March changes

March turned out to be different for many reasons.

At our barn staff meeting on March 1st we discussed my role at the barn and where Skippy and Zoe would live. Since I don't own any horses anymore I technically don't have to do any work around the barn. But I wanted to continue to ride and I didn't mind helping out some in exchange for that to happen. So many of my chores were divided up and some of them I kept. I kept the ones on Wednesday, feeding in the morning and evening, cleaning the barn only, and cleaning only 2 water troughs. I don't need to stay all day but probably will stay sometimes to catch a ride out with someone. The barn manager wanted me to ride the school horses to keep them "tuned up" and I can manage to do that Monday, Tuesday and Saturday mornings before I go to work.

Because I used to do so much cleaning and to keep the barn staff from taking on even more chores, it was decided to move Skippy and Zoe to another pasture that our hired pasture cleaner cleans. So Skippy and Zoe moved that day to the front pasture where the school horses live. Before they moved into that pasture only 4 horses lived there. Brandy, ChaCha, Sky and Chico. Brandy (privately owned horse) and ChaCha (the only school horse we had) are best friends. They are (were) also in charge of the pasture-Brandy more so. Sky (privately owned) and Chico (privately owned) are the only geldings in the pasture are easy going horses and Chico is on the bottom of the hierarchy. Enter Skippy and Zoe. Skippy, who can be very opinionated, didn't want to make any waves and took a submissive approach to the herd. Zoe, on the other hand, challenged the top-Brandy. Zoe almost seemed to want to be Brandy's best friend and Brandy had none of it, but didn't challenge Zoe, she ran away-all the time. So now Brandy is no longer in charge, ChaCha hangs around with Brandy, so if Brandy is running from Zoe, so is ChaCha. Skippy is like glue on Zoe's side, so when Zoe goes after someone it seems like 2 horses are coming at the horse being chased. This goes on for days. I'm thinking that Zoe has picked the wrong place in the herd, being at the top means you have to hold the top and instead of running from trouble, she would have to deal with trouble or make the trouble. Being at the top comes with many hard knocks. But I guess she will learn. So we all just watched the interactions of these horses as they learned how to operate together. It was amusing. All the "girls" milled around for days trying to figure out the hierarchy in the herd. In the meantime the "boys" just stayed on the edges of the pasture. Sky and Chico just watched the "girls", keeping out of their way. I could almost hear them say "I'm not going over there, you can't get me anywhere near those crazy ladies." The "boys" were literally standing in the corners of the pasture watching the "girls" mill around. If Brandy or ChaCha were "out" for a lesson or a ride, it was obvious that Zoe (and her sidekick Skippy) were in charge. Things finally settled down and now it seems ChaCha is in charge. ChaCha must have told Zoe to knock it off. Zoe no longer wants to be Brandy's best friend, ChaCha won't let her. So now Skippy and Zoe hang out together, Brandy and ChaCha hang out together and Sky and Chico just keep an eye out for those crazy ladies and try to stay out of their way.

Another thing that was interesting was what would Skippy or Zoe do if I took one out for a lesson. I decided to take Zoe out the next morning. Skippy ran up to me when I walked into the pasture, as if to say, "there you are and take me out of here." At this point Zoe was still fixated on Brandy. As I lead Zoe out of the pasture I could tell that riding her was not a good idea, too much energy and her attention was not on me. So we lunged in the arena-the arena is next to the pasture I just took her out of. Zoe would not lunge in a circle but in a figure 8-always coming back to the shared arena/pasture fence to check out Brandy. So I could make Zoe lunge in a figure 8, I could change directions of the figure 8 too. So I decided to see if she could stand still tied in the barn. Result: not really. So I decided to lunge in the arena again. This time Zoe could go in a circle, not the whole arena, just half of it. And we could change direction. So we went back to the barn to see how she would stand. She could do a better job, not perfect but definitely better. One more time back to the arena, this time on a lunge line. She did perfect. And back in the barn she did almost perfect. I called it a day. However, during this time of working with Zoe, Skippy was not happy. Her buddy was gone and she running back and forth from the arena to the gate. By the time I was done with Zoe (only a half hour), Skippy's front half was wet with sweat. Poor thing, pretty worried horse. I pulled her out and they both got to be in the barn together. Every day we worked on it, taking Zoe or Skippy out first and letting the other horse "deal with it" and now it's no problem. They do miss each other, they might call out once, but they stand fine, and pay attention to the person.

Then one day, shortly after they got in their new pasture, the trainer tried to take the lesson out the front gate. Her lesson was using ChaCha and Zoe. Zoe was having a hard time with that. So all that next week I worked with Zoe going out the gate. She seemed fine all the time. Unfortunately I think the lesson kids got the worst of that one.

Now Zoe and Skippy seemed to be settled in their new place. Skippy even found a friend-only when she is in heat. Her new friend at that time of the month is Chico. I found them standing together, with Chico's head resting on the top of Skippy's butt. Unfortunately Chico just injured his right eyelid and is in the barn with stitches. He'll be back in the pasture again. Probably in time for Skippy's next cycle.

It will be interesting to see other things that happen. It's a new world out there!