Sharon will be reinforcing these behaviors tomorrow while I'm on duty and then we'll see how far we get later in the week.

Day 10

Keno was the easiest to approach ever. She still had to rotate to her right side as I came in, but she didn't dance around when I came up to her. I asked her to lead and she was real light on the line. Her muzzle shyness was almost gone and she'd take even tiny pieces of carrot. Things were real quiet and nobody was in the stable so I figured now would be as good a time as any to explore the great outdoors. I opened her gate and we proceeded to venture out.

Well, I proceeded. Keno wasn't so sure about leaving her safe haven. She'd walk up to the gate but just stop short of passing through it. No problem. We worked on backing and then she'd lead right back to her "sticky spot." Each time she'd go just a tiny bit farther. When she finally popped through, she just couldn't believe it! No fences! Lots of grass! Things to see!

We'd walk a little and graze a little. Keno was pretty keyed up about everything and an occasional frantic tear at the grass seemed to be a pretty good distraction. About the time we were really getting into it, one of our boarders, Susan Ragland, arrived with her young daughter... not a good thing when a mustang is on her first outing. I decided it was probably best to go back in the paddock. To make matters worse it was starting to rain. I soon realized that I had absolutely no traction in my leather boots on the wet grass in case Keno decided to get strong, so going back was now an absolute certainty.

Keno led back to her paddock just fine but she still tippy toed around at the gate. She stuck her head in and looked around, but more or less stalled out. Not being one to miss an opportunity and also not wanting Keno to figure out that she could probably turn around and take me with her if she wanted to, I noticed Susan was walking nearby so I asked her to just stand in a position about 25 ft. directly behind Keno. The plan worked. Susan's presence caused just enough of a concern that Keno decided to opt for the security of her pen on my next encouragement for her to walk in to me. She trucked right on in, I closed the gate, she got a few good scratches and I decided to get out of the rain.

Day 11 Things were pretty slick from the rain so we opted to go back to basics. We did a lot of touching and I got Keno to the point using clicker reinforced "Pick up!" that she'd give me her hind feet. The only problem was that it was real ackward to hold her in behind, click and give her a treat without blowing the position.

Sharon came in to assist and Keno had some difficulty at first with two people working her at once. She backed into her "time out" chute for a couple of minutes, "recharged" herself and then ventured back out. We got to the point where she would give her right hind pretty well and her left hind tentatively; not quite solid enough to try attempting a trim. Since this is an insecure mare, we opted to take it easy, reinforce the behavior and attempt a trim the following day.