[AbbySmith]

I’ve decided to start a journal to share some of our progress, I’ll only post whenever I actually do something with them that I think is worth mentioning lol, but here goes!

First off, I went to water the mini horses and Max was super interested in me, so I decided that I had time and started to work with him. Originally I’d wanted to halter him, I’ve haltered him before but he somehow manages to take it off if I leave it on him. So I grabbed his halter and started petting him but he wouldn’t really let me get to his side so I could put it on properly. So instead I just pet him and let him get used to me being around. Then he left and Hank came over, so kinda did the exact same thing as I had with Max. Then Hannah came over and Hank is scared of her so he ran away.
At that point I didn’t think I’d be able to do anything wth Hannah as she is super skittish and a bit of a jerk, so I turned to Frankie and Max and started petting their heads when Hannah started walking towards me, so I thought I’d try giving her a treat, and she actually took it! So I held another closer to me and she actually came up and took it from me. So that’s huge for Hannah! First time she’s ever eaten out of anyone hands before, so super happy about that!

Then I watered donkeys and Queenie actually felt comfortable drinking while I was standing right beside the bucket. She doesn’t like it when I move so I just stood there. Glad she’s finally beginning to trust me enough to be around me.
Then I gave Annie a shot of vitamins (she aborted her foal just a few days ago) and she took it so well. Lilly came over to see what was happening and was so cute and snuggly.

By that point it was starting to get dark but I wanted to go see Chancey because I thought it was a good opening to the year lol. His field is like 1/2km away from the house, so it’s a bit of a walk but totally worth it. (All the minis and donkeys are just up by the barns)
So I hopped on Chance bareback and just sat there for a couple minutes. Did absolutely no training or working at all, just sat there and loved on him.
I’m so proud of how far he’s come and everything he’s learned. I never thought we’d have come this far just since last November when I got him but we have, and I can’t wait to see everything we do learn in 2023!

pic 1/2 - Chancey
Pic 3 - Max and Frankie
Pic 4 - Max (trying to teach him to ‘smile’)

 

[AbbySmith]

Having the donkeys in a barn with lights = Game. Changing.
Just until a week ago or so the donks were in a different pen so it was always a struggle to fit training and spending time in when it’s only bright for so long but now I’ve been able to work with them in the evenings as well!
Next time I just have to remember this, and work with the minis first while it’s still bright lol!

Anyhow, today I just worked with Daisey a bit. Haltered her and picked out all 4 feet. I’m hoping to get her trimmed pretty soon here whenever the farrier comes to do the others. We’ll see how it goes. She’s never been trimmed before so we may just do the fronts, I don’t wanna overwhelm her or make it a bad experience. We tried to work on leading a little bit, she’s seriously the most stubborn donkey I know, and refuses to walk, even to the side. Gonna have to research some different ways to work with her. Tried moving her side to side as well as using a butt rope and nothing works with her lol.
After that we just spent some time together. She’s honestly so smart. When you go in to feed or water, Daisey is the first one to run around, hide in corners, beat up the other donkeys, she’s an absolute terror until you put a halter on. Then it’s like she instantly knows that it’s time to work and she calms right down and is super friendly and cuddly. So since she was in a good mood, I took advantage of it and groomed her and loved on her a bit. She truly is my one in a million donkey, and I couldn’t ask for a better baby.

After that I just picked out the other donkeys hooves. They were all begging for treats and it may seem weird but I try and listen to them. If one of the donkeys, or horses, ask for a treat (nuzzle my hand, sniff my coat, act cute, etc), I’ll get them to do something so that they ‘earn’ the treat. That way they get the treat that they wanted, but not because they were nuzzling me. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but it works for us.
So I picked out their hooves, gave them their treats, then left to feed and do the rest of the evening chores.
I left all their halters up there on the gate and I’m pretty sure I’m going to regret. Daisey was a little too interested in them and I won’t be shocked if something is chewed up tomorrow lol.
I’m also hoping to work with them more regularly and hopefully Queenie will come around. I can finally get within 2 feet of her but have yet to even pet her. This is mostly my fault as I haven’t made the time to work with her as I should be, but that’s one of my goals for this year, to work with the donkeys more and we’ll see how it goes!

