oh hai, fren!!

Charlie finally has a turnout friend at his new barn! Much excitement!

contented grazing

They have a reasonably conservative introduction period of solo turnout that we extended a little bit bc of Charlie's aggravated splint, but he's finally graduated to step two: getting a buddy added to his small paddock.

fireworks!! or uh, ya know, polite greetings

The OTTB adoption facility had told me that Charlie was a pretty easy going dude in the field, and he was able to easily mix in with a couple different groups while at the h/j place for the past eleven-ish months.

Plus he's always been super friendly and interested in meeting new horses while in the cross ties or under saddle or in the barn or whatever.

Loki samples Charlie's butt for taste haha

So I expected Charlie to be pretty good for his first turnout with a friend at OF.

The reality, tho, is that I actually haven't been able to spend much time observing Charlie in the field with a herd. Mostly bc that's a sad side effect of not working at the barn - I don't get to see as much of the dynamics bc I'm not there all the time.

call me biased but i think they're stinkin adorable

Therefore getting to watch this latest introduction was pretty cool for me. The buddy horse apparently is OF's go-to for introducing new geldings, and had actually just played babysitter for another new horse last week. Poor guy is probably missing his own normal turnout, but he was the perfect choice for Charlie.

He's actually kinda a cheeky little pony lol - taking lots of little nibbles and chews on Charlie. Playful stuff, ya know? But Charlie maybe doesn't actually know how to play haha. At one point the pony grabbed Charlie's hock and Charlie tried to squeal.... but, ya know, wind surgery, so.... it came out more like this pathetic heave-y wheeze haha. Poor Charlie.

nose sniffies!!!

They've been getting along pretty well so far, sharing hay piles and spending lots of time chatting with each other. But also not like... obsessively attached or anything either.

Next steps will be for Loki to be Charlie's chaperone/wingman/body guard for his introduction to the full herd in the big turnout. Something that will probably happen in the next couple of days.

It's definitely exciting for me that Charlie's getting friends now - he's a pretty social horse in that he seems happier with company, even if he doesn't interact much with the other horses. When he's out by himself he stays near the fence lines closest to other horses. But when he has a horse sharing the field with him? He's content to just go do his own thing (even if he ends up farther away from that horse than he would stray from neighboring horses when he was "alone").

It's always nerve wracking too tho lol. I don't want anybody to pick on him or bully him, but definitely don't want him dishing out any rudeness either! So far so good tho!