Trust: Earning it and keeping it

 

After the whirlwind of barn moves last year, Tesla was great about loading/moving/traveling/new places - but I could tell she felt a bit guarded. This year, I've worked really hard to re-establish trust, and to desensitize all the things and then we had 2 weeks of hazardous air with indexes of 700+ from all the West Coast wildfires...it was so scary and surreal..and we had to wear N95 masks all the time (luckily I had a few saved from a floor refinishing project right before COVID hit)

 

No filter...

Then, if you are gonna get time off for lung damage, you might as well do it in style and get a layup for exterior damage as well: Tesla (in proper hangry fashion) tried to nail Porsche (who doesn't always get social cues) missed and put both legs thru a wood fence, breaking boards and thank God nothing else. It looked horrible, but was nothing that Vet wrap, pony jail (aka roundpen) baby diapers and Belly Balm couldn't cure. Luckily I got an A+ for wrapping in vet tech class (yeah, that's come in handy LOL)

 

Looks gross - but only surface, healed up with no scars: I swear this horse is always trying to add more chrome...(insecurities with being a APHA who looks like she isn't ;)

But, we really seemed to have turned a corner with a recent dentist visit....She needed a big correction, and got a pretty big dose of drugs. Her mouth was sore so she got some soaked pellets/hay and some extra cuddles for a few days - and suddenly, she was willing to "work with me" even if she was scared (40MPH winds and the old russian olive tree did feel like it was gonna eat us both) there was some trust in the bank, and she was willing to try (even if she was shaking)

 I know it is actually not one event, but finally mentally maturing and weeks years of work leading up to it: The round-pen looks like a circus ring: with flags everywhere, the giant jolly ball, pool noodles (you know who was terrified of the pool noodles - Porsche! who thinks anything long and thin must be a whip LOL - this extends to peacock feathers, ask me how I know...), and whatever else I can round up, like giant fridge boxes and plastic bags (there is a tarp + cones in our future fo' sure, and some belly bands to work on proprioception!), and dog halloween costumes and cones are coming out next.

I've been working with her to engage "curiousity" rather than react, and I can see that is changing how her brain is processing things, and that makes me excited: once this alpha willingly relinguishes her crown to  let me be the leader - the sky will be the LIMIT!