Welcome the newest member of our family. He is our spunky, sweet, smart, seven month old Morgan colt. While he currently is called the horse of many names, our “kid” has definitely made a fast impact on our hearts. The Kid came to us four weeks ago and we have faithfully worked with him everyday and while it hasn’t been easy, it definitely has been rewarding.
When we first met our kid it was at Mountain Home Breeders, a facility in Victor, Idaho. At that time he had just been weaned from his mother and was in a pen of his own. He was still afraid of us humans and rightfully so. We could hardly get a hand on him to pet him before he would tear off running and bucking at the slightest pressure from us. Some people would have called him a wild horse or one that would be difficult to train. However, we saw something in him. You could tell he was a smart little horse. We hoped that once he earned our trust and learned some respect, any aggressive behavior would dissipate.
Two weeks after our initial meeting, the breeder so graciously delivered our kid to us and we signed a contract to work with him for thirty days. We decided to go with this sort of contract because the breeder wanted to make sure we were completely satisfied with him before making the purchase. All of this coming from the aggressive behavior he had shown including biting and kicking. We started working with the kid the very next day. We put him in a pen of his own where he was separated from our mares but could still socialize with them over the fence. When we would go into the pen to work with him, he would run, kick out, buck, and turn his back-end to us. We tried not to push ourselves on him and would wait patiently for him to come to us rewarding him with praise when he did. We continued doing this on a regular basis with our goal being to get a halter on him. We started with just putting a rope around his neck and moving him around with that. In just three days he trusted us enough to let us put a rope around his neck and the halter on. The kid is smart and picked up very quickly and was soon leading around the pen like a pro. The thing is, once he was caught his demeanour completely changed and he pretty much did as we asked. We just had the issue with gaining respect before the halter was on and sometimes getting the halter on in a timely manner was a task.
Our kid has currently lived with us for one month and has come a very long way. He now halters well, leads, moves his hips, backs up, gives to pressure pretty well, and has learned to lunge on a lead rope on both sides. He is extremely smart and his attitude and trust has changed significantly. He is now out of his pen and in the pasture with our mares. We can walk up to him with a halter in hand and put it on him in the middle of a pasture. His trust for us has grown so much that he will often walk up to us and meet us out in the pasture. He will even do this when there is a halter in our hand. Our kid has also had his first bare foot trim and he took it like a champ.
It is amazing how quickly this little boy has come into our hearts. We fell hard and can’t wait to see where this new journey will take us.
