Tango joins the family

Tango has not gotten to play with her siblings so far in her young life. Until weaning time, she had to be separated from them all as her mother had to be protected from the other mares.

Not only did Squeak's special needs result in Tango not being socialized with other babies, it kept Squeak from disciplining her as consistently as she probably needed.




I anticipated that this would result in a little hellion, and at times, it seemed like it did just that. Then the next day, Tango would be sweet again. It had to be hard for her to not have the regular social structures that are so important for babies, and not have a mother who could head her off at the pass when she was up to no good.

At weaning time, Tango was introduced to one of the others because she shared a stall with her. Surprisingly, there were never any issues, and they seemed to get along well. In fact, they got along so well that Tango was selected to stay in with Ammo when she was re-weaned.





I decided that Ammo was doing well enough with her weaning that it would be all right to let Tango out to finally meet the rest of the family.


I was surprised at how well behaved she was for her registration pics, which took just minutes, and Barry was her handler, which normally drags out photo shoot time. Not tonight, she was really good. She is super smart and just seems to soak up whatever we show her.

Finally it was time to cut her loose and see what happened.

And guess what it was? NOTHING. She introduced herself to a few of the other babies, who were finishing dinner. There was no disruption at all. She seems to have buddied up with Disco, which is a good partner for her--I think they may be frenemies so far, but you have to start somewhere. I watched for 20 minutes or so to see if there would be some misconduct, but nothing happened.

Let's hope this is not the quiet before the storm and that all will be well in the morning. I am happy for her to get to enjoy a normal baby life now, even though I realize she did not know what she was missing all this time.

Cross your fingers that she works her way into the herd as easily as possible