Finally, Nice Weather!

Here's where Piper looks the most like an Appaloosa.

You couldn't see the blanket markings on Piper in the other pictures so I decided to add this one. Yes, she is starting to shed out some of her winter coat. It certainly feels odd to be taking a picture of your horse's back. Anyway, "back" to the present...

We've had lots of rain and colder weather lately (about 4 weeks worth) so we haven't been working Piper in the round pen for quite awhile. Yesterday was our first day of refreshing her on round pen work and it wasn't pretty; the weather was, but not her performance. Today I decided to try it with a saddle on her and it went so much better - whether that was because it was her second day in a row getting worked in there or because of the saddle, I don't know - but whatever works!

I will back up a bit and tell you how I got Piper. After my old mare died I was going to try to go horse-less which was really going to please my husband. However, I can't tell you how much I missed having a horse and decided we would take a year off from having horses; then I would begin to look for one in fall 2012. I had a major trip planned for late October so I didn't begin to look seriously until after that. It was very hard shopping for a horse. I had a pretty specific list and "quiet enough for me" and "short enough for me" were especially important. (It's amazing how many horses are over 15 hands.)

Piper has her issues and although she is five, she never got much training so it's much like working with a younger horse. She has progressed a lot as far as us handling her for grooming and for basic things when we work with her from on the ground. Her foot pops up as soon as you ask for it, she's always at the gate or comes immediately when she sees us, and she almost puts her halter on herself when you hold it out in front of her. All excellent behavior. I won't list the "not so excellent behaviors" but we are working on them. You'll probably read about some of them on my blog.

I often hear things along the lines of "You don't get the (blank) you want, you get the (blank) you need" and that may be the case with me and Piper. I really like her despite her shortfalls and she is coming along.