One Less Credit Card

 This may be old news, but after reading about GE Capital ceasing to lend to gun shops, I've cancelled my GE credit card.  Not that the cancellation of one, barely use card will make a difference; however, they've made it clear that they don't want to profit from my kind of purchases so I may as well oblige them.

Now, General Electric is free to financially back - or snub - whomever they choose; though I do think that a major corporation should be swayed less by emotion than by economics.  It's rather short sighted of them to think that all those gun stores are going to take their balls and go home just because GE doesn't want to give them an allowance.  There are plenty of financial institutions that would like to get a bigger piece of the booming gun industry - it's one of the few healthy sectors of the economy.  Case in point, who wouldn't want to lend money to Cabela's right now? 

I think this:

 GE is based in Fairfield, Conn., and many of the GE's employees live around Newtown, and several have children in the Sandy Hook elementary school, where the shootings took place. Peter Lanza, the father of Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza, is an executive at GE Capital.

is the whole reason behind GE Capital losing their collective grip on economic sanity.  At what point are the people in charge too closely involved in an incident to make a rational decision as to what benefits the company vs what simply assuages their need to do 'something'?  What next, are they going to stop lending money to Presto?

Progress

Yesterday Gambler managed to load in under an hour and today he walked right on.  Yay!  There's still some work to do, tomorrow we'll try loading without Freedom in the trailer, then we'll move on to loading with the trailer away from the indoor let out.  Honestly, I'm anticipating some stupid with that part.  Right now there aren't any distractions and there's no where for him to go (circumstances which rarely prevail) and there's nothing quite like fresh grass and lots of space to make loading a low priority in a horse's brain.  Here's hoping progress continues apace, trail season's upon us.

Loading Battle

Last year my one horse, Gambler, went from okay at trailer loading to "WTF is that thing - I ain't getting in that box - screw you!"  The very last time we loaded it was with a blind fold just so I could get the bugger home.  I'm not overly proud of that moment, but it got him in the trailer.  Sad thing is, I have no idea what flipped the switch.  No traumatic incidents, no undue stress or injuries with loading, just stopped getting in. *shrug*  That will remain one of life's little mysteries. 

Unfortunately, after that last incident, it got cold, the trailer was put up for the winter and I never got back around to working with him on the issue.  Bad pony owner, boo! >:(  Now it's spring and I avoided dealing with it... until yesterday.  Oh boy did I set myself up for some frustration!

Now Gambler's one of those horses that just doesn't do force.  Sure, you could try using brute force but you're only going to end up tired, pissed off and have an utterly fried horse without being one step closer to your goal.  Someone in his past did something to his little horsey brain so it equates any sort of forceful correction with "Run away!  Run away!"  I'd like to find that person.

So, with the trailer backed just inside the overhead door to my indoor 'arena' (30' x 30' hard-pack dirt) I prepared myself for a battle... of patience, hunger and irrational fear.  See, he's not getting grain unless he gets in that trailer.  So, eventually, he's gonna get hungry enough to get over himself and get in; it's just a matter of how long 'eventually' is and whether my patience can last until then.

Yesterday sucked.  7pm to 10:30pm and he ended up going to bed hungry (still got hay) and I went to bed frustrated.  I now have a greater appreciation for my other horse, Freedom, who walked right on the trailer and who I can just smack on the rump when he's being and ass.  Horse 1 Human 0.

Today sucked less.  5:00pm - 7:30pm.  2 1/2 hrs of pressure & release to get him on the damn trailer but in the end he loaded and stood quietly.  Seriously, once he was on it was like, "Okay, now what? Oh look, GRAIN!"  Horse 1 Human 1.

&$%#ing Horse.