Luna decided that she didn’t quite want to get caught straight off tonight and started tearing around the paddock at a full gallop. Instead of trying to catch her, I got my camera. Lily seems to be feeling quite a bit better too, as she joined in. And Monte, the Paso Fino next door, was enjoying showing off for Luna. He looks like a fairy tale horse. I’m going to have to spend some time taking photos of him alone one of these days.
It’s very interesting watching Lily and Luna together. Lily is very much in charge of things. Luna tries to bluff her sometimes, but very quickly backs down. They seem to be a good match. I couldn’t really choose a small selection of photos, so the slide show is rather long. And if you make it to the end, I now know why the small water trough has dirty water in it…
Luna was no problem to catch when the running was over. Lily has already become bonded to Luna. When I first took her into the barn out of sight, they were calling and calling to eachother. I brought her back out so that Lily could see her. Lily never left the fence line watching while I worked with Luna. I can see that I will need to work them independently. I’ve never had a herd bound horse before, so it’s something new for me to work on.
I didn’t really have an agenda today. I groomed Luna, trimmed her feet and we had our first lunge session. She wasn’t too keen on doing full circles and would turn into face me. There were times when I was happy with a quarter of a circle and asked her to whoa. By the end, we had gotten a few circles each way, with me deciding when to stop. That was good and I called it quits.
Luna is sweet and a bit jumpy yet. With time, I’m sure that she will settle in just fine. I’m really starting to like her. She is pretty sensible, when not scared by something and picks things up very fast. This will be fun…
Luna taunting Monte
Heading out...
New projects are exciting and full of adventure!
For herd bound behavior, I have worked the horses near each other and rested apart. That makes being apart nice and desirable for the horse and being herd bound hard work, and so hopefully they will find being apart isn’t so bad after all.
Oh how fun! Luna sounds great and reading this post really made me miss working the ponies full time. Only 10 more days and the wedding will be over and I can focus 100% on the ponies. I can’t wait to get back to it.
Jackie, that’s actually what I ended up doing. I took her back into the paddock to lunge her. It’s actually Lily that seems to be pretty bonded to Luna. And this is unusual, as Lily doesn’t really make horse friends easily. She’s usually the aloof one.
I am pretty confident that this will work itself out in time. It’s only been a couple of days that Luna has been here. They are both still uncertain about the permanence of this situation.
Hey Amanda! Have a super wonderful wedding!!
There will be plenty of time for the ponies afterwards. 