A quick visit before more belch!

Man this is a wet year! Forecast for tomorrow includes rain and then through the rest of the week snow. It was a now or not until the weekend day to see Tank.

I love the place that he is at, but ... it is 30 mins away on a good day. Chicago being Chicago, it is 40 -50 min during rush hour. Today I wasn't able to get out of work soon as I wanted. It was a race against the sun to get down there in time to have a little day light.

I also got smart about my phone and just turned the dang thing off until I needed a few last minute directions. When I got to the barn I took some photos so I have a few new ones.

Surprise, surprise Tank was really curious and came up to me right away. You can see he is finding his carrot cookies. I was amazed at how he just walked up to me and was letting me rub on him.

As you can see, he had no problem getting up close and personal.

    Isn't that a cute little nose?

              Well, that lasted until I took out his halter.

                    Then it was off to the muddiest part of the paddock.

He is out with a little guy about his size. That horse was trying to be helpful. I swear he was biting Tank in the butt and telling him that his mom was here and he should go up to me. Tank wasn't having any of it.

Great thing about Tank is that once you have a rope around his neck he stops. He is fine then. My lead slipped though the halter during all my walking to catch him. He was fine as I fiddled to get in all straighten out.


Training with Tank right now is getting him used to me and being handled. What I think I am seeing is typical mustang behavior. Doesn't trust really easily at first but has to warm up to you.

In Tank's paddock is a shelter and it has a ring for tying, so I have decided to use that instead of taking him into the barn. He is nervous in the barn, and I have no place to straight tie. Seeing that he has no problem trying to run though the halter, I am not confident that he would do well on cross ties yet.

While grooming, we played the pressure/ release game. He gets nervous with being handled around his back legs. Actually anything past his the middle of his barrel is iffy. Not that he is bad or dangerous, he just starts to swing from one side to the other. So I go up and rub on him just a bit and turn my back on him. Do it again, so that he learns that if he just stands there he will get release. He picked it up really quickly and was standing quietly.

I started to do a little ground work but they were coming around with grain and I didn't want to do that him. After I released him he actually followed me around and say "good bye" before getting his grain. Awww! What a sweetie little man!