Despite my best efforts and intentions to keep Wolfie in consistent work, the weather has just been too awful to really do anything over the last few weeks. The horses had to spend 4 days in their stables as the yard was like an ice rink and there was no way of getting them to their fields. The surface in the school froze and now with such heavy rain, the ground and fields are like paddy fields.
Wolfie comes in about 3pm, and I usually get up to the yard around 4pm. When I've been arriving I've noticed that he's been really unsettled and anxious. Thinking that it was probably because he's hungry and it's nearing feed time, I have started leaving a bucket with a little chaff and carrots for him and some haylage for when he comes in. Wolfie is handled by the girl who works there, the owners of the yard and the girl with the horse next door will change his rugs or bring him in if she's up before me. I think it is good for him now to let him get used to being handled by different people. I wouldn't let anyone else work him, but leading and changing his rugs etc, I'm confident in him now that he can behave and is well mannered. Leaving the feed for him doesn't seem to be making any difference. I arrived at the yard the other day, and although he can't see my car coming from his stable, he knows the sound of the engine. I just got out of the car and was changing my boots when he started whinnying and calling. I went over to the stable and he'd got himself all wound up. As soon as I get to the door I can see him visibly relax. I normally just give him a scratch and start mucking out. He follows me around the stable for a bit and then begins munching his haylage. The other night I was changing my boots next to the car and my friend was leading him in from the field, he spotted the car and near enough dragged her off her feet to get around the side of the car and then refused to walk with her back to the stable. I don't really know what to do about that. I'm sure that he knows now, that no matter what, someone will always feed him. With him having been starved it has always been an issue. Even when he is out in the field and I'm walking around, he stands at the fence and shouts to me or gallops down the fence line following the car when I drive away. I don't know if it's because when he was so ill at the start, and was on his own, I was all he had. I became his herd and we spent a huge amount of time together, trying to care for him. He's not a cuddly horse, but likes to be scratched and likes you just to be around him. He doesn't want me there all the time, he's confident in himself and likes his routine. It just seems to be when he knows I should be there (he's an excellent time keeper) and when I am there he just thinks I should be with him.
