In the barnyard this month.....

LOTS has changed in the barnyard this month! It's been a bittersweet (mostly sweet!) change. So you remember my last barnyard post about our new horse friend, Roxy, right? Well due to a couple of incidents that have compromised the safety of Todd and the other animals, we decided that she needed to find a new home :-( I was super bummed about this at first because I was EXTREMELY pumped and motivated to start training her. I had already bought some equipment and gear to help me start the process but in the end we decided that the most important thing was to have a safe, harmonious barnyard and unfortunately, Roxy made things a little tense for the other animals. I put up an ad on Craigslist just to see what kind of people would respond and I found her the most perfect home almost instantly! She now lives on a 50+ acre ranch (that is backed by 1000s of acres of BLM land with lots of riding trails). Her new owners are a horse shoer/horse trainer/rodeo bareback rider and his very horse savvy wife. It was the wife that wanted a project horse and Roxy is exactly that! She is very smart and will pose a fun challenge for her new family. I'm glad that she found a great home.
So I decided that even though Roxy was no longer with us, I still wanted to be around horses so I took a short walk to a horse boarding facility around the corner from our house and met the most awesome trainer/instructor ever! Her and I clicked instantly and I have really been enjoying taking lessons from her. I've learned so much about handling, grooming and training horses in the past couple weeks and I decided to apply what I have learned to our donkey, Berry. I was a little skeptical at first about how well he would respond to these training techniques but after buying a couple inexpensive training aids, WOW!!! The difference is like night and day!! He responds to my cues to move forward and back up even without a halter on! I no longer have to pull him along to walk with me, he just walks like a gentleman right beside me. I'm blown away and so impressed with my furry buddy. I have been having so much fun with him lately and I think he is having fun learning some new stuff. I don't know exactly where our training will lead us but he is coming along so well and quickly that I better figure out something quick! He's good with a saddle on his back so I think I may either fix up Leona's saddle and at least have him take her around the field every so often or maybe get some packing gear and plan some hiking trips this summer that he could come along on with us. I am still in shock about how smart he is! It's like I've all of a sudden learned to speak his language or something. I'll keep you posted on our progress ;-)