May 14, 2021

Today we mainly worked with 2 mares. Again training for loading, as they will also go to Germany. And first preparations for riding: getting used to something on the back, on the belly, with weight... Everything went perfectly. Then we also had a mare with us, who had an open cheekbone fracture a while ago. The wound in this area had to be tamponed with gauze at that time. Since she had hardly any contact with us humans, this was done in the manga where she was haltered, after being herded in. Probably because of this, she has difficulties with touching her head and also with haltering. Since we have been here, we have been getting closer to her a little bit more every day. At first she always ran away and turned her back to us. With patience and rituals, we can now halter her. We do nothing else but go out with her to graze and then go back. We believe that she associates the halter very negatively and that's where we want to start.

Then the stallions mentioned in the last blog entry joined us. One was recently gelded. This is because he was so stressed and hormonal that everyday life became challenging. Today we were supposed to rinse the castration site with a hose, just like the other employee did yesterday. We can't explain how she managed to do it on her own. The two of us couldn't even get him close to the hose! With practice, we were able to do it together in the evening. Disinfecting (with our hand) was too dangerous outside the manga, as he already struck me before I even got near his no longer existing area. So we stopped.

Then the horses trained themselves today. We brought things like mats, tarps, ribbon, the horse trailer, and a pool noodle into the stable area. They explored these things with curiosity, and we were more like babysitters, making sure they didn't get too excited when going into the trailer alone or there could have been risk of injury. Otherwise, we didn't intervene much. They are simply braver in a group.

Fly is doing well so far. I'm getting advice from someone in Switzerland regarding hoof care. She suspects that Fly is incubating an abscess due to postural corrections. She came to this conclusion based on a clay test. Nick was kind enough to take clay from a source in the horse pasture. Then we dipped the hooves into it and let them dry. This formed a drying pattern. Since they dried much faster in a certain area than on all the other hooves, it is assumed that it is warmer there (inflammation). We will see. For this reason, today I was allowed to ride one of the horses here in the lesson. The whole way of giving aids is different here than with our "Western horses". If I did a little too much or too little, suddenly the horse would start doing dressage movements like Passage or Piaffe, which I didn't actually want to ride. I will keep at it. Sarina had to go to the arena without Fly today. Most of the time there was whinnying in the background because one of them kept screaming at the other. That's why Nick was mainly busy today making sure Sarina stays focused... In the afternoon, we had lessons in ground work with the "old pros". At first, the whole handling was strange and unfamiliar. But now it's much better. Today we practiced piaffing the horses on the ground.

In the zoo here, where the different animals are, there is also a rooster and a hen. However, since there is no chicken coop, we wondered where these 2 chickens sleep. Today we got the answer: The two simply sleep on the tree (see pictures).