Rugs and fluffy coats - winter's coming

My beautiful pony is starting to fluff up nicely for winter. Her coat has gone so soft you just want to bury yourself in it.

She was a little keener to come in for her breakfast this morning, since it was raining, but is still needing to be herded in the rest of the time. She is not any better with the head collar strap going over the top of her neck. In fact, she has started to pull back when I am putting the head collar on, although I am very pleased to say every time she has come straight back to me thrusting her nose forward to try it on again.

I have been continuing to take the head collar off in her shelter as she tends not to pull back so much and scare herself. As it was dark last night my husband held her outside so I could see to pick out her hooves and check her over. She has scabs at the bottom of her legs which I think are from the brambles, so I have been Sudocreming them to soften the scabs up. She stood perfectly, even though we don’t often do this, and then my husband took her head collar off in the field. He had to be very patient and just rub around her ears a few times when she tensed, but it did come off without her pulling back and scaring herself in the end.

P1 has started to be rugged in the evening, so the other morning I was asked to take his rug off and replace it with his fly rug. I thought I would catch him in case he tried to run off before I can get the second rug on. He was as good as gold, if a little bemused about why I was catching him and then wanting to lead him down to the shelter. He happily licked the remains of BG’s breakfast whilst I changed his rugs for him though.

BG is not a pony that needs much care, she doesn’t need rugs on and off, she doesn’t have a stable to muck out….and I do miss doing these things. I like feeling business like around horses, with a list of tasks to complete, and then you have the quiet time to bond with them. I’d love to have several horses to care for, but there is no way we could afford that, and BG is the best horse in the world. Just sometimes it is a little hard to find things to do around her as she just wants to eat and go back out.

I rang the farrier yesterday day and left a voice message, she is yet to ring back. The thing is I know she will probably ring back and go ‘I can fit you in tomorrow at …’ but I can’t get time off work at that short notice. If she replied when I originally try to contact her I would have time to organize it, but she always leaves it to the last minute to get in touch. Last winter it once took me several weeks to get in touch with her. It is a pain and I dread having to organize the farrier visit, fitting things around work is always hard. She is one of the few farriers I know to turn up on time every time though, and she does seem to do a good job on BG’s hooves, even though BG doesn’t like her one bit.