Monty the Mustang
As a little kid, I was always attracted to the great American Mustangs running wild. I grew up in a small farm community in Southern Italy, so far away from the USA and the Mustangs of the West. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on about Mustangs. Obviously horses have been a very important part of my life, but as long I lived in Europe and I got older, the mustang faded in my mind since I never imagined that I would ever get the opportunity to see mustangs up close.
As life meanders, my path brought me to the States, and opened a new and completely different chapter in my life. No more warmbloods, but more pleasure horses, and Walkers. My training knowledge became completely different as well, as I phased out mechanical training methods to natural horsemanship and seeing the world through the eyes of a horse and the mustang became a childhood dream reality.
We kept looking at the BLM adoption page, but felt that I wasn't ready to train one yet. Finally, this year I found that I had gained the maturity I needed to deal with a wild horse. With all paperwork set, the big day arrived, September 18th 2009. We were off early to the BLM facility in Gulfport MS, where Monty had been shipped.
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Day 2
We repeated the breakfast tub with alfalfa and our coastal hay and brought in the hose to clean out his tub of water and poured in fresh water for him. He didn't seem to mind the activity, and stood back watching. While Antonia and I chatted standing with Monty in his paddock tending to his needs,from time to time he'd step up and grab some hay and walk away as if he had done this for ages. My next step was to try to have him approach so I would be able to pet him. He stood quietly and I offered my hand which he sniffed and I got to rub his nose lightly. He stayed for a bit and then walked off to the hay bowl. This advance and retreat went on for a couple of hours until I was able to pet his head and under his chin. I was even able to scratch behind his ears a bit.Scratching seemed to be the magic potion. By day's end he had his halter on, and off and on and off again. Easy and quietly he came to trust that I was not going to hurt him.
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Day 1
We arrived with trepidation at the BLM facility in Gulfport, MS. We found Monty, horse number 5881, in a small holding pen with other yearlings. They separated him from the others and loaded him into a chute where he pawed his way to China. He stayed there until we got all paperwork in order, and then loaded Monty onto the trailer.
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Once we were moving the pawing stopped. We brought him home and backed the trailer to the paddock door and released him. We brought him water and hay, and our paddock has grass so he had grazing available. He walked and ate hay for a day. I brought a chair and a book into the paddock with him, and sat for hours. He walked around me and sniffed my head, and hair. At supper time we brought him Alfalfa in a small tub and I sat with it on my lap and he ate with gusto and didn't seem to mind.