DAY 24 The past week we've been practicing patience. I've been working on going slowly and working on earning her trust before we do "actual work." The mare has been working on being patient in the crossties. I've been working on asking if she's ok with me petting or brushing her before I move in. It's taken a while to get her to understand what I was trying to do. I'll hold out my hand or a brush and if she moves her nose to it then that's a yes. If I hold something out a

DAY 17 After our bad day in the round pen, the grey mare did NOT want anything to do with me. She was even more skittish and standoffish than she was before. I decided to be patient with her and just be happy to spend time around her not asking anything of her. The most trying thing we did was a little bit of grooming. Yesterday when I came out to clean the paddock she came up to the gate to greet me. She followed me around for a bit and let me stand there petting her wit

DAY 15 There's always a point with rescues where I end up so frustrated/angry that I can't do anything but cry. Yesterday was that day for me. The mare and I had been working for 20 or 30 minutes on grooming, picking up her feet, and leading with a slack lead rope. We were working on leading without a lead rope and just her halter. I knew I had the whole day open, so I wasn't rushed. I decided to take off her halter so we could work on haltering. I hate leaving the halt

DAY 12 This little mare is very opinionated and she wants everything done on her terms. It's going to make things move a bit slower, but my hope is that once she starts trusting me and wants to be with me she's going to be an amazing partner. I've been doing a lot of walking up to pet her then just walking away without asking anything of her. Sometimes she's fine with it and other times she moves just enough to stay out of reach. This week I've started feeding her breakfas

DAY 9 Today was the first day that the mare and I went out to the round pen to do "actual work." Most of what we've been doing is just spending time together. Leading and grooming and some work on her feet. She walked out to the round pen on a loose lead rope and wasn't fazed at all by the new situation at all. There are so many things that I don't know about this mare. I can only guess what she's been through and what she knows. She can be very light on a lead rope and

DAY 6... I'm glad I had mentally prepared myself to start from square one with this mare. She's definitely not wild but she has so many hurdles ahead of her. The first of them is trusting people. She's not scared of people but she's very wary. Today was the first day I was able to reach up and grab her halter without bribery of some kind. I wanted to reward that with something that she wouldn't find as difficult as picking up her feet. So, we decided to go for a walk. W

DAY 4... The internet can be an extremely helpful way to find out more information about any number of things. With the horse world as small and connected as it is, finding out about a horse's history can sometimes be easy. I posted her picture and information and people started sending me messages all day yesterday. I'll never have her whole story because she was purchased from a feedlot in the beginning of fall by a family to be their son's project/trail horse. They took

DAY 2... There were two horses listed for sale during the online auction. My mare was one of them and the other was a chestnut Arab mare. They were both picked up yesterday and today I've already seen the sale post for the Arab mare pop up online. Her ad says that her new owner's other horse doesn't like her and that she's just too much/too skittish for her daughter. Apparently this was the 3rd auction that she's been through. Horses need time to settle in and acclimate t

DAY 1.... I'm always window shopping for horses and with winter approaching I'll have more time available for training horses because lessons always slow down during the winter. I saw this mare pop up on the online auction for the Enumclaw Sales Pavilion and watched as her bids went up to, and then stopped at, $150. I figured something must be "wrong" that wasn't disclosed in the description, so I took a day trip up to see her. As i was trying to take pictures she was very