Here are some recent pictures of Kokomo, one of the young horses from the Carnation seizure.

I had mixed feelings about posting these, because he is no longer an ugly duckling, though he still has some of his duck feathers to shed. He's King of the Paddock, and really doesn't look like he needs anyone's sympathy!

But Kokomo still has a long way to go. There's a kind of neglect that doesn't show in a picture - the failure to teach a young horse to accept human leadership.

Don't get me wrong, he's come a long way from the day he had to be wrestled to the ground by the Animal Control officers. Thanks to the persistent efforts of Jaime Taft and everyone who handles him, he's no longer hard to catch.

Now, more often the problem is that he hard to get rid of. A curious colt, he wants to take grooming tools out of the bucket, play with the manure fork when you aren't using it and otherwise touch things humans control. Like a child, he is testing his place in the SAFE world. Unfortunately. Hope, is now heavily pregnant and on leave of absence from her professorial duties.

So after doing the maid chores, I have started to spend twenty minutes doing a little work with him. He won't learn manners by being yelled at when he misbehaves, but through positive steps that set him up for success and build his confidence. I am gradually learning some tools for doing this, tools that work even when you aren't a trainer or a magician. The horse will tell you when you are making sense to him.

Don't laugh at me if you have serious horsemanship experience! I am just taking baby steps, and I think I am still speaking Greek to Kokomo part of the time, or shouting when he only needs a whisper, but before I turned him loose in a big space, I wanted to be sure he would at least return to me after I took his halter off. Once he got the idea that I was only asking him to move his feet with me and not against me, things went pretty well. Whether that would carry over to the open field, with its distractions of grazing, and the cows that were mating in the pasture across the road, remained to be seen.

In fact, I had my doubts as he went through his paces unprompted, trotting and cantering for the camera like a trained professional. He even threw one perfect square conformation pose as he studied the action across the road. Modeling opportunities are limited for horses, but Kokomo could certainly be a contender.

I had one big advantage, though. He really didn't like being out without other horses. I was the best security he had in this situation, and when I lowered the lens, he came up, then aligned his shoulder to me.

He lowered his nose into the halter like an old pro.

There's still only a shaky foundation, but I began to think that Kokomo could be much more than just another pretty horse.

Last weekend I was lured into attending a Dennis Wright clinic with SAFE volunteer Met, and now I feel like I have even more tools... but that's another post. And thanks to Jamie Thomas, yesterday I got to test drive Monty, her Western States Mustang Challenge horse in training, and have raised expectations of what a light and responsive horse really is!