Wildairo does big and little circles.

I went into the corral with Wildairo again today and made the mistake of not taking my crutches. My ankle is hurting like crazy with spasms and I was afraid I'd done some damage to it. The good thing is when you have major surgery they give you some really good pain killers, so right now I'm feeling no pain. (and probably writing jibberish lol). Another thing about being crutchless, when I was having Wildairo trot around the pen I couldn't move to make him change directions very well, and that was a big draw back. Wildairo kept stopping and looking me puzzled. Next time I'll take my crutches. Wildairo likes it when I have the crutches because then I'm four legged like him. I noticed he does seem to have a lovely long stride when he's trotting.

He was very well behaved and seems to be trying so hard to do what I want. I was getting him used to having me walk up to his side and touch his neck with the rope in my hand. He was very OK with it and I did it several times. My halter is heavy and I don't want the buckle to hit him and scare him so I'm going to buy a rope halter.

He rested his head in my hands again and I gave him a big kiss. He is intelligent and eager to please. When I first got him he would strike out at me with his front hooves hitting the gate with a bang and he also charged at me a few times with ears back threatening to bite. I had to get tough with him and after that I'd yell "No" if even his facial expression got angry towards me. I wanted to nip that behavior in the bud and to show him I'm the boss. No mean attitudes will be tolerated here. I was very pleased how quickly he learned. A quiet "no" stopped him when he attempted to nibble my shoes when I was sitting in my lawn chair with my feet up on his fence. Now he's such a sweetie pie it's hard to believe he's the same scared little fellow.

Wildairo's got a funny little thing he does with his head if he wants something. The first time he did it was one night while I was keeping him company, my cell phone rang and he started moving his nose in little circles with his ears perked up looking at the light and listening to the ring tone. In the dark I showed him the open lighted phone and pressed the keys for him and his nose was just moving around in those little circles till I let him get his nose on it. He does it when I'm feeding him an apple. I take a bite and put the piece in his mouth and all the time he's doing his nose circles because I'm not biting chunks off fast enough for him. I could let him bite the apple himself but then I'd miss his little boy silliness.

We played a joke on him. He walked off when I switched sides with the rope petting, so Brad, William and I got in a huddle by the fence and pretended to be having a good time without him. Brad and Will were laughing and I threw in some happy horse sounds for good measure. In two shakes of a lambs tail Wildairo wanted to be part of the fun loving human herd. He turned around and let out a big sigh and joined us. I love this little wild Mustang colt!