A Trio of Truby Adventures

I'm a bit behind in sharing our little adventures. Fall has come to Tucson, and it's gorgeous! Chilly at night, comfortable during the day. Finally *not* *hot*! We've even had rain. It's been great! 

We started enjoying the change in weather a few weeks ago, by taking a walk on the Loop. I thought it would be a good experience to go counter clockwise, since we've always gone the other way. No difference in the trail, just going in reverse. Of course, that means the first corner of the Loop goes by a large stable. Truby did pretty well with this, and then we almost tripped over a pair of coyotes that were chilling like, just off the trail. Right outside the large, bustling stable. They glared at us and huffed off a dozen feet, and then threw themselves back down in the shade of a mesquite tree. Clearly annoyed we had disturbed their nap. 

Truby was NOT okay with the coyotes. Which is probably good. I don't want her to be blase about predators when we're out and about. Of course, I also don't want her freaking out and acting like a prey animal, instigating an attack response. (Oh shit! Coyotes! Look! I'm tasty and fun to chase! EEEeeee!!!!) Cautious awareness is good, panic is bad. We continued past the coyotes, Truby antsy and very aware of them, and then approached the riding arena, where someone was getting a lesson and cantering jumps. This is about 30 feet away from where the coyotes were chilling. This gave Tru something new to focus on, and she threw her head up in the air with the distinct "I can spook at this!" look nervous horses have when they just really want an excuse to set off their drama. 

I reminded her that no, this was no big deal. She's been around plenty of riding horses and jumping horses and she wasn't afraid of that. She immediately dropped her head and sighed, like, 'oh yeah, that's right. This isn't scary.' It was super cute! Of course, she then flicked her ears back and decided to return to Coyote Alert. 

She eventually settled, and the rest of the walk was no big deal. For some reason, I can't find any of the pictures from this trip. Booooo! 

She hates those adobe planters

Last week I took her for another handwalk, this time all the way down the cul de sac the barn is at the end of. Not a long trip, barely a quarter mile, but a new trip. She was very alert, and that gave us a chance to school some things. Like, not trying to crawl on top of me just because a cactus gave you side eye. We also worked on trash cans not being scary, and these stupid adobe planters that she absolutely hated.

I don't like it

Silly mare didn't mind the barrel cactus, not even when they poked her in the nose. Just the stupid planters. Horses! 

The idea with this walk was to start getting comfortable walking down to the big wash. And just the general idea of getting used to going new places. As it turns out, the path from the road to the wash is really overgrown right now, so we won't be trying that any time soon. But still, it's good to practice going new places, even if it is just down the road.

Pausing to stress eat

She was much more relaxed heading back home, and I was pleased with her. She wasn't super scared, and was still well in my control the entire time. I was able to get to to approach scary things, and even though she never really accepted the planters, she could tolerate walking past them. Good enough! When we got back, I turned her out to see if she needed to run off any nervous energy. She didn't, but she did want to roll. 

Our last adventure I'm going to save for another day. I just realized how late in the morning it's gotten, and I need to go run some errands. Stay tuned for a walk with Cinco!