I am having such a wonderful time of late working with Willowvale Shooting Star. The change in his personality over the last few months has been so profound. It feels time now to start taking him out to explore the world more. Falcon worries when his brother is not there and celebrates with wild bucking and squealing when we return. Star is content to leave the bachelors due to his brave, self assured nature and his trust in our relationship. He reminds me so much of his mother at this age. She to was eager to explore the world around her and not worried to leave her herd. I had some tricky moments with Star during his first year. He had a lot of strong opinions which he liked to express. His mother was also like this when she was young. Since running with the bachelors, all that has now gone from Star. He is sensitive and very willing in our work. He still has strong opinions which I listen to and we may negotiate on and with that, I find he is choosing more and more to participate in the tasks I offer to him. Just yesterday I was trimming his front hooves and after a short while he told me he no longer wanted to give me his hoof. I asked once more and he remained stoic and unmoving. He was in need of a trim but I had to put my own feelings aside and be prepared to work at his pace. I told him Thats okay Star, we will try again when you are ready and I walked back to the fence and began to put my tools away. I looked up at him and he watched me wide eyed and then quickly hurried over eager to continue the lesson. I smiled and thanked him and we finished one hoof and I half trimmed the 2nd hoof. I decided to leave it there - aware not to undo what had just occurred by being greedy in my expectations of him. I am so excited about the future with this magnificent colt. I can hardly wait to see what path he will choose when it comes to working. He has such an ability to collect his body and perform classical maneuvers that I wonder if that may be our direction. He has a thinking mind and I can imagine he would enjoy the challenge at in hand work in that way. Time will tell and his future path will of course be decided by him. In the meantime, we continue to discover each other more and more and with that the strength of our relationship grows.
Posted on: Tue, 13 Jan 2015 21:07:00 +0000
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