It has also come to my attention that I haven’t properly introduced everyone so I will work on individual entries for each of them

 

[baysfordays]

I love the pictures of them..so cute!!!

 

[AbbySmith]

Went down and rode horse today.
He had a couple bad moments, but overall did pretty good.
We just went bareback today for about 30mins.
First off, I mount him by just climbing on his hay feeder and getting him come up and “collect me” he’s doing really good!
Then we just cruised around a bit. For the most part he was really good, except for two spots.
One, Sammy came running up behind us and then Chance wanted to run so that got a little entertaining. And second time, my dog started running and Chance wanted to run with him. He has so much energy right now but there’s too much snow/ice to really work him.
I have noticed that I really need to work him on his right side better. I can circle him to the right really well and he’s very flexible but on his left side he’s very stiff and doesn’t turn easily at all. So after our ride I hopped off and we did some groundwork.
I’ve also started doing stretches with him every time I work with him. At first he was really confused (I’ve only done it for about a week now) but now he totally understands.
One thing I should have done differently was done the stretches very last. I’m using treats for now and once we were done I’d lost his attention completely so I just decided to call it a day and finished with him.
Overall it was pretty good but we definitely have things to work on.
I however, have improved so much as a rider. Obviously I have so much to work on but there’s no way I could have rode him like I did a year ago.

 

[AbbySmith]

Spent some time with horse the other day. Was gonna ride him bareback but it had been raining earlier and he was still kinda moist and I didn’t wanna get wet, so opted for groundwork instead. He’s a little hesitant to ‘get over’ so we’re working on that a lot. He’ll do it. Just takes him a minute to remember what I’m asking. We did some of that for a bit then I just hung out and loved on him. He and Sammy both were in such a cuddly mood they were really fun to hang out with.
One thing I noticed with Chance though is that his feet are kinda funky. I noticed that there’s more space than usual in between the sides of his frog, and his hoof. I’m not sure if that’s just cuz the snow has cleaned his hoof out more than it usually is, or somethings happened 🤷‍♀️
I feel like it’s nothing to worry about because all four of his feet are this way, but the farrier is coming out tomorrow to trim donkeys so I’ll get him to take a look at Chance too just in case

Last night I was dealing with Lilly, she hurt herself so was just taking care of that. And while I was with her, Queenie was brave enough to squeeze in behind us! There’s probably a 5ft gap between their hay bale and the walk of their pen. Lilly was standing with her head right against the wall with her butt to the bale, and I was right beside her. And Queenie squished in between Lilly and the hay bale! That’s huge for her because she’s never been comfortable enough to come that close to me, so that’s a huge win!

Went to the rescue yesterday and got to learn how to pony another horse! We started out in the arena to just figure things out and then we went out onto the trail. It was so fun and I really loved it. I’ve never done anything like that before so it was really neat. At one point we had to walk over a small tree. It was maybe 6in off the ground, so really not that bad at all. But of course, the horse I was riding decided to jump over the log instead of stepping over like every other horse would have. I was NOT prepared for that, so ended up yanking on the horse I was ponying lol. Other than that it went really really well and was really fun!!

 

[younghorsetrainer]

Such cute fluffy horses! How cold is it there? Some friends I have in Canada said that it is around -15 ish.

 

[AbbySmith]

Thank you! Currently it’s pretty warm actually, only -8c. Usually it’s -40c this time of year, and it was a couple weeks ago

 

[AbbySmith]

Farrier came out today
Trimmed Ruby and she actually better than she usually does so that was good. She can be a little stubborn sometimes cuz of her bad hoof, but she did good today.
Also trimmed the baby donkey Daisey for the first time. She was mediocre. I’ve been lifting her feet and working with her a lot recently and she’s been really good about it. She wasn’t sure what she thought of the farrier tho. She tried to ‘break’ away a couple times but overall I wasn’t mad about how it went.

I also got him to look at Chance. Usually when I go down to the field to see him he’ll run across the field to see me but of course today when I needed him to come he decided it was ‘stranger danger’ so I had to walk across the field to get him.

Oh and I asked him about Annie. She does a weird thing when she walks, she’ll kick her back legs up really high. I forget what he called so I’ll have to text him tonight lol. He said there’s nothing I can do for her but I’ll do some research and try to figure out why she even started doing it, cuz she hasn’t always.

