The vet's been and gone. She wasn't impressed with him, but I don't think I was very impressed with her either. She didn't bother to check his eyes, his ears or his mouth. She also neglected to answer half of my questions. I hate it when people treat beginners as though they're stupid. Mmph!
Don't worry, I'm not letting the horse run all over me, at least I think that's what everyone's thinking. The attempts at breaking away have ceased since that day. He was probably just trying me. As for his running off with me while riding and discomfort with riding and dismounting, we discovered he had a bad case of rainrot right on his back. The people we bought him from never once put him in the stable since they bought him - he was out in the pasture, with no run in shed, for at least 2 months straight (this was during the hurricanes on top of it!). Thankfully that's going away. We had a grand ol' time with learning about this bathing thing. Did you know that towels are MONSTERS?!?!?!?! Scary things, they are. It took lots of cooing and rubbing on the nose to get him to let me near him with that instrument of death. Yeesh.
The treats I've laid off on, don't worry. And he's not real into nipping, but geesh, he's turning into more and more of a licker every day.
As for this rainrot, how long will it take to heal? I've bathed him twice (and will bathe him again as soon as the weather gets happier) using betadine surgical scrub on him as the vet said to, and twice daily I've been putting an anti-fungal powder on him. He seems MUCH less touchy about being rubbed on his legs, but it's still new(scary) to him. The farrier came by last night and loved him, but he said that there's no way anyone's ever taught the little guy what to do with his back feet. He still likes him though, and said he's fine for me even if I am a beginner. I agree with him on this, I'd rather have a horse that I really feel a bond with than a deadbroke one that seems to be off in his own world. I've learned a lot from this one already, and I'm not giving up on him.
We're getting a second horse sometime soon. In fact we're looking around right now. We want a dead broke calm one, one that he can watch and learn from, and one that will help him relax. We don't want him to be all by himself, he's too social! Although I can't say he hasn't enjoyed being by himself this past month. He's a little guy, only about 14.2, and when we got him he had bite marks everywhere from all the bigger horses. I saw one of them bite him the day we got him. One of the horses just ran up to him and bit him for no reason right on the stomach. I think Pistol's enjoyed the vacation.
Don't worry, I'm NOT going to end up riding the deadbroke one over him. That would be asking for an unruly ride. As soon as the rainrot's gone, I'm going to ride him at least 4 or 5 days a week. The more I've asked around the more I'm getting the same response: He's trying you, and as for the feet, he still needs to learn.

PH Cody: you mentioned something about giving him too much feed for what I want to do? Do you mean it's giving him too much energy, or what? That confused me a little.
I've let one other person ride my horse, an experienced old barrel racer. He said I've got a niiiice horse, but he loves to try his rider. As for the dislike of the tie-down, I'd rather keep that for a while than risk a repeat of before just yet. Until I get more used to riding myself I'm not letting him try to run off with me again.
I have a feeling my next ride is going to be one extreme or another. He'll either be better this time around because the rainrot is gone and we've had lots of time to get to know each other (so much that he got very mad at me for leaving one weekend! If only you could've seen the pouty face!). Or he'll be Hell on wheels from the long break. At least I haven't let him have an excuse to forget his voice commands. We taught him to lunge and he loves it. BUT! He loves going LEFT! Going right is sooo confusing! He looks so forelorn and lost if you try to make him go right.
He now seems much more willing to try to please. I think the main problem is this: "I wanna do it right, but I don't know how, and it's scaring the crap out of me!"
I'm also no longer worried about the lack of fence and running off thing. We've been letting him loose a LOT! I think this has helped my disposition around him too, because I'm not nervous around him anymore simply because I know if he gets away, oh well. Not the end of the world. But he loves going loose. He wanders around, sniffs everything in sight, comes back in the barn every now and then, follows me around, goes back to doing his own thing, comes back again, and if he's had enough, just puts himself back in the stall. Speaking of the stall, we've spoiled him rotten. To make a second stall we had to move his over, and in doing so we were able to make it 2 feet wider. He now has a 16x12 stall!

So for the final question... How long does rainrot take to clear up?
And who wants to come over and play with him once he's healed?! Hee hee...

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