Cuddlier

I think I’m winning the love puddle contest with Champagne.

My boy is becoming a lot more demonstrative and interactive. Saturday I had all sorts of non-riders and semi-riders up on his back for pony rides, and some of them couldn’t get him to trot. However they did get a trotting ride after I started standing in front of him, telling him “come-come-come” (which I use to get him to move along after me), and then experimented with running. Sure enough he stepped right into a nice trot right behind me, sometimes with his nose pressed against my back as I ran.

He also has begun asking to be scratched or rubbed in specific places. Yesterday he wanted his eye gently rubbed. Often when I’m brushing his neck he cranes his neck way up, opens his lips in a quiver of delight, and then brings his head down to hug my shoulder. I guess he has bites that are itchy and he enjoys being scratched.

He comes to the stall door when I come to the barn . . . well not right away sometimes, but by the time I am done schlepping all the tack and grooming stuff to the cross ties, he is at the stall door, expecting to get his halter, and putting his nose out obligingly. He endearingly lowers his head for me to put the fly net on easily.

Yesterday he even nickered at me, something he rarely does. Maybe he knows I need special handling right now, or maybe since I’ve been his mom for more than a year, and I am a source of good things like hand grazing and carrots and mints and rubs, he’s decided I’m worth paying attention to. Or maybe I’m just teaching him things that I like and he is learning like a good pupil. Whatever, it’s fun.