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| Gonna miss this nose. |
I debating writing this post, mostly because of how hard it is owning up to my perceived failure. To make a long story short - Cecil found a new home on Sunday where his only job will be to keep an old retiree company.
Basically, ever since we brought him home I have been having a hard time keeping his training in place. Not because he is forgetting anything, but because he is SO herd bound that the first 10 minutes are a battle royale.
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| So Cute - so much trouble. |
In fact, he has torn the muscles around my elbow from setting back and bolting so hard. Once we worked through the fact that he had to leave the other horses (sometimes in 5 minutes sometimes in 90 minutes), he was perfect. He lunged, he tied, he picked up his feet, he did gates, he walked over tarps.
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| His happy place. |
The first bit was SO BAD, that it was getting dangerous to keep working with him. I am home alone most days and if he hurt me, I would have no way to get help and no one to notice until I didn't show up to work.
The final straw was Sat, I took Uno for a lesson at a friend's arena. Cecil was fine the whole time I was gone, but as soon as I pulled in with the trailer and he saw Uno. He broke down a stretch of the fence and a gate to get to him.
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| Notice the lack of other horses. |
I just couldn't keep doing this. He was clearly unhappy. I was clearly unhappy. Something had to change. It was not fair to him to keep stressing him out and possibly hurt one of us.
Enter Mark. He is a 26 year old retired Tennesse Walker, and he has been alone since Monday. His owner doesn't ride anymore but boarded out a few horses to keep him company. The last of which left Monday. Poor old dude was by himself.
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| Meet Mark |
His owner and I spoke about Cecil - I was very upfront that he WILL NOT LEAVE his buddies. I explained all the training I put it, and that he is pretty aloof. She understands that if anything happens, he is to come back to me - no questions asked.
When I dropped him off on Sunday - they sniffed noses and immediately decided to be BEST FRIENDS. There was no squealing, no stopping. Just an immediate happy little group. They trotted around while I watched for an hour or so.
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| The two of them have 7 acres, a barn, and run in. |
The last report was that they are doing great together. I just still feel like I let him down.
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| A much calmer dude. |
Definitely not a failure! I struggled with selling Maestro and feeling like a failure but I realized it doesn't make sense to be a failure when the parties in the end are all happier. Sure I missed him when he left but it gave me room to put myself in a better situation too. My mental health is better without the stress he caused and I'm having so much fun with my lease horse Ernie instead.
ReplyDeleteGood for you realizing the situation wasn't working and making a change even though it was hard.
Ugh, I know from experience how hard it is to let go when it's just not working. Sounds like a good decision, I'm sorry it had to be made.
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