First human touch!

Today has been busy! 8am saw me walking Brother down the road to be introduced to his new buddy, Piwaka. He was quite excited about the outing and was extremely interested in Sally and Merlot, the other horses down the road. It's been a while since he's been on a walk seeing as he's not being ridden anymore.

We arrived at the dilapidated yards about 20 mins later and hung around until Mike and Marty arrived. Brother got to gorge himself on the lush grass surrounding the area and Pies and the free range Kai colt looked on longingly.

When Mike and Marty arrived we got to work separating out the big mare, the colt and Piwaka. Piwaka and the big mare were very chummy yesterday but today the colt (who was terrified and trembling) and Piwaka had formed an almost inseparable bond so it took a while to get the colt and big mare into one yard and Piwaka into a small diamond shaped area on her own.

Then was the task of introducing her to Brother. Brother was interested and stuck his nose through the railings to give her a sniff but she was a bit unsure. Eventually we put him in with her and she was happy as Larry hiding behind him.

Brother was an absolute angel all morning and stood still while ropes were stretched over the yards and over the horses' backs and with Piwaka running around him in circles. He happily held his head over the railing of the pen and indulged in scratches from Marty and I. I was hugely impressed with his behaviour considering he can be a bit of a bully with Tigger.

As I said, we started with just having a rope over the pen and hanging on their backs to ease Piwaka into the training that was about to ensue...

That seemed to go quite well and Mike was happy with the progress....

We then progressed to using to a solid stick and rubbing it down her back and up her neck. She wasn't impressed with the stick on her neck and around her head but she got used to it eventually...

Most of the time Piwaka took refuge behind Brother so Mike had to lean over him to get to her. While I was on the phone he managed to touch her! Her first human touch!

From there the difficulty started. Mike managed to get a rope around her neck...

And then she decided that she was not so keen on this situation so began running in circles around the pen. Each time she would stop behind Brother and Mike would try again to get her used to her face being touched so that we could put a halter on her before we all had to head our separate ways for the day. The whole time Brother just stood there with his head on the gate...

Finally the halter was attached to the rope so at least she had it near her face (check out Brother's tongue... he couldn't care less)....

And then, 3 hours later, a bit of a struggle began as Piwaka decided to just spin in circles with Mike attached and the halter half done up....

And finally the halter was one and she was released into the bigger yard and both Piwaka and Brother had a feed to calm their nerves....

Piwaka was pretty sweaty by this stage and it was a good time to finish for the day. The next stage will start early tomorrow morning and hopefully we'll get her leading. Then on Firday we will hopefully be able to walk her down the road with Brother to her new home.

This part has not been ideal because we are short of time. We are heading to Melbourne on Monday and we want her back here before we leave for Wellington on Friday. Once she is home the training will be at a much more leisurely pace. We will give her time to get used to us feeding her and being around her. And with the other 2 Kais out of the way hopefully she'll learn a few manners from Brother (particularly if today is anything to go by!). Once she had the halter on I managed to touch her for the first time as well. Oh so very exciting!

I went back this evening to give them a feed again and Brother even allowed her to take over his bucket, something he would never allow Tigger to do. Piwaka wanted to be right next to him the whole time she was eating so kept swapping buckets. After about the 3rd time he got fed up and put her in her place and made her go back to her one. She learned that lesson very quickly - Brother has a mean face when he doesn't like something - so hopefully that is a sign of things to come.

Another post tomorrow, no doubt. Now time to chill.

K :)