It's My Party...

...and I'll cry if I want to. OK just kidding there's no crying, but it is my birthday today, so I'd like to party.

And by party I mean wear a dachshund C4 belt.

Unfortunately I'm a boring adulty adult so what I'm really doing is getting ready for work. While simultaneously still trying to fight off a nasty virus that DH brought home last week. Thanks honey. I'm also obsessively worrying about one of my teeny dogs, who has been NQR all week -- we started cage rest but she went on a hunger strike and then mentally checked out, and I can't stand seeing her sit in her cage and shake uncontrollably. So I'm trying to keep her quiet without using the cage, and also keeping her from being squished by the big dogs, who just want to play with her like normal.

Teeny dogs stress me out sometimes.

As always, my horses are getting the short end of the attention stick. I had good intentions to spend time working and riding Ruby earlier this week, but completely and utterly failed. Yesterday I was too tired to do anything strenuous with Cinna, so I washed her tail. True confessions: she's 5, and has never actually had a real bath. She's been hosed off, but never sudsed up. She was remarkably well behaved considering the water was ice cold and it was early in the morning, so not terribly warm yet. Despite not really ever working on ground tying, she stood like a champ while I tried to scrape years of grime out of her tail. It needs a lot more work, but I was pleasantly surprised by how white and flowy it was when I worked her this morning.

Ground tying like a champ. Until I went to go turn the hose off, then she peaced out and went back to her stall... haha.

Her "skunk tail" from rabicano is almost greyed completely out, boooooo.

Still slightly urine colored, but much nicer than before!

I think just spending time with her on the ground yesterday without an agenda (well, I mean, minus the clean tail), really helped translate into a good work session this morning. Currently I feel like I'm always rushing, trying to squeeze in all the things I feel like I should be doing, and so my horses rarely just get my undivided attention without there being an agenda. The last few times I've cross tied Cinna, she's been kind of obnoxious. This morning, she hung out quietly, ignoring her boyfriends screaming at her from the barn, and dropped her head for the bridle.

I mean, she still stood like a goober, but she was calm, so win.

We only lunged (still not comfortable climbing on her alone at home without someone to call 911 or find my lifeless body if something goes wrong, haha), but she was great. There were some scary new things against the arena fence (light poles, wires, a ladder), but after some initial snorting (because at heart, she still is a dramatic Spanish mare), she settled into work and was really good.

The gash by her eye is almost all healed up too, thankfully!

 

 

"Hey everyone -- come see how good I look!"

Now it's off to work -- DH has some homework tonight, so I'm hoping I can sneak out to the barn and ride Ruby too.