I'm too sexy for my halter, too sexy yeah.......

Look at my black rope halter! I am HOT HOT HOT!!!!




Woo hoo! I am trotting over logs!


Tripp looked pretty good in his purple halter, but honestly, it was driving me crazy leaving it on him, and he has rub marks. No sores - just rubs, and the hair is growing back. He has been doing pretty good so I decided to try the rope halter. I put it on over the nylon, then slipped the nylon out. I don't know if he felt better, but I know I sure did! He didn't bat an eye as I was trying to slip the nylon halter out - I am not very graceful at times, so he had to be patient.

We saddled up again tonite and it went even better than last night. It is amazing how each night I can see the changes in him. I am very proud of him! We needed something new to play with, so I put in two landscape timbers to walk over, and we had a 2x12 board about 8 foot long give or take, and I put that in there to use as a skinny bridge. (We have not got my bridge built yet - hopefully this weekend) He actually walked on that board! Not like a high wire, but he put his front and back feet on it and moved. I was tickled pink! Then we walked over the timbers a few times each direction. He checked them out a little bit, but nothing to worry about.

I then picked up the stick with the flag. Holy crap! What I saw on the end of that stick and what he saw were two different things! His version had big teeth and claws! He got away from me this time and took off around the pen. He just cannot deal with the bags! So what did we work on? BAGS! I didn't chase him with it, I just kept him moving, plus it gave him an opportunity to trot over the timbers. When he tried to slow down to look at me, I made him go a little longer, then I stopped him. I did that both directions, and when he finally faced me, I backed up and stood there. Then I started making noise with the flag behind me. I don't know if he is having flashbacks of days gone by or what, but he has HUGE issues with the bag. I spent the better part of the evening working with that. I can finally rub the front of his face with it, but nothing at his jaw or further back. No problem, we have tomorrow......I stopped on a good note with the front of his face.
What is extra weird to me is the past few days he was sniffing it, pushing it around, and seemed fine as long as it didn't come close to his body. Today it was like it was the first time he saw it.

After all that I drug the saddle off his back and let the straps and stirrups drag over him. He didn't care - and he LOVED the brushing he got where the saddle was sitting! I love when he makes happy faces.

It was another good night with Tripp.

On a sad note, I would like to say farewell to Brado, a dog that we had for 2 years. We adopted him when he was 13 yrs old so that he could live his life out at a forever home. He had an awesome 2 years and was spoiled rotten! He looked like a border collie on steroids. He was almost 100 lbs and a love bug. The past week he has not been feeling good...it was like his body told him to quit bouncing around like a Tigger, that it was old and tired.
We buried him on the hill by some of our other past 'kids'. There are a couple other dogs that he can visit now, and an iguana that was over 4 ft long when she passed. I don't know what Brado will think about the iguana! Ha ha!

Anyways.....good night, sad night....but we are happy knowing that Brado loved it here! Bye Brado Potato (we called him that all the time - everybody has a nickname around here)

Karen and Tripp