Flying back

Having said how well BG was getting on with her new head collar it all fell apart over the weekend.

If BG won’t have her head collar on she spins round in her field shelter and points her bottom towards me. I’m not afraid she is going to kick but I am afraid she will keep spinning round and get herself all worked up, which won’t achieve anything but a very upset pony, when really there is nothing to get upset over. So if she turns her back on me I take the attention away from her. I take her feed with me and just leave her to calm down. Normally then when I go back in she will let me put her head collar on, although it may take a couple of tries. She has to learn no head collar means no food.

On Sunday she was having none of this. She was in a really stubborn mood and would not have her head collar on. When I so much as looked at it to go to pick it up she would turn round and look at me with one eye as if to say ‘what are you going to do now?’ I think she was more stubborn than afraid this time though. Unfortunately I was up there on my own so I couldn’t go in with our solution to say ‘look, you are going to have it on whether you like it or not’ until my husband turned up to help. I think she had had enough by then so was a little upset when we did the ‘grab a hoof, lead rope round the neck, head collar on’. Ideally I wouldn’t have left her so long to get away with it, not that she ate until she was caught.

The strange thing is I did give her a groom, even her face which she is normally funny about, and brushed her forelock with no issues, but the head collar was a no go zone.

Sunday night she was similar. We resorted to the ‘foot, neck, head collar’ method a lot quicker though. Then this morning we almost had to use it again. I always try to give her a chance to do it on her own first, and luckily she accepted it (the head collar) on the second attempt. It is the old head collar again though.

So getting the head collar on has become an issue again. I am hoping this is just because she is in season and she will be fine once that is over. I always thought being in season never really affected her, but I have seen her squealing with P1 which is very unlike her, so I hope it is just in-season moody-mare-ness.

The other problem now is getting the head collar off. She has started to tense when you go to undo the buckle near her ear. She will fly back (not too far but I am dreading it getting any worse), and if the buckle is un-done I have nothing to hold her with so it drops down her nose. She will tentatively come back to me but she will snort her way round the head collar on the ground. This can’t be helping her confidence having it on either, and I am just afraid each time she goes back it will just get worse. I think lots of playing with the head collar strap near her ears is needed as I really do not want this to develop any further.