 

[AbbySmith]

I was rereading my last post and realized I said the farrier looked at Chance but never actually told y’all what he said 🤦‍♀️
Apparently he looks completely normal in every way and there’s absolutely nothing to worry about so I was happy about that!

I also did some research last night about Annie. She has something called Stringhalt. It’s like a muscle spasm thing that causes them to pick their legs up really high when they walk. Minor cases it affects one hind leg, major cases affect both. Annie is a major case then, because she kicks up both her back legs.
from what I read, no one really knows why it happens. There’s a weed that can cause it but Annie was on hay at the time she started so it definitely wasn’t that. Everywhere I read said that it could be due to a neck/back injury. I don’t think Annie did anything cause she was only in with Barney and they’ve always been friends and never really ‘played’ so unless she rolled or something I don’t see how that could have happened.
highlight of my research was to find that it doesn’t cause any pain so that’s a relief. They say it can eventually just go away, sometimes takes a couple weeks, months, or years.
I don’t understand how it can be that vague, I’m sure there has to be something we can do for her. I was thinking of seeing if Chances chiropractor would be willing to work on her and see if that helps.
Annie walking

But anyhow, I rode Chance today. Just bareback for 30mins. He did ok. He won’t turn to the left and I have no clue why. Even in a bridle he struggles with turning to the left and in his halter (we were riding in a halter today) it’s even more of a struggle. So after our ride I kind of stood beside him and grabbed the ‘reins’ (his lead rope tied to either side of his halter) and asked him to turn left and he did it! So I don’t see why he won’t do it while I’m on him. I think it might be that he’s more flexible on the right side. I’m not really sure. We’ll keep working on it in the ground and hopefully he gets better.
We also did his stretches and he’s getting so good!! I’ve been using treats and getting him to ‘follow’ them with his head. At first he would move his feet and whole body but now he understands he’s just supposed to move his head/neck.
After we were done, he kept doing the stretches by himself and then would look at me like “I stretched, aren’t you gonna give me a treat?” And I did. I can’t resist lol.

 

[AbbySmith]

Quick visit with Chance today. I was gonna ride but then just wasn’t feeling it. I do kind of regret that tho cuz I’ll be working all of next week. Oh well, too dark now.
We did some groundwork stuff. More turning to the left like we did last time. He was super confused at first but by the end he really understood! Then we just did some ‘getting over’, stretching, working on his top line, etc.
He was also super itchy all over so I started scratching the inside of his leg (that’s his favourite place) and he started lifting his leg up like a dog lol. I’ve only met one other horse that does that so it was pretty cute.

Then I decided might as well do something with Sammy. I’ve been thinking of restarting him this summer, but before I even think of putting a saddle on him again he needs a refresher in basic ground manners. He didn’t have a problem with the halter so that was awesome, I think he finally trusts me because he used to just run away when he saw a halter. So then we literally just did some leading and dang is Chance a good boy lol. I think my expectations for Sammy were a little high, but at the same time, I don’t want him crowding me at all. He follows at a good distance but doesn’t pay attention to when I’m gonna stop.
With Chance I can just walk and Chance will stop as soon as I do, if he ends up ahead of me he’ll actually back himself up until he’s in line with me lol.
Sammy however just kinda keeps going until he hits the end of the lead and then swings towards me. I don’t like that. So we started just walking and then stopping and backing up immediately, to help reinforce the stop. I also introduced a click to him when we start walking. Cuz right now as soon as I start walking he starts as well and ends up getting ahead of me. We’ll keep working on it and see if he gets better.
He did understand when I asked him to get over tho so that’s a good thing.
(For those of you who don’t know, Sammy got into a couple wrecks with my brother last summer and lost all trust in people, I’m trying to fix that, as my brother has completely given up on him)

I threw Chances rain sheet on him because it’s supposed to rain/snow for the next week and don’t wanna deal with rain rot or anything. I need to find a sheet for Sammy, he still doesn’t have one.

