Frisky | Finally Friends

I spent most of the summer/dry season with her. School was starting again and I had to go back to the city, Cagayan de Oro, during the week. On the weekends I would come back and she would be so excited to see me. She would neigh and run up to me. All the problems we had faded away. We still had some things to work on like picking up her feet. She was fearful I was clueless as to how to approach it.

We hit a huge milestone when I could brush her legs with zero problems. I could at some point have her pick up her front legs. She always seemed uneasy with the back ones still and so was I as I didn't know how to hold them properly and my timing way off. I started doing the same things with Frisky that I did with Freedom. Frisky would follow me around and we would go to the river and it was hilarious. I went under the water just to cool down and apparently, she tried to follow me. When I came back up her whole head was underwater. She quickly lifted her head and was snorting and coughing spraying me with a lovely concoction of snot and river water. She had breathed in while under the water. Silly girl. She then learned to swim pretty easily. Still always had her ears pinned most of the time but I just completely ignore it. That is just her face haha. I really got to understand her personality. She was a very loving kind horse and very gentle which helped me so much when my confidence was knocked down by Hidalgo (will get to him in a different post). She could also be very serious and nervous at times but easily reassured. She loved hugs (though she would never admit that) and being brushed and when it got hot in the afternoons she would go by the faucet in hopes I would see as a hint to hose her down. She was very very smart. Eventually, she figured out how to turn it on herself and realized I would come out to her way faster. She used her cheeks/neck to turn the knob. Later on when Hidalgo was around and she had foals of her own she would teach them all this trick. There may have been a time at 3 am in morning the water pump would come on waking everyone up. My parents would yell at me to go turn off the faucets. The horses would turn on the water just to get me outside for attention. All 3 of them would be staring at me. Despite my parents' attempts to keep the knob secured in various ways, they always figured it out and they would turn it on every 2 to 4 am. Suddenly and randomly they stop. They must have realized Cristina at 3am is not the same Cristina at 6am. I am not a morning person. I am definitely not an early morning person.

The video below is her first foal Pixel, who belonged to my cousin, discovering this trick. I just love how Frisky looks proud but slightly worried that I am collecting evidence on all this.

Below is not the greatest photo of us haha but we did really finally get along really well. Unfortunately, she still felt the same way to other people and beings but over a very long time that changed. For years she loved bossing people and other creatures around. I eventually started to learn about hoof care. Which I'll get into at a later time and she enjoyed her "pedicures". Turns out she had a hard time holding her back legs up probably because she had a bit of a roach back that wasn't prominent til later on in her life. We figured out she was small enough she could lean on me as I did her back hooves.

Here is us years later when I was in my last year of college. Just sums up our bond. The song Keep Holding On by Avril Lavinge is what reminds me of Frisky. <3