Where have I beeen?

Did you miss me? Did you even realize it's been like six months since I last posted here? I didn't.

In late spring/early summer Naners maimed her left hind, then her right hind, then blew abscesses out of both front feet in late summer. That mare and her legs.

In late June I turned in my Master's thesis. It kicked my ass, but it's done. It took me about two months to recover. I did not do a stellar job, but it passed and I now have my Masters in Equine Science, though I don't have the actual paper yet.

Since then we went to a dressage show:

We got a 68% on Training 1 and a 62% on Training 3 from an FEI 4* judge, so I was pretty darn happy, especially since, as usual, we were not as prepped as we should have been (see above note about abscesses.)

(we need to work on that open mouth problem. And I need to get my freaking hands up)

The day after the recognized show they had a schooling show with the same judge and we did western dressage! I did four different tests in two days... that really worked my rather shitty memory.

We got 64% on both Basic Level 1 and Basic Level 3 (equivalent to Training Level). There was an 8! The western saddle was brand new, I'd literally ridden in it for 30 minutes on Friday and the show was on Sun. We'd tried out the demo version last fall and both Naners and I liked it, but it took me almost a year to actually buy it. I think my Eq is much better in it than my dressage saddle, but it also depends on how various body parts are feeling.

It's hard to tell, but the shirt is ombre dyed, darker at the bottom than the top. I did it myself and I'm fairly happy with how it turned out. The pants are navy Piper boot cut breeches.

We took a very scenic route on our way home... fortunately we came up this, didn't have to go down. It was a neverending uphill.

Hunting!

I am so behind on my dissertation, which should not be surprising, as I was once crowned as the Queen of Procrastination.

However! Naners and I crossed something off my bucket list: Foxhunting! Or, actually, coyote hunting, as that's what they do in Santa Fe. And, as a side note: they've never actually caught a coyote.

Caza Ladron was having their Guest Hunt and Pony Club members were specifically invited, so down we went with my friend JK. There were enough people for four fields. First field is the one that actually stays up with the hounds, galloping around the desert. Then Second Field, lots of canter. Third field was supposed to be Walk-Trot, some canter. Fourth field had kids on lead lines.

Before the hunting fun though, we met the hounds and had a talk on hunting, since there were so many kids (30 guests!) Five different pony clubs were represented on the hunt.

I love hounds

JK and I started in Third Field. Naners was... not her characteristic calm self. When everyone was walking we were doing collected trot and passage, when everyone was trotting we were doing collected canter. I'm not complaining about that as she has a really great canter. I did tell her that when we start moving up the levels if she tries to convince me she can't do collected things I'll know she's lying. The field trotted for a good half hour. I should have been dying, but I wasn't. But, when we stopped for our first check I told the leader person I needed to move back to Fourth field, I just wasn't fit enough for that much trotting.

So, we took a leisurely walk back towards fourth, met up with some peeps that were riding ahead. Since there were so few of us Naners and I jumped a ditch, glad she still meets those with no hesitation.

Fourth Field

 

When we got out of that bunch of horses that was trotting Naners settled down into quiet trail horse mode. I need to get her out on more rides with lots of horses. I also need to get more fit before I go back out.

The might Hunstman and the hounds

We're already making plans for next year and thinking we'll go down at least once to help exercise the hounds, so those of us that aren't fit enough to gallop around for hours can actually see them :D

Happy

A Naners without ovaries is a happy Naners

And a fluffy ollie is a happy ollie?

Someone who is definitely happy is the barn cat. He was not happy when it was all cold and snowy, but now he can sun himself on the front steps

He was having a hard time with boredom, so he also enjoys his paper bag

One of my favorite parts of the barn cat? Where he does his business (though he uses the stalls if there's snow over the poop pile. They are basically giant litter boxes)

Less Teeth, More Snuggling

My horse doesn't try to bite me constantly anymore. In that aspect, getting her ovaries out was a big win. I can also now hug her and stick my nose in her winter fuzziness. I've never actually been able to do that to her before, she wasn't a fan.

Having a horse with a surgical shave going into winter was maybe not my best plan. I didn't want to spend money on a quarter sheet, so here's our cheap fleece blanket quarter sheet. I had no idea it matched her halter till I took this picture.


Carrying frozen blankets into the house to thaw them wasn't on my to-do list either, but at least she doesn't sleep in her pee and poop like the last blanketed horses I had did. My house just smells slightly horsie as they thaw, as opposed to eau de warm poo and pee.

I've been on her a couple of times, we've had a fair amount of snow, so it's just been walks down the road. I don't feel much of a difference in her under saddle, but we haven't been doing much yet due to needing to get her back into shape. I had to untrain the whole biting while saddling thing, now I just get mugged for cookies.

Ovary Free

Last Sunday Naners and I drove the 7+ hours to the north side of Phoenix to get her ovaries out. It was just above freezing when we left home, it was 84 there. We were both quite warm. I thought she was going to be really cranky about the drive because she wasn't allowed to have hay (no food for 24 hours before surgery.) She was oddly quiet, no banging at stop lights as usual. She spent the night across the street from the surgery place, a very convenient place to have a layup facility. I got to maneuver through traffic to my friend's house on the other side of the city. I hate city driving with the truck.