Also forgot to mention, when we rode last night I asked Chance to trot for a bit and he had NO clue what was going on lol. He’s usually pretty excited to go faster so he started trotting and then I’d bounce around trying to find my seating but then he’d stop cuz he didn’t know what I was doing. I appreciated the thought, it was like he was thinking “this kids an idiot and is going to fall on her face. I’m gonna stop before that happens”
So I asked him for a trot a couple more times and same thing happened each time so we’ll have to work more on that in the future.
I’m pretty sure I’d be able to ride him at a lope pretty well, he has a very smooth lope, it’s just getting him that will be the problem. He likes to do that fast jig in between a trot and a lope so we just have to get past that part lol.

 

[AbbySmith]

Didn’t get time to ride today unfortunately.
Went down yesterday and just did stretches and took his blanket off. Also did some turning on the ground as well. He did pretty good.
im trying to ‘wean’ him from treats while stretching lol. When he was still learning, I would make him follow the treat and then hold it as he ate. Now that he understands what I’m asking, I just give him one treat at the end of it all.

Also something I noticed, I did a stretch to build their top line. I’m not sure what it’s called but I ‘scratch’ (firmly place my fingers and gently wiggle) right underneath their stomach and it causes them to lift their gut up, it’s really cool to watch. Anyways, I do it with Chance all the time and he has no problem I barely have to ask him anymore.
But when I did it with Sammy it seemed like he really had to work for it and was hard for him, so that just makes me determined to ask for it even more often lol!

Did get to spend some time with the donkeys today. I just sat in their pen and they all came up and said hi to me. Daisey sniffed me all over, not sure what she was smelling lol, I thought she was gonna eat my hair but she never did. Lilly was super friendly tho and I cuddled her for at least 5 minutes. Queenie was still too chicken to come say hi unfortunately.

Before hanging out with the donkeys dad gave me a to do list. My plans were cancelled today so dad was sure to keep me busy lol. Fixed a couple boards on the fences. Fed horse. Watered the bull. Fed the sow.
But the worst was definitely feeding horse and watering bull. Dad has his big tractor and then there’s a smaller one I always drive but we have to replace a tire on it so I had to use dads tractor today, the anxiety! Lol! I already don’t love driving equipment and driving his good tractor just made it worse lol. But it actually went really well and I didn’t break anything!

 

[AbbySmith]

Long time no post!
Started working more so have been super busy tryna get everything done over the weekends. Pushing to work a bunch and then I’m taking the whole summer off to just enjoy horses, very excited!
Anyhow, I have gotten a couple rides in on Chancey lately. Been snowing a TON recently so that sucks. One thing I noticed while riding him tho was that he doesn’t like to turn to the left, I think I’ve mentioned this before. I didn’t know what was wrong so I scheduled the chiropractor to come see him and she came out today. I explained that he was just moving a little stiffer and wouldn’t turn to the left. He did ok on the ground, but under saddle or just bareback, he really didn’t want to.
Chiro got started on him, and his first rib on the left side was thrown out! So that explains why he wasn’t turning well. Both hips were pretty tight as well.
Obviously not happy that his rib was out, but I’m happy it wasn’t something more, and we were able to fix it. Also pretty happy that I noticed something that small was off with him. Felt good to know that finally I can tell what’s ‘normal’ for him.

I also got her to look at Annie, no one really seems to know what’s going on with her. She said her sacrum was really tight so was able to loosen that up. However, her walking didn’t improve, we’ll give it a couple days tho and see how it is then.
All the other donkeys were so friendly tho, they kept coming up and wondering what we were doing and why they didn’t get any attention lol, they were super cute.

Lilly is looking so good recently, she is definitely bred! I didn’t do ultrasounds for anyone this year but Lilly is HUGE, and I know what her hay belly looks like and it’s much different. I’m very excited for her foal. She’s not due till august so we still have lots of time to wait.

Hannah the mini horse is also definitely bred, she’s much larger than all the boys. I didn’t really want her bred, but I couldn’t get her separated from the boys and she’s not halter broke so can’t abort either. We will keep her till October when she foals though, I don’t like the idea of selling her to someone I don’t know will do well with the foal. Worried someone would just buy her for the cute foal and not put in the work with her.

