*******Maybe This Link Will Get You To My Tick Tock Channel*******

It’s a slow process with the big dude…..

…..but we are making headway…..

He’s a big-teddy-bear-doofus…..a big/insecure pony…..

We have a halter on him now…..he knows how to lunge…..but he doesn’t like to be touched around his face…..

*****What’s Lungeing*****

Leading…..handling…..bathing…..medical-care…..trailering…..all require a lot of face-touching…..

However…..I have found his undeniable weakness…..

……little…..itty-bitty…..tiny…..peeled…..carrots…..

Don’t get me wrong…..he’ll take the big/non-peeled ones too…..

…..but with the little ones…..he has to come back for more…..and…..more often…..

It’s kind of like…..he knows the game too…..

…..some of those carrots are so eensy-weensy…..

…..he sucks them down like gummy worm candy…..

But part of the fun for him is “having to” come back…..

…..(so I have my edge now)…..(and I’ll use it to my advantage)…..

If I hold one by my face…..he stays by my cheek that extra moment longer…..for a kiss…..

…..(ssshhhhh…………………he likes kisses)…..

He is just like that Knight’s steed in the children’s book…..

…..”Cowardly Clyde“…..

Poor Brave………….with an unfortunately/inapplicable name…..

I’m going out and sitting on his hay bale daily…..with my little bucket of tiny carrots…..

…..he follows me to the bale…..waits ’til I get situated…..tries to steal carrots ahead of time…..and is basically in my back pocket…..

…..I don’t even make it easy getting them out of my fingers…..he’s careful…..

…..he really has to work at extracting the fractional piece that’s showing…..without biting me…..

He can suck a carrot out of my grip with only a fraction of an inch exposed…..

I make a game of poking him all over the face with the carrot before giving it to him…..

…..he thinks it’s a fun game…..

…..but…..I’m really desensitizing his face…..

He has this “thing” with hands around his face…..I still haven’t gotten to the bottom of what caused it all…..but I’m learning how to work with it…..

…..baby carrots…..

…..that’s the ticket…..

So………….I sit on the bale…..Brave hangs out…..with me…..by me…..on me…..drooling in my lap…..

…..I hang onto his catch rope…..just so he feels the weight of my hand on the poll strap of his halter…..

…..he doesn’t like it…..but he sure does like the carrots…..

…..baby steps…..

…..and baby carrots…..