December 1, 2021

Disco Happenings

You know, it's more fun than I thought it would be to have both a baby and a riding horse at the same time.

Hat thief!

With Connor, it's like "Good job on that advanced calculus problem, buddy," and with Disco it's like "OMG YES 1 + 1 = 2 WHAT A SMART BOY!" which are both fun in different ways.

In general, Disco continues to be a good boy, and I continue to feel out baby training. He thrives on routine and gets wide-eyed at new things, which is normal, so I'm leveraging the love of routine to my advantage while learning just how far to push on new things.

First time doing his stall with him in it. He thought that was great fun.

Most nights, he comes in and eats dinner, and then we do a short training session - no more than 10  minutes or so. I start it by "tying" him to the wall (really just looping the lead rope through the stall bars), currying him, brushing him and then picking his feet, because that's a good approximation of what the routine will be when he's of riding age, years from now.

Just mouthy baby things. He continues to step forward anytime he hits the end of the line, which is great.

Feet picking has been an interesting one. In the beginning, I asked him to hold his foot up for too long and he fought me on it, so I stepped my ask back to just "pick up all four feet briefly in order when I ask" for a while.

That paid off at his first farrier appointment yesterday, when Disco stood perfectly for him. My farrier said "Man, there's a lot to like about this colt!" and said in terms of manners, he's way ahead of his age. He also, of course, is grateful that I got another one with the same amazing feet that Connor has, lol.

Still looking fairly balanced but he's working his way up to being butt high for sure. Growth spurt incoming!

He's been a good boy for the co-op members, except for a brief period lat week when he would stop and gawk at things every two steps for anyone but me. Barnmate wanted to start using a whip with him to tap him on the hip to move forward, which wasn't necessarily the wrong answer, but I felt it was not an appropriate escalation yet. So I brought him in myself every night for a week and gave him a tasty treat when we got into the stall, which fixed that problem entirely. At this stage, I still want him to choose to do the work and not be worried into it.

The shelf of unloved treats

And that brings us to treats, which has been so interesting. I cannot find a treat he likes! Even the ones he loved while he was at Lisa's, he turns his nose up at. I read online that their taste buds are still developing and changing at this age (and cannot find confirmation of that from any reputable scientific source, so take that at face value), so he may eventually start liking some of these, but in the meantime I'm training him using the only treat he likes: his grain!

(I'm being careful not to create a mouthy monster, and have been clicker training him while reducing the frequency of treats, and so far he's been very polite with no nipping.)

Finally got to see him move with some purpose for the first time! I think that physitis fetlock is bothering him just a touch (left fore).

So that gets you caught up to what Disco has been up to. Just learning to become a good solid citizen and playing with his babysitter!

Bros not letting a 24 year age difference slow their friendship down!

7 comments:

  1. What a good baby horse! I've found that all of my horses take a while to start accepting treats when they move to a new place. Could just be that he's still adjusting and may decide he likes treats the more he settles in. I love working with the babies, they're just little sponges that learn so quickly.

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  2. My horse did not eat apples or carrots until he was about 4 years old which was just odd to me lol, now he hoovers everything

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  3. Glad you are finding your routine with Disco! Sounds like things are going great!

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  4. I’ve been using alfalfa pellets with Niall and that’s been working well. Today she took her first peppermint from me but only after lots of “practice” with the alfalfa pellets

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  5. He is so amazingly gorgeous <3 <3 <3 <3 Like Piccolopony said, I've had good luck with alfalfa pellets with the babies at my place. But not with all of them. Like... they'll chew on wood or their lead reins but won't touch a nice squishy sweet horse cookie.

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