Unfortunate News...

Reina's fine! Just for the record. I know the title sounds ominous, but the unfortunate news doesn't involve her, except for the fact that she's being neglected. My poor baby!

I got into a car accident a few weeks ago... I would like to say that I'm fine, but the muscles in my back are pretty messed up at the moment, and I'm having trouble even getting to class without pain medication. It's pretty terrible, I won't lie! My car is totaled, too, but the good news is that means I get a brand new one. My parents can be pretty awesome.

In the interim, however, I'm hurting, and I have no way to get to Reina. I took a cab today all the way out there because I was so desperate to see her, but it cost me about $100 round trip (yikes!). It was totally worth it, but I'm not made of money, so I probably won't be able to do that very often. Can't wait 'til I get my new car!!

Anyways, I saw her today, after about a month, and she pouted at me a bit when I went to catch her. She warmed right up, though, and dropped her head for lots of snuggles and I-missed-yous. It was so sweet. I missed her so much!! She's still a very polite girl and I believe she's putting on weight (finally). She seems less sensitive over her bones when I go to groom her, so I think she's slowly but surely gaining pounds. She's also gotten considerably fuzzier... winter is coming, and Reina's coat knows this! Ha. I definitely didn't miss trying to curry a dirt-caked, fuzzy horse! She's adorable in her fuzziness, though, so it's okay.

I have to say, she was wonderfully well-mannered while being groomed. She remembers all the manners I worked so hard to teach her when I got her in January/February. She picked up her feet like a champ, super quiet, dropped her head to be brushed, stood still with very few wiggles (she mostly munched on grass, which was fine by me), and even let me clean her mare parts without fussing at me. I love my mare, really. I do.

We worked a little bit in the round pen after I groomed the snot out of her. I want to work on her leading; she stops, backs, and moves really easily when I ask, but she gets stuck sometimes when we're walking forward. We worked on forward, forward, forward! in the round pen. It was pretty silly, she would rather snuggle me than work on the rail and walk/trot when I ask. I had to get rather stern (it was really tough to turn away horse snuggles, but alas, I had to be strong!) to get her to the rail, but she picked it up fast once I started clicking/treating for her paying attention to me and moving when I asked. I think I worked so hard when I got her to make her understand that I'm a good human and she should love to come to me that when it comes time to do groundwork, she never wants to leave me! Well... at least I did a good job. ;)

In any case, she was much easier to lead back to her paddock after our short little roundpen lesson. :)

I missed my girlie. Life gets in the way of horses far, far too often!