First day of school...

On Sangria's first day in Washington, I was eager to get my hands on her. And I couldn't get past her ratted, narly mane. I was itching to get started on the long process of detangling it, a well as just spending time with her and get to know her personality! After a short nap from our long drive, Jenny and I were up early playing with our mares.

I feel a bit guilty about being assigned Sangria as my wild mustang - she is extremely calm. While she was obviously nervous about being near humans, she wasn't reactive, aggressive or terribly upset. I was able to enter her stall, pick up her lead rope that she was still wearing, and then take a few steps toward her. Within moments, I was petting her neck and shoulders. She wasn't sure she wanted me touching her nose, but pretty much let me pet her everywhere else.

I got started on her mane, which took half a bottle of Cowboy Magic and about 2 hours to get completely untangled. Once it was untangled, I begged Jenny to braid it for me. One, I'm not much of a braider, two, I wanted Sangria to get used to different people working with her from the beginning, and three, I was dying to get my turn on her feisty mustang mare, MissFire. I was extremely pleased at how wonderful Sangria was with Jenny. She was again uncertain, but not bad. For the most part, she stood quietly while her mane was quickly put into multiple loose braids.

Once Jenny was done, we gave the girls a break. I could tell that Sangria was on human overload after our 3+ hour session. So, we gave them both a couple hour break as we took showers ourselves and tried be feel a bit more normal. After a yummy mid-morning brunch, we headed out to play with the girls again.

This time, I did leading exercises in her stall. She was great when I was on her left, but nervous to have me on her right. We also did a few hindquarter yielding exercises, which she picked up immediately. I worked on picking up her feet, she easily gave her front feet (I didn't attempt her back yet), though was only comfortable with me holding them for a second. She started getting cranky and did try to nip me, though not aggressively, while I was requesting her feet. She got in trouble for that and didn't try it again. Silly girl!

Before ending my work with her for the day, I took her out of the stall and did the same exercises in the aisle way. She wasn't as responsive in the aiseway, wanting to stop and check things out and definitely not wanting to follow me or give to pressure, but she pretty quickly got it and soon we were able to walk from one end to the other.

Lastly, I tied her up to a tie blocker ring for her first initial tying episode. She was impatient and kept dancing in place, but didn't test the rope too much. I had to remind her a couple times to stand where she was tied, but she 'got it' pretty quickly.

I went in to clean her stall and looked out a few minutes later to see her standing quietly and contentedly. What a good girl! That was the end of day 1!