TOA Blog Hop: Fave

In this latest installment of her blog hop series, Beka asks:

What is your horse's absolute favorite thing? Outside of riding! Are there treats that instantly convert your horse into an addict or liniments that leave him yawning and chewing? What does your horse just love to have?

Lily
- She is out on 24/7 pasture because she loves to be outside. She will tolerate being in a stall if she has a friend next door that she can touch noses with (I told you guys she's a touchy-feely horse!), but if she has to be confined to a stall, she likes to have the choice to go outside when she pleases. The setup in South FL worked well for her because she had a run attached to her stall. When we first moved to MD, she was on typical stall board for this region: 12 hours turnout, 12 hours in the stall. She would get tremendously anxious when turnout time approached, pacing her stall and calling. And acting out under saddle if I was riding when it was close to that time! The second she was set free in the field, she'd tear off at a mad gallop to join her buddies...which is how she ended up with a ligament injury in the spring of 2013. Stall runs are not an option here so now she is outside all the time with access to a run-in shed and she is happy as a clam. She is smart about it too: if the weather is bad or it's very hot, she seeks the shelter of the run-in shed.

- Friends. Lily can't live without equine friends, and she will go above and beyond to get along with everybody. She loves people and horses, but especially horses and will go up to them and be all, "Can I be your friend? I will love you and whisper sweet nothings in your ear and share my hay and grain with you and follow you around forever and ever and ever." Needless to say, not all horses are tolerant of that level of adoration. (And I'd rather she not share the grain I spend $$$ on to buy her!)

Jezebel on the left, Lily on the right.
"Yes Jezebel! We will eat from this hay pile together and then we will eat together from the other two piles and we'll be besties forever and ever and ever!"

- STUD MUFFINS. Lily LOVES Stud Muffins. She will do all of her stretches for them and once you're done giving her treats, she'll continue bowing (her favorite stretch) to see if you'll give her more!

I can get her to eat any medicine imaginable if I just hide it in a Stud Muffin or two!

- Wither and chest scratches, especially in the spring and late summer when she's shedding. She'll make the funniest faces and will even groom me back sometimes. She's the only horse that has ever groomed me back.

This face. Check out her upper lip. She'll wiggle it when you hit a really sweet spot.

Gracie
- She'll eat any and all treats you can offer. And then she will never forget you and will mug you for more treats if she sees you again.

"Your phone looks edible. Gimme." -_-
(We had a slew of boarders at the previous barn that would just walk out into the fields to give the horses treats. Bad bad bad bad!)

- Food. All food that a horse can eat, though I'm pretty sure she wouldn't be above eating things like roast chicken and ham sandwiches as long as it was a person offering it. *sigh* She only gets a handful of ration balancer with her supplements, and even with the wild concoction of powders, pellets and liquids that are added in there, she gets tremendously excited about this little handful of grain. Which makes it SO significant that she has learned to back up and wait for the food to be dumped in her feeder. Granted, the fact that she gets rewarded with food for backing up and waiting is what has made this conditioning so successful. She gets tied in the run-in while eating so she doesn't go bug the others once she is done, since she usually scarfs her grain down before everybody else. Lately Lily gets fed loose at the other end of the run-in because she knows better than to try to bother Gracie. Lily gets 4x the amount of grain Gracie does and Lily's is a whole lot tastier anyway. Lily always leaves some flax at the bottom of her feeder: after everyone is finished eating, Gracie is released and the first thing she does is lick Lily's bowl clean.
- Attention. She is kind of an attention whore. If she's never seen you before and you walk into her field, she'll be the first horse to come greet you. Mainly to see if you might have treats, but nowadays that she's more civilized, she'll be happy if you just pet her, tell her how pretty she is, and scratch her forehead.

"Yes. Touch me. Groom me. Yes."
She was napping here, enjoying the one-on-one attention.

- Forehead scratches. She'll lower her head, relax her ears, close her eyes and give a big sigh. If you want her to relax, just scratch her forehead. It's what I use as a reward for her because she enjoys it so much. :)