14 Days Until Our First Ride Countdown

 Only two weeks to go!!  I can't believe how fast it's going by now lol.  I've been waiting two and a half years and it seemed to take forever. . . now it's going by so quickly I feel like I'm running out of time to get ready.  Not with Chrome.  He's ready.  I just need to finish moving all of the yard sale stuff out of my house, mow/weedeat the lawn, buy the food/drink, build the firepit, etc.  So much to do!

Anyway I'm totally beat.  The weekends take a lot out of me because I have to get up super, super early and work long hours (as the manager on duty which adds about a million times more stress).  So I have one question left from Appydoesdressage from Musings From LogDog Ranch.  Her question is "What is your ultimate plan for Zep? Will he be a babysitter, a driving donkey, a riding donkey?"  I sometimes feel like he will always be a pasture puff/companion because it seems like no matter how far I get with him if I get busy he reverts back to his wild self.  He's also getting very hormonal (he's going on five now I think) and he's acting like a total ass (pun totally intended) to the other horses.  Unfortunately I don't have the money to get him gelded right now and it's totally eating at me.  I'd have to wait until fall anyway because of the flies.

So anyway, he probably won't ever be a riding donkey because he's short (maybe 12-13 hands rough guess) and I'm 5'11".  Since he grew up wild with no handling I just don't think I would ever risk having a kid on him because I would be liable if something happened.  Driving him however could totally be an option.  That would be totally awesome and would be a great way to give him something to do.  Another thing we would LOVE to do is make him a pack donkey.  He wouldn't carry a lot, just some food, water, camping supplies, etc., then we could go on long trail rides (like a whole weekend maybe? or cattle drive?).  That would be a lot of fun.  :D  We shall see.  First I have to get him caught, stalled and tamed.  What's keeping me from doing that is our stupid bank.  We're still waiting on them to sign off on the repairs we made and release the insurance money to us before we can start using the barn.  As soon as we can use it I'm going to stall him so I can catch him and actually get something done with him!!

Anyway sorry if this was disorganized or sloppy.  I'm really tired.  Here are some pictures!  I'll make a better post tomorrow!  

 

 

 I can't believe they were ever the same size!!!  Chrome was so small.  And so cute!

 

 

 

 Playing with Jackal.  :D

 

 

 

 

 Why is he always behind a tree when he does his cute little trot??

 

 

 Levitating pony!!

 Chrome loves his toys.

 

 

 This was February 2010.

 

 And this was March 2010.  Can you believe the difference?

 His head was too big for his body for such a long time lol.

Finally a cute trot picture lol.  :D

I was going to write about some of our first clicker training, but I'm too tired to concentrate on it, so I'll just link some old posts in you're interested.  First here is a post of his first clicker session where we charged the clicker and worked on target training (http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/2010/01/charging-clicker-targeting.html).  And here is his second clicker session with a video! (http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/2010/03/2nd-clicker-session_16.html).  His third session (http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/2010/03/smartest-colt-in-world-clicker-training.html).  That puts us through March 2010 so we're caught up.  Night guys!