Having a Baby Around

I've posted about Comanche several times and I figured it would be appropriate to talk about him again!

He still looks like a scrawny awkward baby, but he's so adorable... :)

We've been working on baby things like respecting personal space and leading properly and he's picking up on everything really fast.  He even got his feet trimmed on Wednesday and even though he wasn't a perfect angel he was definitely trying to understand what was required of him and the whole session was a success.  I love my trimmer - he was so patient and slow with Comanche.  And I was very proud of Comanche himself for trying. :)

Having a baby around is so different from my two girls, and a stud colt to boot. It's been an adventure so far, and a super fun one!  He's very expressive about what he thinks and if he's nervous he definitely feels the need to move his feet.

He's been getting much better at leading also... I don't like a horse that follows directly on your heels, especially where I can't see him, so we've been working on breaking that habit and he's doing well with it. He doesn't rush ahead (yet) so I've just been using a lunge whip to gently move his shoulder over when he drifts out of my sight. The only other bad leading habit he has is that he thinks sometimes that he can just leave if he wants to, but I'm setting a firm boundary with the lead rope and he's catching on to that too.

I've introduced him to a saddle blanket once so far and he was pretty wary of it but we got to the point that I could mess with the blanket on the other side of his paddock and he would watch me without worrying too much.  ;)

He's about to get six weeks off while I travel, and then he's going to have a vet appointment to have his teeth looked at and be gelded.  I'm looking forward to everything we can get done this spring after I get back! :)