I didn't sleep well. The bed was hard and I found on the drive down that I really care for Naners more than I sometimes think I do. I was worried for her. With worry about the horse, and worry about traffic, I got up there far earlier than I needed to be. I let Naners run around the round pen for a bit, but she was scouring the place for anything at all possibly edible. At 7:55 we walked over to the Horsie Hospital. She was quiet until she saw their cool metal horse statues. She didn't know what they were and were suspect.

We found their people and Naners went into a stall. I went back across the street, got the truck and put my nose to the dissertation grindstone in their comfy waiting room. I actually got some stuff done. Then, when they started I was able to watch through a window.

She had a standing laproscopic procedure, so she was just heavily sedated, not completely knocked out. As a result, she would react to things, especially at first. And it totally unglued me. I texted my vet, asking if we were doing the right thing. She called me almost right back, assured me that yes, we were doing the right thing. I had a little cry, then went back in and watched. I watched almost all of her left ovary, as that's the one I could see. Not that there was much to see.

So, here's what they pulled out:

Horse ovaries are not supposed to look like that. Especially on the left, you can see a huge follicle, which is a fluid filled sac that would turn into an egg. Both ovaries had follicles, which shouldn't happen. These basically look exactly like what we saw on her ultrasound several weeks earlier. Things should have changed.

Here's what they look like cut open with the follicles drained

All the wetness is from the popped follicles.

After that, I was wiped. I was given the option of Naners spending the night there or back across the street. For my own mental health, I let her stay there. I needed to find food, thank goodness there are a ton of In N'Outs in Phoenix now (hello grilled cheese animal style no pickles) and got lost again trying to get to Greenway Saddlery, where I somehow walked out having only bought a new pair of spur straps. Whether we were going to be able to leave Tuesday morning all depended on how things went for Naners over night.

Tuesday morning I was on the freeway when the vet called with a cheery good morning and asked if I was ready to go home because my mare was. Yay! I went to pick her up and found out she needed to be stall bound for a month. My stall walking mare locked up? Yeah, no. It also sunk in that she was really, really shaved. Blankets were going to be a must when we got home. A week of bute meant more Gastroguard. But, my mare was okay.

I loaded her up and off we went. I stopped more than I usually would, partially because I kept having to pee and I figured she probably wouldn't mind. I mulled over the whole how to lock up my horse thing, my lack of gastroguard, having no idea where my bute was hiding, and left a message for my vet. She texted back that we needed to keep her locked up for at least 24 hours, longer if we could. I, of course, have no shavings because I don't normally bed. An hour from home the feed store has a big lot (and I had to pee) so we stopped there. Right before then though, I had this view:

With 8 bags of shavings in the truck, we got closer to home. I called the vet when we got off the main road, she was waiting for us when we passed her house so I could get the gastroguard and bute. My husband actually came outside when we got home and helped me close off the stall, find the heated water bucket, get the shavings in...

She's actually more okay with being locked up than I thought she would be. Cleaning the stall of a walker? That freaking sucks and takes forever. So, since the vet is okay with her going out in her corral tomorrow that's what she's going to do, because starting on Monday I'm back in dissertation research land and will not have the time to clean that mess twice a day.

I'm still tired from it. 8 hours of driving, surgery stress, 8 hours back in three days. But, now hopefully cranky mare will become a thing of the past and I can enjoy my horse again.

We're off to see the surgeon...

In two days Naners and I are off on a journey to get her ovaries removed.

Why? It's probably the only thing that will help. My vet didn't want to try regumate, as some other mares that have presented like she did actually become more aggressive and nasty on it, and then you have an expensive bottle of regumate sitting around that you can't use and you still have to go get the ovaries out. Other than her giant follicles, everything else looks good, so it really looks like it's the source of the problem. I haven't ridden her in weeks because I got sick of dodging teeth and I didn't want to make it a learned behavior (though it probably already is at this point. Fingers crossed it isn't.) People have asked why I don't just sell her. Well, 1) I like my horse when she's not trying to bite me 2) She's basically unsellable with this issue. So, it's get them out or have a nasty high maintenance pasture pet for the next 15 or so years.

Is it possible this won't solve the problem? Of course. But the probability that it is is too high to ignore.

It's going to be tough on her. She can't eat for 24 hours before her surgery, which means the 7+ hour trailer ride will be without hay. There's going to be some serious grumpy going on back there.

Exercise with Mr. Short, Fat and Adorable

I will have to blame my dissertation brain for neglecting to post these pictures of Ollie and I from the summer. Now, before anyone panics about me having his lead around my wrist, I sewed a velcro fuse in so in theory, if we have a wreck, we'll detach. Honestly, he trots so slow I can barely stay upright on the bike.

And a video

Mare problems!

