Twosox: Trailer loading simulations...

May 11 2010

After I played with Prince I played with Twosox. We had a great play time. When I first went out (before I played with Prince) Knightly and Twosox were lying down. So I went over to Twosox and sat with him for a while. It was really amazing because this was my RBI... and he was letting me sit by him while he way lying down! Over the past months he was slowly been letting me be with him for longer and longer amounts of time but it has been over a month since I have had the chance to be with him while he is lying down. Normally he would be okay for a little while and then get up. But not today. Today he was calm the whole time and even let me sit on his side!!! It was so cool!! I must have sat there for a good 5-10 minutes before I left to go play with Prince. 

So to start off with Twosox and I went and played in the shelter for a while. He was very confident going it and just as confident staying in there. Ruffian followed us over and he came in the other side and was sleeping there. I did some different things with Twosox and then I decided to try tying him to the rail. I tied it in a way that I could quickly loosen it if anything happened. But nothing did. Twosox was totally fine. One time he backed up a bit but then felt the pressure from the halter and stepped forward again. It was great! Then Twosox fell asleep!! It was wonderful! He was perfectly happy and content. So there I was, Ruffian on one side sleeping and Twosox on the other side sleeping... it was really cool! I had some time to think while I was standing there and I was thinking about different trailer loading simulations that I could do with Twosox. One that I thought of setting up three barrels a long the fence but with a 3ft gap and then putting a pole going from the one barrel to the fence and then sending the horse in, kind of like a trailer stall. Then once the horse was okay with that I would put another pole behind the horse. Simulating a trailer. I figured that it would probably take a couple play sessions to get Twosox okay with being in there etc. But I wanted to try so we did it up up in the riding ring.... it took less then 5 minutes and Twosox was in there happily and so I tried putting a pole behind him... he was perfectly fine! Couldn't have cared less! 

Here is a picture of Twosox....

 

What a special horse! It will be really fun the next time that we have a chance to play with a trailer! The after that I asked Twosox to back into it. He was a little unsure at the start but then he figured it out and was fine. He backed into it no problem. That was were we ended. It was a really good play time :)

Naturally,

~Keri