Day 3

Tilly went out first this morning, then Faith. To my surprise there was no squealing or arguments between the ladies, just a bit of curious sniffing from Tilly. Faith does have a bit of a habit of pulling away quickly when I take her headcollar off. Today she pulled away before I quite had it undone, but when she reached the end of the leadrope, she stopped and waited patiently until I undid her completely.

I want to stop this. The plan is to scatter a few grass nuts for Tilly so she is in the vicinity and not walking off, then to stand with Faith for a minute or two longer with some carrots before actually removing the headcollar. Anyway, we will see how that goes.

There was a bit of half hearted trotting about, then everyone settled down to the serious business of munching grass. When I had finished the mucking out and was about to go back into the house, I had a last look into the field. I was really pleased to see that Faith and Tommy were having a bit of mutual wither scratching. Tilly looked on for a bit, then calmly walked up to them. She moved Tommy away, and then to my delight and surprise invited Faith to have a bit of mutual wither scratching with her. Brilliant!

As this is my half day at work, I was taking a stroll with my little boy up the path at the side of the paddock. A low flying jet came thundering overhead. Faith had a little startle, then calmly went back to grazing. Excellent, another scary thing to tick off the list!

I am desperate to give Faith a brush with the lovely soft brushes I have bought her. However, I don’t even want to start doing this until she is completely happy and relaxed with me touching her all over. Ideally I want to do this at liberty and in the yard, so that she can feel that she really can move away from me if she is not comfortable with what I am doing. Unfortunately, we are doing a lot of work on the land at the moment, and Michael has had to put some of his equipment in the yard for the time being. I am not prepared to have Faith loose on the yard until all that stuff is out of the way. So I am just doing this while she is loose in her stable. If she moves away from my touch, I step away, and almost immediately she steps towards me again, and we carry on.

So far she has been happy to let me touch all over her face, neck, chest, withers and shoulders. However once I get past her shoulders, she tends to shift backwards. Tonight I was able to give her gentle scritchy scratches all down her back, and onto her rump, where I suspect another itchy groomy spot may be lurking!

While I was doing this, she was investigating my lower legs and my boots. She has started to get a little toothy, so to preserve my calf muscles from a light chewing, I just kept the back of my hand against her cheek, and if she became a little too insistent in her explorations, I just applied a little pressure, not enough to move her head away, but enough to make her stop and think what she was doing.

As this was going on, a heartstopping moment occurred when my ever-cooperative cat leapt onto the top of the stable door. I jumped about six feet into the air and uttered words that would make a sailor blush. Faith gave a minute twitch of surprise, and turned to look at me with a disapproving glare that just said “ And what on earth is wrong with you?” Oh dear, I have been put to shame by a not-even-two year old filly!