I did get slightly annoyed today. Had someone tell me that I worked too much and didn’t have enough time for my animals. And while I don’t entirely disagree with that, they made it sound like I was such a bad person for having these animals and not giving them the proper care. For example, they were petting the donkeys and noticed Annie was missing a patch of hair on her back and had to point it out as though I didn’t know about it.
I literally saw that last week when it happened I dewormed everyone, put Boss Pouron on all the donkeys and applied MTG to the bald spots. Pretty sure I killed whatever was going on haha.
Just annoys me when people just assume I’m not giving proper care when they don’t see me outside doing chores late in the evening when I get home. I was out at 1030 the other night putting Chances rain sheet on so he would be dry for the chiropractor. I work with the donkeys at 9pm after work cuz there’s lights in the barn.
Sure I may not be riding my horse every day but there’s 3ft of snow and I don’t have an arena or round pen, so I do what I can with him. And I still feed him and spend time with him.

Moral of the story, I just want all this snow to melt and for summer to come so I can work my horse regularly and I can prove to everyone that I will make him work out and this was all worth it. Last summer we had so much fun and had so many great rides. We accomplished so much and it’s like no one can see how far we’ve come. Yeah we’re not perfect, but we’re better than we were, and that’s all that matters to me.

 

[AbbySmith]

Had a great ride on the boy today!
I decided to actually saddle him up today. He hasn’t had a saddle on since mid October so I wasn’t sure how he was gonna be, but overall he did great!
He freaked out a bit at first because he didn’t wanna leave Sammy but he was really chill when I was with him. As soon as I left to grab something he would freak out! Obviously not good, but nice to know that he finds at least some comfort in my presence. Or just knows I won’t put up with his crap when I’m around lol.

Anyhow, got the saddle on and he didn’t scootch away at all so that was great.
Then he gave me a freaking heart attack.
I left to go grab his bridle and change my boots and as I turned the corner of the fence I saw his head go down so I kinda ran back around the fence and he was laying down about to roll so I had to yell at him and scare him so he didn’t roll and break my saddle. So that was fun lol.

He didn’t love getting the bridle put on but he’s never really enjoyed it so we’re gonna work on that more.

Anyhow, got on and he remembered to just stand there. I don’t ask him to move out right away. I make him stand for at least a minute before we ride. I don’t want him to move until I pick up the reins. I can move around on him but I don’t want him to move until I ask him, he remembered so I was really happy about that!!

Then we rode, I didn’t realize just how deep the snow was but it came up to like his chest. So he basically had to snow plow but he did really good. We only rode for 10minutes cuz we haven’t done much recently I thought he’d be tired from plowing through snow so I untacked him and brought him back to Sammy. As soon as I took the halter off, he ran all the way across the field to go see Sammy so I guess he wasn’t that tired lol, good to know!

Overall it was a really good ride and I’m glad I did it. I was worried it was gonna go way worse, but he was really good, I’m so so glad all the hard work we put in last year has paid off and he remembers it all

ETA: the chiropractor yesterday definitely worked for him!!! I turned him to the left a couple times and he actually did it!!!! I was so happy for him!!

 

[AbbySmith]

Today was awesome!!! Well, this afternoon was.

This morning I went in and got my bottom braces put on my teeth hurt and I look so stupid. They had to skip over the front 4 teeth on the bottom due to overcrowding. They wanna make room before they put brackets on, so I just have a plastic tube along the front, it looks so stupid. And I have a nance and a power chain stuck to the roof of my mouth, it really sucks.

But anyways, I decided to go see Chance cuz he always makes everything better. I went down and usually he’s eating hay so I figured I’d just throw his halter on and sit on him bareback for a bit ( I just climb onto the feeder and then onto his back)
However, he was on the other side of the field, so I walked all the way across and haltered him but then didn’t feel like walking back to the feeder just to get on him so I led him to a little dirt pile and kinda jumped on from there lol.
Then I kinda sat there but he was being so good, I wanted to try some stuff with him. I just started moving around on him, sitting backwards, laying down, etc. then I got the idea to stand up, so I did. He actually had no problem with it at all!! It was so cool!! I’m so proud of him.
At one point I was just like turning myself around in circles on his back and while I was backwards I threw one leg over his butt and I guess he didn’t like that cuz he decided I needed to eat snow lol. That was the only time I fell off, and it wasn’t really either of our faults.
While I was on the ground I just crawled around and made him ‘idiot proof’ (coincidentally I was the idiot 😂) crawled underneath him, through his legs, he couldn’t have cared less.
Then I really really wanted to get back on him from the ground. I’ve never been able to mount him bareback and I really wanted to. He’s like 16.2hh and I’m 5’8” so realistically, I should be able to, but he is pretty big.
I tried for like 10 minutes and still wasn’t able to. I tried kicking my leg up, jumping, belly flopping, nothing was working. I couldn’t get high enough.
But finally we figured it out. I kinda like jumped and threw myself up and then had to wiggle around and haul myself up the rest of the way. Wasn’t very smooth, but we did it!! I was so happy!!
I’m so so proud of him, he’s come so far. I’m so grateful that I found him and all the patience he has with me ❤

