I am so tired and ready to be done with everything at this point, and trying to think of what exactly I did this month is difficult, so I’ll try my best. First and foremost, one of my all time favorite horses Pearl went to her new foster-to-adopt home. We received many new horses this month, including Tundra, a horse here in the past who came back for training, a new thoroughbred (name unknown currently), and six mini donkeys from another rescue located in Missouri. I can not imagine that the donkeys will stay here very long, considering that one got adopted the day after they came back to Ohio, and three others have adoptions pending.
Since my supervisor started a new part time job, I now have a lot more free time at my internship and the weather is finally getting nicer!). So, I have started up again with working and riding horses, mainly Fletch, Tundra, and Ginger. Since Tundra is here for exclusively training, I have been working more closely with her than the other ones.
A few times this month as well, a few groups of vet tech students from Tri-C? (I am pretty sure that they came from there) came to learn to work with horses as part of one of their classes. In each group, only about half the students would show up, and the veterinarian that was supposed to come either showed up 1-2 hours late, or not at all. So, working together with the college instructor and Ken (another regular volunteer), we taught the students how to halter, lead, wrap tails, and handle hoof care (since we weren't allowed to teach about heart rates, blood draws, respiratory rates, giving injections, etc.). As a person who has been around horses all their life, it was disorienting to see people at the barn who have never handled horses before, and needed help with the most basic things.
We have also tried several times this month to go and get a friend for Cindy the sheep (my mom has a friend with a sheep farm), but they keep either escaping the barn or running away. Maybe next month we will be successful.
One way I was able to show initiative at my internship this month was coming in to help the vet tech students with things, because my supervisor had training for work and could not be there. Although this may not sound that significant, I did end up skipping family group for this month just so I could be there, helping out when I was needed (although, I probably would have skipped family group anyway).
The highlight for this month were the new donkey additions. Even though I can not really do too much with them (because they do not really need to know anything else,) the five still at the rescue are all very friendly as well as mischievous, as one of them escaped one day and I had to spend 15 minutes catching her.
I feel like I have learned many things this month, some more significant than others. The first I learned is that sometimes, you and a horse you are working with might just click. Everyone else who has worked with Tundra (including her owners, that's why she is at training) has had lots of trouble with lunging, and getting her to listen. So far, I have not had any issues with her. However, another horse at the rescue, Fletch, listens good to everyone else except for me. The other day when I tried to lunge him, I thought for a hot second that he was going to try and jump the fence. It just goes to show that some horses like you better than others. Another thing I learned this month was that you can not trust anybody, not even the adorable donkeys. One day, I went in to go and clean their stall area, and 4 of them tried to charge me and escape their enclosure. Luckily, only one managed to slip out through the gate, but it still was not fun or easy to catch her.
The only real challenge I faced this month were the donkeys trying to revolt against me. Such a situation was easily solved by being more careful when entering and leaving the Donkey Zone, and making sure to be more careful when doing things in there in the future.
As for next month, I am not really sure what I am really looking forward to doing. I enjoy my internship, but since things happen so randomly it is very hard what to expect most days (like with the sheep, donkeys, vet tech students, etc.). I guess my main hope for next month is that all of the donkeys get adopted so that we can go and get more from Missouri?
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