Blessi at Police Horse Training

Flickr Photo by cwwycoff1 Carl Wycoff

This weekend, Blessi and I went to a Police Horse training clinic. Blessi surprised me since I thought we could encounter at least one thing that would make him nervous. There was nothing that he spooked at or hesitated at. New items encountered: magnesium flares, police dog following and barking at the horses, smoke bombs, whistles, siren, police car driving around horses with siren going and police dog in window barking at horses. And some of this happened while the horses were crossing wooden bridges and going through car washes and between pool noodles. I spent most of the day leading Blessi since I thought it was unfair to ride him for 6 hours when I have only been riding him for 15 or 20 minutes--plus I had a minor gastro-intestinal problem.

Some of the things Blessi did give me trouble with:

- He politely but definitely want to hang at one end of the arena since the last time we were at this stable we did cattle sorting. For the first half hour he was convinced there were still cattle in those pastures.

- He also wanted to hang with the mini donkey who kept braying. He was fascinated with that little guy. He put his head down very low and tried to get the mini donkey to share his breakfast.

- I used to treat Blessi from a peanut can during trick training. Smoke bombs come in similar cans and Blessi wanted to go over and grab the can. Now that would have been a bad scene.

- The trainer kept lowering more sheets in the car wash as Blessi and I were going through. Blessi kept stopping and tried to use his nose to help the instructor untie and lower more strips in the car wash.

- The assistant trainer had a whistle hanging around her neck. Blessi had never seen a whistle and he kept picking it up in his mouth.

I forgot to put my SD card in my camera so I have no photos!!