A Recued Horse's Tale: Roscoe Day 29 -32

DAY 30-31: Bit/Bridle Woes –Part 2 –6:00am. Roscoe is LIP shy! Yes, indeed he is. If you mess with his chin or lips he clamps them up and tries to move away in a “I’m a rock star so don’t touch my lips” kind of way. Not fearful by any means. Also, in case you were wondering, there is not a pain/discomfort issues as the vet checked his mouth our really well. Today is a two session day with the bit/bridle. We removed the slobber straps and mecate reigns for this (didn’t want a repeat of yesterday).We mixed it up some today. Before breakfast we took Roscoe out of the pasture (Laurie was helping today) and started the process of rubbing his face, then nose, lips and chin. Every time he got fussy he got his feet moved with real energy. Once the thinking side of his brain kicked in we placed the headstall on him (he could care less) and started rubbing/moving his feet again. Then we added honey to the process. Just placed some on a finger slipped into his mouth to encourage his to open it. Then we placed some on the bit, let him get a whiff of it and then slipped the finger/honey combination into his mouth. For our ease we detached one of the cheek straps and gave him the opportunity to open his mouth. Failure to relax meant hustling his feet with LOTS of energy. We got him to open his mouth and slip the bit in there in about 20 minutes. He got some honey and a couple of cookies after and gets to think about the lesion on the Tree of Knowledge for a while as we prepare to head off to work The mix of advance/retreat and moving his feet is helping. The reactions are not as severe or dramatic. Tonight we are doing it again!

6:30pm – Some better results! Roscoe was still resistant to taking the bit but much less that earlier today. We were able to get it on him twice and then we quit him. We also “backed” and flexed” on the ground with the reigns. Lots of licking and chomping. Maybe he does not like the taste of the copper? We are using a egg-butt snaffle made of copper. It is a fairly thick bit. We’ll be heading over to the local tack shop to see if we can find a thinner one that is not copper.

9:00am (Day 31): A $15.00  all steel snaffle bit that is a little bit thinner in diameter was obtained at the consignment tack shop. We’ve begun the advance/retreat technique where he wears the headstall for a few minutes, does some back, flexing and desensitizing and then we remove it. He gets to rest and have a cookie and then we do it again. He does seem to like this bit better. We ran through the process three times. He still had to be encouraged to open his mouth with a finger place on his bars/tongue but tit took a seconds for him to open up in comparison to the minutes just yesterday. We’ll continue on tomorrow before the “public debut”. The arena work went okay. Roscoe would shoe ral softness and lightness and then get stubborn. We did lots of direction changes when he was stubborn and lots of easy cruising/follow the fence work when he was good. We trotted a bit. Short distances at first to see how he was feeling followed by one-reign stops. Then we went a bit further and at one point he trotted a nice half-lap around the arena (carrying me at 200+ pounds) before he tired himself out. A nice rest followed as we sat together and watch the Laurie/Argent team work. We did more of the same exercises adding large circles and even some loping (short distances…maybe twenty strides or so)! When I felt him really relax and we got some solid wins we quit and headed home to a nice, soapy bath and spa afternoon. Yes, he likes bath time.

DAY 32: Roscoe’s public debut! We attended the September Nor Cal Downunder Brumbies practice in Wilton, CA. Roscoe worked on his round pen skills and fundamental groundwork, got desensitized top new places and other horses and even made a new friend. He helped a “new to horses” person try some of the groundwork exercises we practice. He seemed calm and relaxed, even when another horse came loping by. Sadly because of time we did not get to work under saddle at the practice but we did get in some work with the bit. He was much better and we were able to get him to take the bit three times, flex and back up in about 15 minutes. It was a good place to end the session and head home. He got lots of attention and rubs form folks. He did as well as we hoped and better than we expected.
Here is am image of him from Day 1, Day 17 and Day 30:

He seems to be on the right path!