child (thanks mum?). For Felix's part, he was stressing for a very
different reason; namely the alien thing I kept trying to slide onto
his back. I thought I was being sneaky, to tell the truth, but he
wasn't fooled. Every time that rug got higher than his shoulder
the hooves came up, the bum swung away, and I ended up
dangling from his halter while firmly and ineffectually yelping:
"No, Felix! Bad Felix!"
For the record: that didn't work either.
By the end of hour number two I'd succeeded in getting right
back to where we started. Felix was too wound up to let me or
the cover near him, and seemed to be trying to merge with the
fence in order to keep a comfortable distance between us, while
I was frazzled and absolutely convinced he was going to get
pneumonia and that I was the worst horse-trainer ever. Both of
us were uncomfortably damp.
Of course that's when it began to rain in earnest.
There is something to be said for perseverance. There is also
something to be said for losing patience and just slinging the
damn thing over his back and letting him freak out about it.
The first time he charged about like a mad thing on the end of
that rope and I will never know how he didn't break the clip...I
will however be sure to buy that exact brand of lead rope again,
it's good stuff! Of course he got the cover off, and after a short
trampling in which the nice blue colour became a nice mud-
brown, he settled down. But it was the closest thing we'd had
to success so far, so in the spirit of "oh, screw it," I picked the
stupid thing up, shook it out, and chucked it over his back again.
Cue freak-out number two.
This time, the cover stayed on! And it had only been two hours
to this point.
The next move was obviously to straighten it out on his back and
get his straps on, which presented a whole new set of problems.
The sound of Velcro, for example, proved to be even scarier than
the rug itself. He was actually shaking, despite the agonising
slowness with which I got his neck rug fastened. The buckles
on the front were easy, he doesn't seem to mind me messing
Continued
There is
something to
be said for
perseverance.
There is also
something to be
said for losing
patience and
just slinging the
damn thing over
his back and
letting him freak
out about it.
Left: Perseverance Right: Freak out no 2.