With Topaz it's never a dull moment but this time she over did it. I was on the deck & Dean was behind the well house when all #%*!! broke loose. Something spooked Topaz big time! She came running out of the corral and tried to jump it. I thought sure she was going to break a leg. She got tangled up in the panel, managed to free herself and go over the wreck of a panel. I was racing over to the corral, Abby started barking at Dean when he came to see what was up, Topaz was running & kicking at everything, it was chaos to the max! When everything calmed down (and my heart quit racing) we had 2 panels and the ride through gate that were twisted. We straightened the gate as best we could and fixed 1 panel. The other is left for another day. Topaz has 1 small scrape on a hind leg. I feel she & I are both lucky this time. I'm ready to be off from work so we can get on a daily routine. Stand is going to be a high priority! She knows it means she should not move but I want to drill it in her head more so maybe if there is a next time I can tell her to "stand" and it will stop her from panicking.
For other training I read about getting a horse used to worming by filling an empty syringe with apple sauce. Then when you do worm them use the apple flavored paste. It sounds like it could work so I'm going to try it. I'll see if the vet has any empty syringes I could buy. As much as Topaz has come to like apples I have hopes for it. Although, the bowing is still not doing well. To her it means stick your head under the fence to get a treat. When I'm in the corral with her she doesn't understand because there's no fence between us for her to stick her head under. Oh well back to the drawing board on that one. I'll keep trying.
Every time I work with her now I put the saddle on her back for a short while from both sides. I hope to be cinching it up soon but I'm taking it slow as I don't want her to get scared & start trying to buck it off.
The fence didn't get done in time so I will not be adopting this spring. I'm not really disappointed as this will give me more time to get Topaz further along in her training before I tackle another. We are considering a burro as a companion for her - we will decide sometime after the fence is done.