First Contact

Celis White slowly began to adapt to her new surroundings, but she always maintained a reasonable distance from us. She did not seem to bond very much with the other two geldings. When John and I would go out on a trail ride with Celis left behind, she did not whinny or act disturbed to be alone.

We kept Celis on a diet of alfalfa/bermuda hay mix. Since she probably had only sparse grazing to eat, we felt that any supplements, grain, or even strait alfalfa would be too rich for her. However, John and I wanted to expose the little mare to a few taste treats like apples and carrots.

When we were at the adoption grounds, several other adopters who had gentled mustangs before, said that the wild horses would not eat carrots, apples, or other domestic horse desserts at first because they had never experienced them before. Celis White was no different. I took an apple, cut it into 4 pieces and placed one piece in her feeder with some hay on top. She chewed on the hay for a few seconds and then found the apple. She blew hard through her nose a few times and then lifted her lip. She smelled the apple again and repeated her comical gesture. The grey mare looked very unsure about the offending little object contaminating her beloved hay. So I fed her the rest of her dinner and left for the night. Maybe she would find it more appetizing later.

The next morning, all three horses neighed to me joyfully for their breakfast. I checked Celis's feeder for the apple piece, and it was still there, now brown and slightly shriveled. Before I could reach in to remove it, John called me in to answer the phone. When I returned, I looked in her feeder and the the apple piece was gone. I check the ground around the feeder and outside the fence, but there was no sign of it. I looked at Celis. Why in the world did she choose to eat it in those few minutes, especially when it was brown and wrinkly? She showed no indication that she either liked or disliked the little treat.

John and I continued our morning ritual of drinking coffee and reading the paper while Celis White ate her meals. Prior to each meal I took a handful of hay and offered it to her now standing next to her, though outside the fence. She would slowly approach and snatch it from my hand, but as the days passed by, she would take the hay from my hand less quickly and then take one step back rather than several.

After another week of this, I decided to try another tact to get the mustang used to the human presence. I stood in her corral, right next to the feeder so she would have to stand next to me while she ate. At first she was tentative about approaching her feeder with me next to it. She stood about 3 feet away and stretched her neck, trying to reach her hay without moving closer. But she was too far away and had to make one step forward. I held my breath--I didn't want to move and frighten her away. She grabbed a mouthful and then backed up four or five steps while she ate. This bite seemed to give her confidence because she walked up to her feeder with out hesitation, grabbed some more hay and then backed up to eat. After the third approach and retreat, Celis walked up to feeder and ate without backing away. I stood next to her during most of her meal, trying not to move a muscle. Before she was done, I slowly retreated from her and left from the far end of her corral so as not to disturb her.

For two or three days I would stand next to Celis White while she ate her meals. However, I would move a little more during each session. First I lifted my arms to the side, then I stepped back and then forward, and finally I moved my arms forward and dropped them back--though not touching her. For each new move Celis would step backwards, but I would not stop the movement. Slowly as she became accustomed to my swinging arms or my walking to and fro, she began ignore them and no longer tried to move away.

On the fourth evening of this routine, the little white mare remained very calm while I lifted my arms in front of me. Her gnarled locks of mane were centimeters from my hand. What would she do if I touched her mane? Dare I push her trust? How I wanted to start untangling the strands of white and grey.

With hardly a second thought, I took a couple of strands in two fingers and held the soft hair. With a mouthful of hay, Celis backed away from her feeder and looked at me indignantly. With the mouthful finally eaten, the mustang walked up to the feeder. I placed my hand in the way of her mane so it would brush past my fingers. I caught a few hairs in my two fingers again and quietly held them with out any tension on her neck. She took a bite of hay and then only stepped back two steps. She finished the mouthful and approached her hay. Once more I put my fingers in the way when she went by them and I held a strand of hair. This time though, after taking another mouthful, she just lifted her head out of the feeder and watched me hold her mane while she munched. When she went back to take another bite, I tried to untangle the some of the twists of hair. While she chewed the food, she watched me very closely, so I ceased the untangling, and only held onto the strands of mane. After a few minutes, she ate quietly while I untangled the white hairs. I wanted to end on a good note, so I left her corral, slowly backing up, so she could eat in the peace of the evening.

Celis White reposing at her new home