Earlier this month the phone rang and when I answered, the woman apologized for calling so early, but she was too excited to wait longer. It was almost 8:30 a.m. and I had been up for 3 hours so that wasn’t a problem.
She told me she had recently returned from living in Germany and while preparing to move back to the states, she had researched horses in rescues. She found one in Tucson and even though they had taken him off the list of adoptable horses because no one could deal with him, she had decided that was the horse for her and had adopted him a week prior to the phone call.
In an effort to find out more about him, she typed in his name and horse rescue in the Google search and BAM! my blog post (read here first) popped up. She had not said his name yet but there’s only one horse that fits that bill on my blog. The tears welled up in my eyes as I squeaked out, “You have Tobi?” I was so choked up I could hardly continue and I’m practically blind right now writing this from the same condition.
She asked if I would come out and work with the two of them and we made arrangements to meet where he’s now stabled a few days later.
He was out in a corral with some other horses and burros and walked right up to me when we entered the corral. He still was extremely difficult to halter due to his past and doesn’t want his head touched behind his ears, or his ears, or his neck from about two feet back of his ears. But, I worked with him gaining his trust to touch his upper neck and behind the ear area. Asked him to give to his head laterally and vertically but only with my hands. I had not put a rope on him yet. I wanted him to at least start to put his head in a good place for haltering. Then, we moved on to working on-line and he was surprisingly not too bad. I spent a good bit of time letting him know that I was going to be touching him and doing things on the side that he didn’t have an eye.
I then spent some time teaching Angie, his new person, what I was doing and how to help him. I explained that he would need lots of work touching his head while on the fence. Then, came the moment to walk to the fence and see what happened.
It’s been 2 years since that one hour Curbside Service demonstration at the Queen Creek Horse Expo. I hadn’t seen him since.
I purposely walked him up to the fence, and then backed him up as I didn’t want him to Curbside until I spent some time working with his head. After I spent a good bit of time with his head, I just started to ask if he remembered how to Curbside and…
SNAP!!!!
He immediately snapped into position before I could even get my stick up. Well, I couldn’t help it, I just started crying.
Folks, this is not by any stretch the first time this has happened to me with the Curbside Service, but it was just so huge and wonderful that with all Tobi’s troubles and such and two years go by and SNAP!
I tell people all the time that the Curbside Service is wonderful for training anything to any horse because it’s the one exercise that incorporates everything you want to do with your horse. BUT, the sub-title of the book “Change the Way You and Your Horse Think About Each Other” is the most important point.
I was her last stop before the Alpo can. This girl is the most dangerous horse I’ve ever been around in my life. What did “they” do to her to make her so dangerous? And by dangerous, I mean: She allowed no one near her. Within range for her was anywhere she could reach or get to. She’d charge you, even lunging over the fence. Just hope you get through it and far enough away to live. She struck, bit and kicked, launched whatever cowboy got on her and then, like a bull, turned and attacked. Broke bones in several trainers bodies before coming to me at the ripe old age of three. The trainers who owned her could not get within thirty feet of a fence without her trying to attack them. They purchased her as a one-year-old at the World sale in OK and when the breeder went into the stall, she sent him flying over the stall wall and broke some parts. The trainer/owner had gotten on her, but she launched him and then like a bull, turned and attacked breaking his collar bone. She had to be removed from the stable where they trained because no one could even clean the stall. They sent her to a trainer whose business card USED to read “Problem horses a specialty.” She launched him and attacked again with the same result. he told them to come get her, she was hopeless. They turned her out in a 100 acre pasture for six months hoping she’d settle down, but the other people who had horses in the pasture couldn’t get their horses because she’d attack them. She was temporarily contained in a round pen of a mutual acquintance while they tried to figure out what to do with her. They had the vet out to draw blood to check for hormone problems. If anyone even placed a hand on her, she’d squeal and kick and squirt pee. While in the stock for the vet to draw the blood, she managed to kick him and break his arm. Blood tests were negative. The mutual acquintance said if they wanted to give her one more shot before they took her to the killers, she needed to go to Lauren’s. (I keep a low profile. They didn’t know me.) They said drug her, throw her in the trailer and get her over there. I was gone to lessons the morning she was to be delivered, so I left instructions to leave her in the round pen. Now I was not given any info on this horse, just that they wanted her to “go long and low at a lope.” I had a message on my cell that said, “Hope your pen is still up when you get home.” Hmmmmm….. I walked out to see the new arrival. As I approached the fence, this beautiful horse ambled toward me and