 

[baysfordays]

Sorry to hear about your braces, because ouch!! Had braces top and bottom for a few years when I was younger, and ouchhhhhh! The worst is when they make it tighter, I got home and cried so much LOL.
love Reading your journal and glad to hear your progress.
For me it’s so hard to get on bareback, I don’t know why 😆

 

[Ruth McClure]

What a good boy was he!

 

[AbbySmith]

@baysfordays they hurt so bad!! I CANNOT wait to get them off. 2yrs to go lol

It was really hard for me to figure out mounting bareback too. First time I’ve finally been able to do it. I think I’m gonna start working with Sammy more because he’s shorter and might be easier to get on and actually figure it out, he’s not as patient with my shenanigans tho haha!

 

[baysfordays]

@baysfordays they hurt so bad!! I CANNOT wait to get them off. 2yrs to go lol

It was really hard for me to figure out mounting bareback too. First time I’ve finally been able to do it. I think I’m gonna start working with Sammy more because he’s shorter and might be easier to get on and actually figure it out, he’s not as patient with my shenanigans tho haha!

2yrs to go!!? Good luck! I would simply pass over right there. I had to wear a retainer after I had braces (I had them for 2 and 1/2 years or so) and then I never wore my retainer for years and just a few months ago I started wearing it again and it was sooo painful, thankfully it’s no longer painful, so I guess my teeth are fine, I got lucky lol!


since my guy is 16.1-16.2 Its even harder to get on bareback lolol, I have a old pony who is around 14hh, but she’s retired and I’d hate to put her through that LOL.(and same situation, she is not as patient with me lolol)

Anyway, hopefully you’ll get it down!

I definitely don’t know how I’m going to learn it in the future LOL.

 

[AbbySmith]

Ugh I just really hope it’ll be worth it in the end. I’m sure it’ll get better after a while once my teeth get used to it.

For me, I literally just got him to used to being ridden bareback first obviously. Then I would jump all around him and ‘accidentally’ bump into him occasionally. Once he was fine with me jumping around, I started kinda putting my hands on his back and jumping up and ‘belly flopping’ onto him. I’ve been doing that for a while and he literally does not care at all anymore. However, I couldn’t ever get high enough to even be able to wiggle on. If here even just a couple inches shorter I’m sure it’s be way easier.
So today I just kept jumping and jumping and eventually I got it right. Next time I wanna try standing by his shoulder and with my left hand on him and then try swinging my right leg and push off of the left leg and left arm and swing up. We’ll see how it goes. Gotta work tomorrow but I’ll work on it this weekend

 

[DollyandAya]

I also did some research last night about Annie. She has something called Stringhalt. It’s like a muscle spasm thing that causes them to pick their legs up really high when they walk. Minor cases it affects one hind leg, major cases affect both. Annie is a major case then, because she kicks up both her back legs.
from what I read, no one really knows why it happens. There’s a weed that can cause it but Annie was on hay at the time she started so it definitely wasn’t that. Everywhere I read said that it could be due to a neck/back injury. I don’t think Annie did anything cause she was only in with Barney and they’ve always been friends and never really ‘played’ so unless she rolled or something I don’t see how that could have happened.

Sorry I'm a bit late to this, but I was just wondering about the stringhalt thing. I've read up a bit about Australian Stringhalt (the one caused by the weed). I'm not sure if you have it in Canada or not, but anyways, if there was some of the weed (called catsear or false dandelion) in Annie's hay, that could also cause stringhalt. Has she changed from when you posted this?