Day 10 -

Two Steps Forward 10 Steps Backward

Lilly is having a normal time adjusting to the herd. She now has 4 bite marks on her. This is normal. She will be okay. She has gotten super worried about food and is now back to being super pushy with her food again. We had a rough night with feeding last night. We are back to square one. It is my fault. You are only supposed to ask yes questions and Lilly was in a new place to eat and I expected her to remember the lessons from her first paddock. That was not fair of me. With her anxiety level over food so high due to learning how to be in a herd I should have set our feeding session up for success. So now we are back at square one. She was able to push me to get her food. So I have to go back to feeding her over the fence. Hopefully she didn't learn too many bad things.

Morning Post

Lilly is doing well. 2 bites yesterday. 2 bites this morning. She is staying away from them all. 

Again because of the stress I didn’t want to do more structured work with her. Plus we needed to go for a walk so she would be familiar with the farm and the different pens. There is an indoor area and a round pen. So we went for a walk and went exploring. She did great on the walk. When she tried to push into me with her shoulder and I turned and made her walk in a circle and that seemed to stop her. I need to watch the matching step video! 

She is so brave and confident. She was wary of all the horses she past...  

She also got to meet my dogs through the closed car window lol  

She neighed at me when she saw me! And walked straight towards me!!!

Evening Post

Tonight was bad! I know this is to be expected because she is dealing with learning a new herd - but she didn’t listen at all to the flag or me when trying to feed her. So yeah complete failure - hopefully she didn’t learn from that  

Gold nuggets
She was very happy to see me. Neighed and trotted over to the paddock. I know it’s still because I’m taking her out to feed her - but it’s still nice she knows me and likes to come with me. She also walked nicely to go to the new area I will feed her and hang out with her away from the herd. And when I brought her back I was her protector again and lead her to water and food. And when I left she followed me back to gate.

Today when I go see her - I will remember to work with the horse I have today. Not expect her to know what to do right or how I want her to respond and behave. She is in a new situation and she needs time and consistency to learn how to behave in the new normal.

Here's to having a positive day!

Here are her new herd mates:

Della & Beryl