Day 27

Yesterday I went to see Doc, mainly to just treat his wounds, but we ended up making a lot of progress while I was there.  We worked more on the squeeze game, and I found the perfect place to play it.  Just behind the round pen, there is about a 3-foot isle way between his pen and the electric fence.  The fence wasn't turned on, so we made use of that path, and I was able to send him along it and just follow behind him as he walked through calmly.

Today we made even more progress with me sending him through the isle way, then having him stop and back himself out... so tomorrow will be the big day!  I will bring the trailer up there and start with simply working him outside of any enclosure.  That task will be challenging enough, but my goal is to have him loading in the trailer by the end of the day.  It may take several sessions, and we will definitely take our time, but at least we have a goal.

We also worked on standing tied today.  I just draped the lead rope over a tree branch while I worked on his feet and legs.  Never once did he try to pull back.  He did do plenty of side-steps around the tree, but he never pulled away.  I got some great pointers from Gail today on how to train a horse to stand tied, so now we have one more project to work towards.  It would be nice to be able to secure him in the trailer once we have him loading!

I also treated his wounds today, and got a lot of goo off again.  I think it is good when I remove a layer of exudate like that.  Underneath is always fresh, pink tissue.  I want so badly to scrub at it with a good disinfecting soap, but Dr. Jen said no water.  So more ointment gets applied instead.  :)

Doc is getting so much better about his feet being worked with.  I am now able to pick out all four feet until they are clean.  So far, the underneath side of them doesn't look as horrible as we expected.  He doesn't have too much thrush.  Mainly just in the center.  All of his frogs are shedding out right now, and he does seem a little tender-footed when we are walking around the pasture.  The real truth will be told when Alicia watches him walk out on the driveway.  I can't wait for her to get a hold of those feet!

I'll let you know how things go tomorrow...

~Jackie