Mares

I think I've finally got Psycho Gwen figured out...

I lunged Coriander yesterday and today at the walk for 10 minutes.  Well, mostly at the walk, he threw in a little canter just for fun.  I don't blame him, the footing in the ring is really good right now and he's been plowing through snow and mud for a long time.

Yesterday I gave another try at lunging Gwen.  She would circle around me once or twice and then stop and look at me, saying "where's my treat?"  It's going to take a while before she understands what I'm looking for, but she kept herself to a walk and was very calm the whole time.

Today I had a totally different horse.  Psycho Gwen was in.  I wrangled her out to the ring with the lunge line but I knew before I got her out there that it would be pointless to try to lunge her.  She kept screaming for Coriander the whole time I had him out and then she tried to circle around me all the way to the ring.  I turned her loose and she took off galloping and bucking (Once again, WOW athletic.  I'll try to video her some day).  She would occasionally stop next to me for a treat but then take off again.  She ran herself into quite a sweat.

I *think* she's in heat, but I'm used to seeing "hussy" heat.  You know: teasing the boys, peeing all over, raised tails and winking.  Gwen doesn't do that, she did seem to pee more than usual today but besides that I all have to go on was her being much more anxious than usual about being separated from Coriander.  When I track back and look at my tags, the last times I saw Psycho Gwen were right in the middle of the month (February is missing but I don't think I noticed because the weather was so awful I didn't do anything with her in the middle of the month).  It seems pretty likely that this behavior is hormonal, I guess I have a mare-y mare.  Hmm, maybe I should look into Regu-mate?

Abject miserable failure

The day started out so well. I was super psyched about the cold spell breaking and planning a full week of working the horses everyday. I turned them out this morning and the weather was gorgeous. I got back to the barn after work and the temps were still quite comfortable. A great day to lunge the quarters.

I took Coriander out first and lunged him. He was a little rusty at first but generally really good. I'm going to keep lunging him on and off so he can learn the canter cue which will make it easier when I try to get it under saddle.

Then I took Gwen out. All seemed fine at first, she was at least walking around me, even though it was impossible to get her attention off the door. She was starting to cut the turns a little too tight so I took her back in the barn and got my lunge whip so I could have something to push her out with (sometimes poking her in the shoulder works). MISTAKE! We got back in the indoor, she spooked at something, and it was all over. Pyscho Gwen had entered the building. Me, being a complete frigging idiot, got in a fight with her. She would not stop, not even for treats, and then she started trying to jump on top of me. I tried throwing an elbow into her to get her off me, and she completely ignored it. She got more and more upset and hysterical until she finally pulled the lunge line out of my hands and high tailed it for the barn. I think she managed to break my finger in the process, which is my own stupid fault, I should have been paying more attention to keeping the line from wrapping around my hand.

What's the lesson here? As soon as I realized I had Psycho Gwen I should have thrown in the towel, getting in a battle only hurts our relationship. Then I have to try and repair the damage from fighting with her. For the next 45 minutes I gave her a gentle massage, possibly broken finger and all, until she finally starting putting her head down and relaxing.

Does anyone reading this have advice for dealing with an extremely herd bound horse? I cannot get her full attention, ever, even with treats. My barn owner says she's the clingiest horse she's ever seen. She throws a massive fit every time the horse next to her in the barn is taken out and she will literally climb the walls for as long as that horse is gone. It doesn't matter whether the horse is gone for thirty minutes or two hours, she'll work herself into a foaming sweat and rubs the hair off her neck until she's bleeding raking against the door. It's completely neurotic. So if anyone has advice I'll gladly take it.

Psycho Gwen

My mare has alter-ego, I call her Psycho Gwen (yeah, I know, that's not very original, too bad). Every once in a while Gwen inexplicably decides that everything she was okay with before is no longer hunky-dory.

Last time I met Psycho Gwen I was taking pictures of her injured leg sometime in September or October. She decided that the camera shutter sound that she had previously been just fine with was going to kill her. I took her outside after she broke the cross-ties to try to convince her that it would not. Two hours of circling and clicking later she was still just as convinced it was going to kill her. A couple days later when I brought the camera out again she didn't even twitch an ear at it.

So tonight when I brought her out of the barn to go into the mini-indoor and she wouldn't stay next to me I had an inkling that Psycho Gwen was there. Then when it took a few minutes of snorting and shying for her to go into the indoor, that inkling was a spark. When she finally got into the indoor and then tried to jump on top of me, when she refused to step over the ground poles she was happily trotting over the day before, I knew for sure she was full-fledged Psycho Gwen.

I've learned that Psycho Gwen cannot be reasoned with. If something bothers Psycho Gwen no amount of desensitizing her to it will convince her it's okay. I've also learned that Psycho Gwen is temporary. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have my regular Gwenevere back. Could Psycho Gwen have come out because she's been cooped up in the barn for a couple days? Could it be hormonal? I have no clue. I'll keep track of her appearances and see if I can figure out where the crazy comes from. One thing I do know for sure - I certainly don't want to try riding Psycho Gwen!