Lake's First Turnout

The vet cleared Lake for pasture turn-out and also left me a sedative that was just enough to take the edge off him without making him dopey and things went really smoothly.

I brought Whisper and Ben in at lunch for a little snack and took Lake out to hand graze after his drugs kicked in.

Back-up a second... While I am super happy with how the drugs worked to relax Lake, putting something under a horse's tongue is an interesting process... made more interesting if said horse is high as a kite from being stalled and is literally chewing the wood off his stall. My barn cat, Merry, had the most amused look on her face watching me attempt to dope the horse without doping myself or losing a finger.

I got the drugs in the horse finally so that Lake was relaxed in hand, he started to graze immediately. While he was grazing I slipped his halter off without him even really seeming to notice.

5 min later I turned out Ben and Whisper.

Before you read farther, I'm interested if most of you predicted what I did... if so you're as wrong as I was. Yes, Whisper was a slight drama queen...

but it was Ben who really had a hard time, constantly picking a fight with Lake, pursuing him even.

An hour later, everyone is grazing calmly. Lake has yet to do more than walk to a new place and graze.