Tuesday 30 April 2013

Hanuman gets mixed reviews

She thought that since Hanuman had mastered all the obstacles, She would enter him in the Horse Agility video contest for April.  She invited a friend round to video him performing the whole routine At Liberty.  Given the limited attention span of the average two year old, Posy and I were pretty sure it would go wrong and we weren't disappointed.  We snickered from the stables while Hanuman pretended he had never seen such obstacles before.

He did get a carrot for his efforts, but it was the small wrinkled one.
She claimed that it was a windy day and the presence of an extra person must have caused him to lose focus, so her very patient friend turned up again the following day to try again.  At the second attempt, he seemed more interested in scratching himself than doing the course, but in the end it was decided that he did pretty well for a two year old considering and he got a large juicy carrot at the end.


She has grave doubts about whether he will achieve the 60% needed to complete his performance targets.  Meanwhile, Hanuman is looking forward to showing off his prancing skills in the next video competition.

Thursday 18 April 2013

I set a Good Example

She has been getting anxious about Posy not wanting to travel, so She hired the lorry and decided that today we would have loading practice.

Of course, I had to Set a Good Example and go in first, which I did immediately and got my carrot reward.  Then Hanuman came in next to me straight away because he felt brave with me there.

Hanuman feels brave

Hanuman checks out his haynet...

...and then decides that mine must be more delicious
 
We disembarked from the lorry and then it was Posy's turn.  She took some persuasion but then went in and out a number of times.  Because Posy looked very anxious she was fed a vast quantity of treats and carrots to soothe her furrowed brow.  
Hanuman and I were Very Well Behaved but only got one carrot each, it's not fair.

Thursday 11 April 2013

Posy makes slow progress

With me taking a bit of a rest, Posy has had to step into my shoes, which are a bit too big for her to fill.  Posy finds that her time in the arena is spent dealing with the thousands of thoughts constantly coming into her brain, whilst also looking around her for anything which might be of more interest than what She is trying to get her to do.  The result has Her sighing and complaining that Posy is Not Paying Attention.  She has resorted to getting help from Mandy, although I suspect that this is as much to cheer Her up as anything.  Meanwhile, Posy has discovered that if she puts her neck down every now and again people are pleased and she buys more time for day dreaming.  The video below shows how things are going (i.e. slowly).


Last weekend, Posy was taken to another dressage contest because it would be Good Experience.  Posy thought it was a bit worrying, but not as terrifying as her last outing.
Posy is surprised to see a man with a camera hiding in the corner

She congratulates Posy on getting through the whole test without neighing once

Saturday 6 April 2013

Unhappy Feet

Recently, I have been struggling to keep up with Freddie, who goes at the speed of a snail.  Normally, it is my wont to rush up behind him and bite him on the bottom to make him go faster, but my feet have been giving me gyp.  She decided that I need total rest and took my shoes off.  I promptly got abscesses, so She called the vet out to make holes in my foot.  Then I have to have a poultice on, and my foot in wrapped in nappies and covered in duct tape.
Winnie the Pooh nappies, the humiliation of it
This seems to have gone on for ages and she got the vet back to take X-Rays.  They discovered that I have sprouted side bones (presumably these go with your front bones and back bones and help to keep your foot in place).  Furthermore I have calcification of a ligament thingy and arthritis in my pedal bone and coffin joint.  This means that I am confined to the field for the duration.  To make up for not getting the cross country outings I was promised, I have been promoted and given the extra responsibility of patrolling the field looking out for stray ballistic missiles marked 'DPRK'.
Meanwhile, She has gone indoors crying.  The vet seems to have that effect on Her.