Success - head collar on!

I have continued to feed BG in her ‘pen’ as P2 is still on box rest. For the first couple of days I think he liked being special and having his own little castle, but I think the novelty has worn off a little now.

The weather has been cold and miserable so BG’s thirst for food has overcome any apprehension she might have had entering the pen. She will enter quite confidently, eat her meal, and then occasionally get a little het up when she has finished and realises she is trapped. It seems to vary though as the second night she was in there she stood very patiently for me to groom her, even all up around her head. This morning she was on her toes and charged out when we opened the ‘gate’ for her, but the wind had put her on her toes anyway.

Last night was the first night I attempted the head collar with her. I felt really mean as you could tell she wanted the food, but just couldn’t quite get her confidence up to put her nose in the head collar. She thought about it a couple of times but just wasn’t quite brave enough, and every time she turned away I left her. If she wants my attention of food she needs to come to me, not take it when she wants to and turn her back on me the rest of the time.

Unfortunately I get up the field at seven at the earliest on a work night, so before long it got dark. I didn’t want to not feed her since I could tell she really wanted the food and did try so hard to overcome her fear and have the head collar on, but I couldn’t feed her and let her get away with it.

Eventually we went for the hoof, rope round neck and head collar on approach which I was a little dubious about doing outside. She was a bit reluctant, and pulled away when my husband went to put the head collar on, but when he held the rope and I went to put it on her she was perfect, even better than she has been recently in her shelter. She was perfect about having it off too, even the buckle being undone.

Unfortunately, with the wind this morning and us needing to get to work we were unable to repeat it, which probably isn’t sending the right message to her. It also looks like it is going to be a windy night so she might be on her toes then too. I have the farrier coming on Monday so really need to be able to catch her, especially as it isn’t at one of her normal meal times.

The good news is I got to give her a nice groom last night (mostly in the dark) and finally remembered to trim an inch off her tail to stop it touching the ground.