started to put her head forward. I noticed that she had a rear hoof that was completely broken up to the hair line at the quarter line. Lots of fresh blood. Don’t know what happened getting her here. I reached up a hand to pet her face and suddenly, both hind hooves were over the 5 foot rail right at my head. “Oh sweetheart,” I said, “that’s not the way we do things here.” She then pinned her ears and lunged over the rail at me with her teeth and eyes snapping. Yikes! I got my stick and string so I could work with her in the pen and hopefully live. She didn’t have a halter on and I was pretty sure I didn’t want to be close enough to put one on her anyway. I had to do some pretty good swinging to even get in the pen and keep her off me. She didn’t care. I felt bad about the broken hoof, but it was obvious that that would be a long time healing and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. She didn’t seem to care either. High, shut-down pain threshold. I sent her off while she tried to attack and then bolted off squealing and squirting pee about 4-5 feet straight out behind her. I tested several options for her to come in or quiet down, the answer was a resounding “NO”. I was running around with her so I could touch her with the string and also use it when she attacked to start our conversation. Getting her to go away was important as a precursor to her giving to pressure and not killing me. She had no inclination to do so and there were many times that I knew my life was seriously in danger. To make a long story short, two hours later, both of us were covered in sweat and pee. She was changing direction and sometimes coming in half way to me. Then, suddenly she just stopped, turned in to me and walked up to me with her head down at her knees. She stood there heaving and dripping with her tail hangling limp between her legs and pee just started pouring out of her. I petted her forehead and said, “Sweetheart, where in the world did you even have that after two hours of squirting it all over?” Whatever happened to this horse before, she decided that she was going to get the human before the human could get her. I found out later that in addition to the multitud of broken bones she left in her wake, the owner had tied her legs and thrown her and left her laying in the sun under a tarp for several hours. She also had several serious wounds that they had stitched up on her lower legs without the help of a vet. Those scars will remain, the mind scars have mostly healed. I absolutely adore this horse and she’s like a barnacle. Follows me everywhere and always is a huge help teaching other horses how to do tricks and work with sidepassing over barrels or walking in the tire bundle or tarp work. She’s always right there on her own (frequently in the way) to show the newbie how to do it.
She was ten years old and had been kept in a pen for so long her legs hardly held up and sometimes didn’t while she scrambled to bolt away. A jet black Morgan, stunningly beautiful with black eyes, flowing mane and tail and crooked hind legs and strangely shaped hind hooves. Talk about spooky – I ducked between the rails of the pen she was in and she tried to jump out the back side. The guy who ‘trained’ her, well, he thinks standing in a round pen while she frantically runs so out of control that she’s at a 45 degree angle with the footing flinging hither and thither 30 feet out. She was in a total lather and had to be blocked to stop. Her eyes were white with terror. He, meanwhile, stood there in the ‘position’ with his arm cocked leaning on his stick while she lost her mind. Then, he saddled her up and got on and kinda rode her. Meaning he stayed on at a very tense walk and trot with reins only a few inces long and couldn’t get her any where near the rail or canter. A year later, after standing in that same pen the whole time, I brought her home amd turned her out with my herd. BTW she couldn’t be caught. What a lover puss. While she will come, she still has a thought that if you have a rope it may not go well for her. I’ve only been on her a handful of times and that bareback with a halter, but she’s doing very well. Updates as I get around to them.
Would you take that one with you, too?” the owner asked me. I made a face. I was there to see about a throw away (by them) horse for my daughter (Gryffindor is on the cover of my book with her). “No.” I said. “That’s like a large Great Dane. I don’t have any use for a tiny Arab pony.” But, the little bay horse whispered, “I’ll be your best horse ever.” Believe me, I throw that up in her face every once in a while when she gets a hair up her butt and she’s not being my best horse ever. She weighs about 200 pounds more than she did then. And with only about 225 rides in her, she’s a phenomenal horse. She’s perfectly behaved galloping in the mountains bridle-less with just a string around her neck that I don’t have to use. She’s so smooth in her gaits. She jumps like a bird; completely quiet and composed and we’ve started working on piaffe. I can put someone who’s never been on a horse before on her with a halter and take them for a ride in the desert or mountains. She’s also the one I’m on laying backward reading a book and in the un-spooky horse blog post. As to the reading picture, she had never been in the backyard, I had never laid backward on her. She didn’t even have so much as a string around her neck for that photo shoot. Very smart, but that’s an Arab for ya. Tell her what you want and be clear about it and she’ll give it her best try. I’ll keep adding blog posts featuring her and stories of old as we go.
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