Horses are my passion. One horse however changed my life and made me realize that I need to be around them. I taught Sierra a lot, but I believe she taught me as well. When I first met Sierra, she was terrified of people and didn’t trust me at all. I was kinda the same way with people. I never opened up because I had been betrayed and hurt more times that I could count. Through persistence and a lot of hours on my part, Sierra slowly turned around.
Something that I constantly had to remind myself was that I couldn’t rush things with her. When introducing and teaching animals new things, especially horses you have to go slow and let the horse tell you when they are ready to progress. Every horse is different and Sierra was one of those horses that did things slowly which wasn’t a bad thing at all. Each week we would work on getting her used to new things and working on her manners. Some weeks we would work on getting her used to picking up her feet and picking the dirt up out of them, other weeks we would introduce her to things such as getting used to a lot of people moving around the barn and making loud noises while she was out of her stall. All of the hard work and dedication truly does pay off in the end. Sierra had come to recognize me to the point where she will follow me wherever I go and I find that when I’m grooming her she tries to groom me back. I get such a good feeling at the end of the day because I know that I’m training her into a great horse for someone.
In May, Sierra was sold to her new owner who plans to use her for western pleasure and reining. I received an update from her owner in the beginning of september and here is a picture of her free jumping on her own.
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