eye damage, but cant tell, until swelling goes down and we can actually see his eye agian.All things considerd this day actually went well, hopefully the rest of the wild boys will be as easy as this sweet one.

Just some quick pics, chestnut peering through the stockyard, and then about to receive an injection from me in the stable