Thursday, April 10, 2008

No Whinny?


Sandy is adjusting to life in a barn quite well. Now that he's dry, I can start working at getting that mud off of that shaggy winter coat of his! He's become quite tolerant of being handled around his hind end, so I may just try playing some with that tail, too! He didn't drink at all the first day, but by yesterday late morning he finally decided to forget about the different taste and take a few sips. He's looking a bit tucked up, but at least he's eating which is more than he wanted to do when he moved here.

We made two trips out of the stall yesterday. The first was just to walk around the property a bit and let him relax. I'm beginning to think Sandy has no whinny. He's never so much as nickered at me when it's feeding time. All I ever get is snort. Snort, snort, snort. He stands at the gate and looks pleasantly towards us when it's feeding time, but then he snorts when we enter with food. Yesterday while I had him out, the filly who lives next door to him whinnied a couple of times at him. He looked her way, and I could hear some funny little half squeak in his throat, but nothing ever came out his mouth. That happened twice. Too weird, eh?

I brought him to the round pen a bit later and this time we managed to get some movement. He trotted out nicely...well, nicer than before. He wanted to stop multiple times but I kept him moving. My greatest weakness is being too soft with a horse. I have a hard time stepping up and driving them forcefully, so this is good for me. When we'd made a few laps each direction, I stopped Sandy and worked some more with leading and even got a trot out of him. I think we'll head to the big arena today for a bit of something new to look at and more room to practice our in hand skills.

Join the Hay Burner's Club and donate $15 towards Sandy's upkeep and I'll send you a 5x7 photo (once the horse is here, of course.) Or buy advertising space in the form of a button.

4 comments:

Kathy M said...

When Symphony arrived she had a funny choked off sort of almost whinny she would do when she was frantically looking for me if I was swallowed by the tack room or something.

Once she became more secure it disappeared but now she does a full whinny to her herd mates as I am returning them from a clinic or other outing.

It will be interesting to see how much she talks to her baby when it arrives.

Rising Rainbow said...

His new digs look really comfy and warm. I'm glad that you got him moving.

Funny about his voice, it'll be interesting to see if it's hidden in there or just gone. Hard telling at this point.

Callie said...

My Misty, hardly ever talks. In all the years I've had her, she only whinnies when we leave the barn area on a trip and she's leaving someone behind.

photogchic said...

My weakness is being too soft too. It helped me to go watch a little Clinton Anderson. He likes to use the "spanker." I just would giggle to hear the word in that Australian accent:-)