Louie's First Day Out

Today Louie went back to work. Lightly and carefully but he get to start doing something again. Louie has not stepped foot out of his pasture in 3 months now. So, I caught him and my horse Marie. I tied them both to the trailer and groomed them both. Louie was pretty good. I then decided to load him into my trailer, just because...... He has always led in pretty well but I want him to self load and he has never been very good about that since I've had him. And he was not great today. Took about 15 min but he did get on. I backed him out and gave him lots of praise and petting. Which I'm sure meant squat to him as there were no treats involved. LOL.

I then tacked up Marie. When she was ready, I first led Louie to the mounting block and had him stand still and leaned all over him as if I was going to mount. He moved off the first time but them stood nicely. I didn't really want to mount him as I was going to pony him from my horse. So, I then mounted Marie and headed out. Just a few feet out of my driveway Louie pulled back for some reason. My horse kept right on going and pulled him along and he didn't do that again. He was a bit of a bone head at first though. Wanting to rush up in front of my horse (he has ponied before, he knows what he is supposed to do) Then he kept bumping my horse so I finally snubbed his nose up tight to my saddle horn and went like that for a bit. The Physical Therapist only wants me to pony for 30 min. at a time right now so I didn't go far before turning back. But, by then Louie had settled down and I let some slack out on the lead line and he stayed in position and behaved nicely. We were out on a tar rode the whole time and he is so good. Not spooky about things. We went by someone grinding stumps by the road, some kids, bicycles, Fedex truck. No reaction to any of this stuff.

When I got back, I tied both to the trailer and untacked Marie. I put her away and left Louie tied for a minute. He pitced a fit. He pulled and reared back and danced around. Then he proceeded to dig a hole to China. I didn't want him digging in the driveway so, I tied him to a tree and left him there to pitch a fit all he wanted. I was not going to put him away until he settled down. Took about 30 minutes but he finally did stand quietly. So, he was actually very good today overall, but he did have some 5 yr. old moments! LOL.