Tania Kettle

Belle's baby Daddy colt just won again - 2 for 2.

Super fucking happy, but the pressure has gone on for us now. 

No matter which way I look at this, or put flowers around it, after all the work we've done - the physiology of the match between Mumma and baby Daddy, the physical, emotional and intellectual compatibility, the phyically going down and seeing and touching our stallion, then the jigsaw pulling everything together, the Touch/play and Miri Miri for both Mumma and baby in womb, then Mumma and baby out of womb, herbs, no soy in the food, music playing while baby was in the womb, well, it comes down to this one little thing now...

I better come up with a win.

****

So Boo-ba-licious is a little bit cute at the moment.

Because Cappy is teaching him how to be a human horse again.

Now when I speak about being a human horse, I refer to a horses manners when with a human.

So as you know, I had to stop doing Touch/play a while back, because the little one kept turning it into, colt play.

Which was disappointing for me, because I love doing it and the horses love it back. 

However, when I first started having babies at home, the first (and best) bit of advice I got was this...

Don't fuck it up.

Which to be fair, is not the worst advice I've ever got.

But what it translated to was, if I didn't 100% know what I was doing, I had to leave it alone.

So when Boo-ba-licious did colt play I didn't know how to fix it, so I mostly stopped doing the Touch/play.  

Periodically, the little one would come up to the gate and go, Touch me here... and swing his ass round to show me where, I would touch it, he would go all mooshie eyed on me, then he would leave. 

However, I always had either the Naughty stick or bucket held up, so there was something between him and me when he did try and go mouthy on me. 

It worked bloody well.  

I stood my ground and Boo-ba-licious got what we wanted.

And when he did do his mouthy colt play, I just either raised the bucket or naughty stick, immediately stopped what I was doing and walked away.

That worked fantastically.

But anyway, Cappy now has his jacket off (thank you, Boo-ba-licious) and has started having brushes and grooming again, over and on top of (just work with me here) the fence, just after he finishes his feed. 

He bloody loves it.

So Boo-ba-licious has been, Hey!  What's going on?  I want some of that...

So Cappy's been teaching him how to stand, proper manners and how to show where you would like, how long, and how to finish.

So the young one has been hilarious, trying to emulate Cappy. 

He's so funny when he goes, Hey!  Am I doing it right?  What about now?  Here?

I make sure everytime he gets it right, I compliment him, tell him how good he is, how intelligent, how fantastic.

And every single time after, I watch him proudly walk away, knowing that he's done well.  A successful end result.

And not once has he done mouthy colt play.

And talking about successful end results, you wouldn't recognize Suz as the same girl.

After like 49 months, she's a home horse.

I honestly think in the end it was me saying to her, It's ok, I wouldn't like humans either, they were bastards to you.  And not just one person, lots of peeps.  I get it.  But you are loved and wanted here.  You don't have to come and have cuddles, or chats.  We love you exactly the way you are.

So she now comes up for standing near you, definitely comes for banana-before-breakfast snack, doesn't move away when you move past her, or go up to her, she allows herself to be tied up for our lovely farrier (who she just loves) and generally she's really happy.  

That was a bloody brilliant end result.

You know, you can laugh all you want, but horses understand me when I speak. 

How? 

I don't know.

I just know they do.

****

So that's been our week:

Still bloody waiting for 4 fine days for the young one to have the snip, but apart from that non-event, it's good here.  Cappy is surprisingly happy without his jacket on, and just loves hanging with Mumma and Boo-ba-licous.  I think they all huddle together and keep warm that way. 

Anyway, Cappy's happy, as well as Mumma, Boo-ba-licious and the little ones and, wait, everyone's just happy.

You also have no idea how stoked I am that daylight savings is here.

I'm doing the Sun dance on my deck.

** Whoop Whoop **

Big kissy hugs 

Caps, me, Spirit, Az, Ralph, Chew, Suz, and of course, my beautiful Mumma Bear, Belle and Boo-ba-licious, Pat, Chuck, Rose, Petal, Kai-Anne, Pepper, Lily, Shelley, Ossie, Marmite and Geraldine.

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