Pudgy ponies

UPDATE - PICTURES!




I never knew I had so many people actually reading my journals to give your opinion. I don't really care much if you agree with me - point is that you actually take the time to type something. Thank you for that! 

As some of you might've gathered, I am now the "leaser" (do you even call me a leaser while I don't pay? A... caretaker? God, that sounds old) of a fat pudgy haflinger mare. Her owner was looking for someone to actually give her some love, to work with her and get her out of her pasture. I've had my hands full up to now, I'll tell you that! She was trained as a carriage horse, and I've been trying to school her into a riding horse. And there's a lot of things to go over. I don't have a blank sheet three year old, here - she's fat, she's scared of puddles and cows (though for anything else she's as bombproof as it gets), she's pushy, eats all the time, stops the way a donkey does when she doesn't want to go any further, and she didn't know how to lunge. In the four weeks I've been with her, she's improved a lot! She still has a problem with stopping when you do, and backing up (though it does go better now), but she stopped eating constantly, actually stood still the entire time in her pasture with grass below her feet dozing off while next to her. She still hasn't really gathered how to actually start lunging - but she can do her circles without pulling, I can even just stand there and swap the rope to my other hand behind my back. Pointing and going off by swinging the whip hasn't really clicked with her yet, but she has made improvements from the first tries (aka, what the hell is lungeing and why do you need me to go forward while you're standing still). 

Even her riding has improved. Mind you, she still doesn't fit her (brand new and hardly used! *cries internally*) saddle yet, but she walks off and trots off when I ask her to. Lateral flexion is coming along fine too - she was as stiff as a board when I first got to her! 


She's really, really too fat, though. I measured her at the girth, and she's a whole 2.50 m round. It has been two weeks now since I measured, and I'm starting to notice she can hold on while trotting much longer. Thing is - she's só big, her hooves can't handle the weight. She has vertical tears down her hooves from the amount of weight put on them. She's not going to get shod, because she already has, and that really doesn't work out since directly outside her pasture are cobblestones as far as the eye reaches. Her feet are quite well to go without being shod, though of course, the extra weight has to go. I've been doing groundwork with her and practicing at the steering department (yes... she has trouble with that, courtesy of carriages) and I've gone on my first on-line walk with her yesterday, to meet the cows and the dangerous puddles. I plan to get her settled on the steering and halting department so I can go out riding with her on the trail safely. Does anyone else have any other suggestions to help her lose weight?

Thanks for reading! (God this must be so boring to read :'))