And its all frozen.....

In fact everything is frozen. It is dry and beautiful. But very cold (hasn't gotten above freezing) and windy.

Today I played with Nigel and the horse trailer for just about 20 minutes. Frozen. Toes, Nose, Fingers, Pattotie. Even with enough clothes to look like the little brother in A Christmas Story.

He is just so worried about it. In his little Nigel way. "I'm doing it. But I don't like it." We were back to just getting in and hanging out. Because a few days ago...

I thought we were at a point this week where I could drive him down the road and back. So Thursday I loaded him just like we've been doing. . . he was fine to shut the door....I opened it and closed it.....but as soon as I put the butt chain across he started to have trouble. He tried to hold it together and I went ahead and closed the door. Uh oh. Drama. He was not completely Right Brained*. I mean...he was thinking... but he was thinking "I WANT OUT!".

He was pounding with his front feet and rearing. Now bear in mind that he does this when he wants to be let out of his stall too...but there was a definite tone of worry. Jail. Claustrophobia. And not enough trust. One different thing he was doing in the trailer vs his stall was blowing. Like you would think a relaxing sound. But this was fast...like he was trying to calm himself down. Come to think of it, it was the same with the pounding and rearing. It was all faster. And the blowing seemed to wind him up, not calm him down. . . but I didn't leave him in long enough to find out.

I scrapped the idea of driving him anywhere and let him out. After that it took about 5 minutes or so for him to be able to get back in and stand there.

Today, he got right in. But he didn't want to stay in. He would stay in for about a minute and then have to get out. One time I coughed and it startled him... and he had to get out. Eventually I could rattle the butt chain and he'd stay in. Good.

I think its just going to take repeating this process again until he can cock a leg...then I'll start banging stuff around....then when he lets loose with that I'll try shutting the door again....then when he lets loose with that...I'll try driving just a little ways...etc.

The funny thing is with Nige....I still don't know if it'll be 2 sessions more....or 10. I'll bet my next paycheck though that when we get through this and he really gets confident with it....it will change everything between us. And that. Will be great.