This cat's got THUMBS!

Meet Murph, Sarah's feline friend. He actually has thumbs! Check those bad boys out. He's a total dude, and very cuddly. We're not talking at the moment though, because mid cuddle he decided to try and attack me last night. (Attack is a strong word... He got a bit carried away though!) Anyone got some Cravendale? He's coming for it!

We had an early start this morning and had a super long canter across the fields, Rio took the lead to start with, and whilst we were trotting he offered up canter a couple of times so I decided to sit in and go for it. Despite offering it up, and Franks being right behind us, it wasn't long before I was having to work hard to keep him up a gear, and inevitably we dropped back into trot. Franks took the lead, and we trotted a little further before I asked him back up, and we had a wonderful long canter, with only a little encouragement needed. We'll get there eventually! He was a bit more springy today, and felt like he was pushing through from behind a little more. 

The boys spent a bit of time in Rio's field today (they've been sharing Franks' mostly!) after Sarah and I had a further prune of the nettles and thistles. We're steadily working across the field, and thought the boys might like a change of scenery and a good opportunity to self medicate some nettles/thistles if they so chose. They had a few hours of munching the long grass, whilst we popped out to have a nose at a show. 

When we moved the boys back, I noticed Rio had caught himself on his right hind (again!) and it looked pretty fresh. He keeps grazing himself and getting little scrapes just in front of his chestnut, I've still not figured out how, but today's looks a little deeper than normal. I walked back up to the barn to get some hibiscrub and hypocare, and he was actually very forthcoming. He walked off after I'd washed it out with the hibiscrub, and when I got to him with the hypocare bottle we had a minute or so of pirouetting whilst he turned his bum away from me until I moved him over sideways and he stood nicely. He stood perfectly whilst I tried to reveal the cut and spray it.

He had a good look and sniff at my glove - I was speaking to a friend not so long ago about what colours horses see, and I'm convinced Rio must be able to see blue. He doesn't fuss over Franks' feed when Sarah comes down in the morning (black bucket) but he ALWAYS knows if he's got feed, and his feed bucket is baby blue. Interestingly, I came across a great blog post about this, and as it turns out, it looks like blue is one of the colours they can differentiate! You can read the blog post here, I'd recommend a look. 

Ride / play safe x

P.S - updated the blog header as I now have so many more photos to choose from :) what do you reckon?