On Day 6 Sharon did a lot of touching all over with the bamboo pole. This helped desensitize Keno to the cleanup work which was bound to come soon.

Day 7

I started out with the usual stuff but was determined to get my hands on her face. I felt that if I could handle her face, the barriers would begin to break down and also Keno might take carrots which would make some clicker training more feasible. However no matter how I approached her, if I entered that forbidden bubble around her face, she'd immediately put it into reverse.

Sometimes the scales are tipped by the hand of God. On one backwards retreat, Keno backed straight into the handling chute and stopped. I also stopped and stepped slightly out to the side in case she bolted out.

Keno stuck her nose out the chute just far enough to see me, then simply lowered her head and licked her lips. I cautiously reached around and touched the side of her muzzle. She wasn't real happy at first but she let me do it. Perhaps she felt the rest of her body was protected by the chute and she could safely let me get into her face area. Within a few minutes I had my hands moving quietly all over her face, over her eyes, all over her ears, poked my fingers in her mouth and played with her tongue and all the time she seemed to relax more and more. I think I was as mesmerized as she was.

She inched out and before too much longer she was resting the side of her head on my chest as I played with the far side of her muzzle. I offered her a carrot. She took it. Then I click treated her a few times, rewarding her for standing still as I tried to brush off the mud mats which were all over her lower rib cage, belly and legs. The brush didn't cut it, however. The mats were too hard.

I left and came back with a wire brush. It would eventually break up the mats but I sensed that as difficult as the mats were, the brush was eventually going to hurt her so I left and came back with a pair of scissors. For the next hour I cut mats from all over her body; her chest, ribs, belly and front legs. She was totally quiet except to occasionally look at what I was up to or sniff my back. It had been a long workout, I decided to end on a good note and so I planned to attack the hind legs later. I did take her off the drag lead.

I checked in on her in about an hour, was able to walk up to her and using some finesse, snap the lead rope on her halter whereupon she again "melted down" and was a virtual angel.

A few hours later Tami and Marv Daniels stopped by and I went in to work with Keno. She would let me touch her all over but her "muzzle resistance" had started to return. She ended up backing into the chute again, whereupon I hooked my progress string onto the halter and once again she behaved like a kitten.

At the end of the day I returned to the pen and the paradoxical Keno again didn't want her muzzle approached. At one point I grabbed hold of her halter, she pulled away and from that point she really didn't want me handling her face. I could touch her just about anywhere else and so I cleaned mud off her left hind leg and she stood there patiently with no lead rope.

My repeated attempts at approaching her muzzle were dismal failures so I did the John Sharp trick of passing a string over her neck with a bamboo pole. Once I had the string secured, she tested it one time and then immediately flipped back into "kitten" mode. We shared a few horse/human hugs and I gave her some good scratches and left the drag line on for the night. I was frustrated that I couldn't leave her without the drag line attached, however I was astounded how relaxed and friendly she can be when she does let her barriers down.