And after the pride......

Ziggy decided I..or rather my waterproof jacket..was the horse eating devil incarnate this morning!! He took one look at me and took off in snorting bug eyed horror. RD meanwhile sauntered over for his treat wondering why new boy was being so dappy lol

It took a fair bit of persuasion to get Ziggy to stop and park and even then he was tense, eye rolling and jumpy, so I just went through the motions completely calmly, very matter of fact and swung the rope by him and over his neck. He still went to shoot backwards as I offered my hand, so we just stood for a minute or two until he relaxed and made an approach to reach out and sniff me.

He soon realised that all was fine, I was still me, horse eating coats actually had pockets of edible horse treats and therefore could be approached and snuffled at without fear of imminent death and destruction. Phew all round!

Came back from doing Bally and the dogs about and hour and a half later and worked phase 1 of the feeding routine. This is plan for calling him in when he's out in the 17 acre with the herd. I have a specific call for my guys that has them galloping over (even from the far end of the field) to come into the corral, have a headcollar on, be tied up and have a feed, groom and check.

So I made a couple of small feeds (handful of chaff, handful of Thunderbrook and a vit & min supplement), put them outside the gate and did my "cooomaaaan" call. RD almost teleported over!
Popped his headcollar on and tied him, walked over to Ziggy, who actually put his head into his headcollar without any prompting! I only put his rope through the tie as it dawned on me I have no idea if he's trained to stand tied (presume so as he stands untied!) and gave the boys their breakfast.
All calm, bowls licked clean and happy ponios being good

Happy with that!