This is my sister Bella’s blog but I asked her if I could do another guest blog because I’ve been reflecting a lot lately and felt like I had a lot to say. Mostly I have been thinking about life; my life and the lives of horses in general. I have a great life, I have the best mom ever, plus my grammy and all my friends, a nice stall, hay, and lots of good stuff. I like the place where I live now but I used to live in a different place. That was Minnesota. There I had the same mom but no grammy, different friends, a different stall, different hay, all of that. That was a great life too but me and my mom came here to be near grammy and Bella.
Sometimes when I’m standing guard in my paddock in the mornings while the rest of the barn naps, I think about that place. I miss the friends I had there: Leiny, Sergeant, Ace, Onyx, especially Treasure. When you’re a horse you don’t get to choose where you live, you just go where your mom says. One day some guys put me in a trailer and that was it, I never went back to that place. It turned out okay because my mom was here and I have Favre and Dooley and Poco and the other guys to be friends with but it was all really scary.
That’s why I don’t like trailers, because usually you get on the trailer and you don’t come back to that home again. Bella says that’s not true. She said when she was just little she went on trailers lots of times to places called the Track and the Training Barn and that she always went back to her same house. I know that a lot of horses go on trailers for shows and things and then come back but I just can’t bring myself to shake the fear.
Another thing that really scares me is water. I drink water and that’s okay as long as it’s not splashy but sometimes my mom wants to put water on me like with a hose or a bucket or cloth or something! I don’t like that at all! I’m not even really sure why, but I just get so frightened when water is around. I try really hard to be good for my mom though, I love her and I trust that she wouldn’t hurt me. She can tell that I’m scared and she goes really slow.
That is one reason I love my mom so much, she knows that there are things that make me nervous or even scare me and she is really sensitive about it. For example I sometimes get really scared when I am tied up and I panic, because of that my mom doesn’t tie me up unless she really has to, usually she just holds my lead rope or just lets me stand loose or with the rope through the stall bars but not tied. Horses in a herd look out for each other so everyone is safe and it makes me feel safe having my mom in my herd.
Horses need to trust and bond, whether it is with other horses or people or dogs or whatever, we just plain need it. A horse all alone is dead. Even if it isn’t dead, it might as well be. I tried to trust a lady before I met my mom. She was different though, she wasn’t a good herd-boss and I knew that she was nervous so I took charge so we would be safe. But it didn’t help. When she rode me she held my head in so tight that it hurt my mouth a lot! I couldn’t even move my neck in a natural way. I fought against it as hard as I could and eventually she just stopped riding me. I was so lonely then and mad and scared too because I was alone and I had no herd. But then my mom came and she was different. At first I didn’t want to trust her because I thought she would hurt me too but she was there every day, talking to me, cleaning my paddock, giving me treats, and over time we became a herd.
Even though I have a really great mom I also really enjoy having my horse friends! It is so nice to be able to run around and play and you can’t do that with your mom. Bella would say that it isn’t Manners. She uses the word Manners a lot and she has learned to be nice to grammy and stuff but she doesn’t know anything about horse manners!
She introduced me to her friend Chip the other day and he reached right out toward my face and nipped at me! I squealed, pinned my ears, and raised a foreleg to put the little upstart in his place, but he and Bella didn’t even notice! I asked her about it later and she seemed to think it was perfectly fine. “He was just nibbling” She told me and kind of shrugged the whole thing off. The polite thing for horses to do is sniff noses, then you should ignore each other by grazing or something for a minute, then you can sniff again and see what happens. Bella and her friends are kind of strange.
Me and my mom have been riding a lot more lately, she says we’re getting ready for a show! We’ve been having a lot of fun and going to a show sounds exciting. She comes to see me every day now and it makes me so happy! I know that my mom is really busy so I understood before when she sometimes didn’t come, but it is so nice to see her everyday. I kind of miss having my special times with just my grammy though, going for rides around the farm and stuff, I really love my grammy, but we still see each other all the time since I live near Bella now. Well time to go outside and enjoy the last of the sun and the cool evening breeze, thanks for reading!
~Spark
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