Karma is Huggable!

I have to say this little grey mare has my heart right now! She is making great strides in her rehabilitation and there is a lot of hope for the sweet side of this mare breaking through. She was very cautious when she first came to Safe Harbor and we made sure to take things very slow and at a calm easy pace. At about week 3 of liberty and ground work, she’s really made the transition to trust and bonding with her handler. After our working sessions, it’s as if she’s glued my side! She’ll look at me with intense eyes asking what I want from her next. I felt comfortable enough to get on her last week and start walking around the arena with a ground person. She had some worry at first but relaxed and soon was licking, chewing, and giving lots and lots of snorts; all of which are great signs that’s she’s accepting the work and her rider.

Karma’s feet made a big transformation this month. This was her third trim with our farrier J Young and during this session she let go of a lot of pain and discomfort. During the trim session she nearly fell asleep in my arms and by the end she was yawning, snorting, and relaxing as if she just had the best body work session of her life. I am very thankful for J’s kindness towards our SAFE horses and his gift for helping them out of pain and on the road to recovery. In the week following this trim, her movement was much improved with less jarring of her hind legs. We still have work to do and her feet will take more time to improve but it is always nice to have these milestones along the way.

Looking good!

We continue to slowly reintroduce the trailer as a happy place that she gets to approach and find low stress and comfort. This is difficult for her because she carries many bad memories about horses trailers, but over time she will find it isn’t such a horrible thing. Already she’ll approach the trailer and walk up to the edge without anxiety like before. As other parts of her training come along, the trailer loading work will also become a nonissue.