Demon Changeling Pony

I don't know who replaced my unicorn pony with a demon changeling pony, but I want my unicorn back and I want her back right now!

She hates selfies = the only normal behavior lately

These past two days have been completely AWFUL and so unusual for Misty! It's been bizarre.

It first started with our trail ride on Saturday. It had been rainy and gross weather all week, but Saturday was supposed to be nice. I hadn't ridden pretty much the entire week and Misty had been inside because of the rain. I trailered her out to one of my favorite trails, Willamette Mission State Park. It's about an hour long trailer ride there, so we pulled in around 11 am.

To my dismay, the extremely large field used for parking at the equestrian trial head was PACKED. There were 2 different events going on and there were a ton of people. I tacked Misty up and as I was about to get on, the park ranger pulled up and told me that all the runners from one of the events were done and off the trails. Perfect timing!

I hopped on Misty and we headed off to the trail. She felt on edge because of the huge pack of people with the loud speaker. Plus there was some sort of kid camping thing going on? And a group of kids were throwing knives at dead trees and Misty was very curious about the thunks and noises coming from them. This all culminated in approaching a huge log to the side of the trail and Misty just bolted upon seeing it, which is not like her at all. We tried approaching it several times, all with the same outcome = spinning and bolting. I got off because I almost fell off several times and had the image of Misty galloping away through crowds of people while I did the walk of shame trying to catch my horse. Once on the ground, she tried to spook backwards several times but finally I got her to walk up to the log and sniff it, then stand quietly while I got back on.

muddy trails

crops

reading the map with me

mid-gallop

water pony

Off we went on the trail. We didn't have any more big spooks, but Misty was tense and on high alert the whole time. We still rode on a loose rein, but it was just very atypical for her. We went about 6 miles and it was really nice for the most part. There's a lot of agricultural land that the park kind of envelops, lots of room for big gallops, fun little trails, an area to get in the river, etc. The weather never really got as nice as it was supposed to, but the clouds finally cleared, the sun peeked out and I was finally able to take off my jacket.

The return to the trailer we had to pass the scary log again. Again, we had a stop and spook sideways before she just stood there snorting at it. I got her to walk up and touch it without losing it and then went back to the trailer. (Our "game" for scary objects is that if she spooks at it, she has to touch it before we can move on. If she spooks, then we have to dance around it until she touches it, then she can walk away). We were playing the touch game all the way down the trail any time she gave logs the side eye.

Overall though, it wasn't a bad day. Nice to get into a new environment, enjoy some nice gallops and appreciate how fit Misty has actually become! Though that may be a reason for her poor behavior currently...

so shiny! post bath

mad because I wouldn't let her roll

cute stuff

aaand she rolled anyways

no longer clean...

Then the second mishap was yesterday literally minutes before I had potential buyers show up to see Misty. I had her all groomed and in the cross ties and I was sitting in the tack room on my phone waiting for the buyers. All of a sudden I heard a commotion and looked up to see Misty sitting down against the crossties. Before I could get to her, she had pulled one cross tie out OF THE WALL and fell down. I tried to disconnect the panic snap, but it was so rusty I couldn't get it to come off and Misty hopped back onto her feet, reared up and hit her head on the low ceiling (I hate this barn's low ceiling). She paused for a second then started pulling back again, for no apparent reason, but luckily I had finally gotten the panic snap to finally work.

It was so bizarre and unlike her. Of course I wasn't watching what happened, but I'm assuming she must've been bitten by a bug or something because that was so unlike her. I will leave her in the crossties for up to 30 minutes at a time, often without supervision. She has never, ever, ever pulled back in the cross ties.

I explained this to the buyers and they still liked Misty and commented that they don't have crossties so it wouldn't be an issue at their barn. Unfortunately, once I got on Misty felt short-strided but soon worked out of it. The wife rode and Misty was very good. Then the (very tall) husband got on from the ground, which I think aggravated an already sore back with the additional weight (he was thin, but very tall!) and she was lame again. Ugh, mare. Why do you do these things right before people come to see you??!

I palpated her back after the wife walked Misty around the property. She was very chill, even with the turned out horses galloping around and being silly. Her right lumbar region was sore, so hopefully with a few days off it'll be back to normal.

Here's to hoping this demon changeling pony will go away and my perfect unicorn pony will return!