Louie's first set of shoes

1/26/2010
Louie got his first set of shoes today. When the farrier came, I had him do my horse first. It was winter shoes with snowball pads so took a bit of time. After my horse was done, I caught Louie, (more like he caught me…) put a nylon halter on him and led him into the barn. Louie promptly whirled around and dragged me out of the barn, my farrier jumping out of the way all wide eyed. ACK. I put a rope halter on Louie and led him back into the barn and once again he whirled around and dragged me out!! My farrier is getting a bit worried now and I am a little surprised as Louie has never done this to me before. I know I can’t have him learning he can drag me around so I put the nylon halter back on him and put a stud chain over his nose. I lead him back into the barn and he again starts to whirl around. I give one quick hard yank on that chain and he stopped dead in his tracks. After a second, he made one more feeble attempt resulting in one more quick yank on the chain and that was the end of that. Another second of thinking about it and his head came right down, he let out a big sigh and relaxed. His ears were at half mast so you could tell he was thinking about it all but he stood quiet and relaxed. He was perfect for the farrier. Stood quiet and nice never pulling his feet and picking them all up like a gentlemen. So, despite the slightly rough start, I was very proud of my boy and the farrier was more then pleased with him. Once again, good mule!!!