Silly Filly

This morning Stella greeted us with a rather unpleasant surprise: She had skinned up both of her front feet just above her hooves. Plus, she had rubbed off a small fistful of her mane. This was the second day in a row to find her with a fistful of mane that she has rubbed off. From what Mom and I can tell, Stella has rubbed her mane off by reaching for weeds outside of her paddock fence (it is a round metal fence, so she has to have been working pretty hard). She has pushed so hard on that section of fence that it now needs the ground below its middle legs built back up because she has loosened them. The fence is still fine and structurally sound, it just moves a few inches now if you push on it.

Tasty weeds, almost out of reach.

The skinned bit on her feet we can only figure comes from Stella being so exploratory with her front feet. Mom and I scoured her paddock and found nothing at all she could scrape her feet on, unless she was stepping into her hay trough with both front feet. It is about as tall as my leg, but her legs are longer than mine, so I guess she can get a foot in it. She just had some difficulty getting her feet back out. At least, that is the only way we could figure for her to hurt herself.

See? A Nice corner feed bin. Not sure why she apparently needs to stand in it.

On her walk-abouts today we went into the indoor arena and worked on leading, stopping, backing up, and other such basic groundwork. Both morning and evening Stella and I ended in the outdoor arena. She gets antsier in this arena, and I suppose for good reason, although I still make her behave and walk with me before I let her run around. But this arena is where she gets let off lead to run around, and now to roll, so I can understand where she wants to go play once she gets out into this space. Stella rolled yesterday morning, and both morning and evening today. She is quite comfortable now and at ease in the space.

Honest, that dust cloud is Stella having a grand time rolling about in the dirt.

After a good roll Stella takes at least one good run around the arena, happily squealing and kicking, bouncing and farting. She is good about coming down from her enthusiasm quickly and easily, and has never given me any problems hooking her back up once she is done bouncing about. I am working on getting her to come to me when I whistle. She has progressed to looking at me and maybe sauntering my way. Eventually this response will get more prompt. 

A good run about after a roll.

I wonder if I can teach Stella to shake off the dust after a good roll. She has only gotten in a good shake once so far, and her running doesn't take off nearly enough of the dust before I have to brush her and thus transfer all that dust from her to me. The dogs both shake on command, surely you can train a horse to do that too. Of course, then she might shake like that after a bath, helping me get just as wet as her. Hmm . . . well, maybe I'll need to weigh the pros and cons of teaching her that trick a bit more.