At the Reno National Wild Horse & Burro Show, Bryan Neubert demonstrated gentling & training techniques. One thing he stressed was "letting the horse get into trouble so he can figure out how to get out of trouble."

So when we got home we were all inspired, and we took Sparky down to the round pen. We threw ropes at him, threw ropes over him, under him, around him, wrapped ropes around his middle, around his legs, etc.

And Sparky stood there patiently, sighing occasionally, like he was saying, "Are you quite through yet?" 

NOTE: At this time, we thought that the reason Sparky didn't move was that he was just so very mellow and we had done such a very good job of gentling him. A year later, after starting to learn from Jerry Tindell, we learned that there were other reasons: His world was still so upside down from all the trauma he'd been through - being captured, losing his mother, losing his herd, being sick, etc. - that he had more or less just shut down. We had to get him moving and reacting again in order to help him work through all those issues and get back on track to being a normal, healthy horse.

July 4, 2001

4th of July - it's been a hot, hot week. Today is down into the 80's, much better although muggy. We took the horses down to the lower pasture to give them a change of scenery and hopefully some relief from flies.

 As these photos show, Sparky is making easy progress in becoming a sweet, very tame former wild horse.

I LOVE Sparky! He's such a good little buddy! Michael teases and calls him a "Mama's Boy" -he may be, but then, Ruby is certainly a Daddy's girl!

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