June 21st, 2004	Toby looks like he has something stuck in his teeth! This was taken June 21st, 2004. Toby is growing huge! The marks on his butt are where he has been scratching and rubbing, and his new coat shows underneath. It is a bit darker, but not much. The three horses eat in this loafing shed in the pasture now, instead of in the barn where Toby was born.
Toby has been feeding on Mom's "kibble" for a while now! So far she tolerates it well, but sooner or later we will move both Echo and Toby to the other side of the shelter, where there is two feeders hanging and Toby can have his own. You can see Echo's dapples here, as well as Toby's scruffy appearance as he sheds his foal coat. Echo is about 16.1 at those rather prominent whither! Toby has been nibbling on Echo's tail, so it's getting shorter and shorter!
	And when he's not stealing Echo's kibble, he is still nursing quite a bit! He is growing really fast, and it's kind of a balancing act to give Echo enough to keep her fit and able to nurse Toby, and still not gain too much weight. She has quite a belly, but NO muscle tone along her top line. It will take years to bring any muscle back. She is pretty atrophied. She also huffs and puffs badly when I am doing ground work with her. Echo has now been ridden twice, and she does quite well! She looks a bit askance at me when I mount, but doesn't seem too bothered. She will walk around the arena with quite a bit of encouragement and constant corrections back to the rail, as she wants to plant herself right at the gate! She has trotted with me as well, and she is actually very comfortable! My saddle looks almost like a pony saddle on her, since she is really quite big! I'll get pictures of her being ridden next time and post those too! I leave Toby loose in the arena while I am doing ground work and riding Echo. Hopefully he will learn by watching! It's pretty funny, though, as he gallops madly around the arena, bucking and kicking and grunting and squealing! He will charge back and bash into poor Echo, or dash past her and almost clothesline himself on her lead rope as I am sending her in circles or teaching her to yield to pressure. What a dingus!! Then he'll go roll in the sand of the arena, and lay there and nap while we continue with Echo's lessons.

June 26th, 2004	Here is Toby trying to grab the lead rope. He has been learning about leading and halter manners since about 1 week old. His attention span is very short, so we only do things for about 10 minutes at a time...grooming, picking up his feet, leading, learning about moving away from pressure and so on. He will try to grab the snap on his lead rope, so he swings his head to get the snap to swing up, or he'll bend his head to his chest to trap it and try to grab it. The darkness around his eyes is where he has lost his foal coat and the true coat color is showing through.
Here he is doing pretty well following Wade as they turn back to the front of the shelter. Wade is almost as tall as I am...I think he is about 5'2", to give you some perspective on how big Toby is.
	Toby is scratching himself on the feeder here! He has scuffs and scratches all over as he rubs at his foal coat. He's a little poop-disturber in the pasture...he chases the goats around, teases Moony (the black mare) and tries to get her to play, and charges around bashing into mom. Moony is there trying to sneak close enough to steal some food from Echo. Moony gets quite a bit less and still maintains her weight well, but she's convinced she's starving to death! Echo is most certainly the boss, though, and Moony seldom gets closer than this.

And finally, just for fun, here's a picture of Moony sractching her butt on the divider! Oooohhh, that feels GOOOOOD!!! She's a bit sweaty as it was about 95 degrees the day this picture was taken- June 26th, 2004.
June 27th, 2004	Here is Echo with her third riding lesson. The saddle looks pretty tiny on her, and my rear cinch is on the very last hole on each side and still barely covers her tummy! Poor fat out-of-shape horse! I do ground work with her a bit first, and here she is about to yield her hindquarters to my suggestion.
She walks out pretty well, with her legs coming well underneath her. Today (June 27th, 2004) she actually walked relatively calmly all the way round the arena without trying to turn back to the gate every couple of steps! Toby did his usually galloping around, but my son didn't get many pictures, and cut Toby off on most of those.

	So this shows Toby messing around a little bit. Today he was often coming up and biting Echo's rope reins, or her, or my leg! I leaned over to have my body over him frequently, which he virtually ignores. You can see how short my legs look on Echo, while on Moony my feet show beneath her tummy a bit.
The last lesson today was trailer loading. Echo hesitated the first time, and walked in the second time (shown here). She did immediately turn around in the trailer, but at least she didn't come blasting out. Toby wasn't tired out yet and continued to gallop around. Meanwhile, on the other side of the fence (just in front of the trailer) Moony was also galloping around, so I stopped after this load, since all the excitement was getting to Echo.