Long time readers will note that Naners frequently has some sort of problem. About a year ago she started having issues with her back, I've switched saddles, added pads, etc... lumbar still hurts. This summer, when she came back into work after her tendon injury, she was also cranky about being saddled. She was just cranky when I girthed, then she got so cranky she would try to bite me for doing things like, oh, touching her at all. My horse was not right. Sounded like ulcers, so on Gastroguard she went. Things improved, still cranky while girthing but otherwise fine. Until the other day when I put the rope around her neck to catch her and she tried to bite me again.

Today the vet was out and we ultrasounded her ovaries: some mighty large follicles on one (42mm was the biggest) and a number on the other as well. There's blood work and stuff still to figure out exactly what is going on, but long story short, giant ovarian follicles could definitely be making her back hurt.

My wonderful vet refused to speculate about what will happen until she gets test results back. I have become resigned to the fact that I'm probably going to either have to give her Regumate or get her ovaries removed. I may be overreacting.

time flies

It's been awhile. Grad school fried my brain and now it's starting back up all over again with dissertation crap. And I was so freaking busy all summer. I realized I haven't shown at all this year, but I've been to five different events as a second shooter. Yay making money instead of spending it! Though, I did end up buying a fabulous hot pink saddle pad at Colorado Horse Park (I couldn't resist! It's my colors!)

Toffee pony spent two months with a trainer and now walk, trots, canters and jumps. The best part? She steers! Well, most of the time she steers. She's still extremely green so sometimes the steering goes out. I've been riding her and I'm very impressed with her. Her arena work still needs, well, work, but riding down the road? She's very well behaved. She looks at stuff, but isn't concerned, just wants to know what it is. I'm really quite sad she's not a bit taller, as I really do enjoy her. I'm planning on taking her to a local show in a month and we'll see how that goes.

 

Naners is rehabbing. We're up to 30 minutes of walk and two minutes of trot. She's also now allowed to go back in the pasture and while we would prefer if she didn't gallop out to the fence line it did her no harm, so we just let her do it. However, she's gotten super grumpy about being saddled, so first we're ruling out back stuff (as it's cheaper) and then we'll look into ulcers. It's never ending with her. 

Ollie would like to report that winter is coming

Freaking Fragile Horses

Naners was finally better from her injury, we were making progress, planning on Training Level Test 3 for a local show.

Then, less than a week before the show, on a sunday night, her right hind just didn't look right, but I couldn't put my finger on it. This is exactly the same leg that she scraped open two months earlier. It didn't really feel hotter than the other leg, but the cleft between tendons was filled in. Sent a text to the vet giving her a heads up and that I'd text in the morning when the light was better.

Monday morning, not hot, but definitely not right. Sent a picture to the vet.

"Ummm.... that looks like a bow."

No. Nonononononononono.

She came out, ultrasounded the leg... lesion on the DDFT. Back to being locked up in her pen. Back to me not riding her.

I'm pissed. We always joke about how we need to bubble wrap our horses, but seriously, Naners likes to hurt herself more than any horse I've ever known. In less than a year and a half she's ulcerated her eye (April 2014), sliced her tendon sheath open (June 2014), tendon sheath got infected (July 2014), slight laminitis (fall 2014), slight laminitis (spring 2015), sliced a leg open again (April 2015), bowed tendon (June 2015). Oh, and then there's her ongoing odd back soreness, that we figure is due to her fence walking.

There comes a point when you own every horse that you start wondering how much more money it's worth putting into them. I'm at that point with her. I'm not sure I can sell her, due to her management issues (the fence walking and laminitis on fall and spring grass.)

For now, I'm just going to wait till her tendon heals and then go from there.

Pam and Ollie's Girth Reduction Plan

Ollie the mini has gotten a bit… rotund.

I have also gotten a bit… rotund.

What can the two of us do together to work on this problem? Most would recommend walking or running, neither of which I can do without making my back and/or neck hurt. I can bike. People bike with their dogs, why can't I bike with my mini? 

Turns out I can bike with my mini

Yesterday I took out the bike and walked it over to the barn. I figured it was going to take a bit of training for Ollie to be okay with walking next to it while I rode it. It took zero training, he just did it. However, I had to pedal so, so slow for him to keep up trotting. We did maybe 1/3 of a mile.

This probably isn't the safest thing I've ever come up with, but really, is anything with horses perfectly safe? And, people do it with their dogs all the time. Granted, dogs are a bit lighter. The safety comes into question when he suddenly stops, so of course the bike ends up stopping. If I had any speed it could go badly. I plan to adapt my holding onto him mechanism (currently it's just his lead rope) to lessen the chance of disaster in this scenario. Also, as he continues to learn what exactly we're doing it should decrease.

Yes, the handle bars are taller than he is.

Today we got all the way to the gate and back, almost a mile round trip. He definitely had better stamina today (I think yesterday may have just been a little warm, he still has a good amount of fuzz.) Tomorrow will probably be a day off, then we'll do the length of the driveway again. Then, even with my back screaming, I need to take him out on the road without the bike and see how he is with traffic passing before I even attempt it with. Then, we'll end up being a local sensation.

Diamond in the rough? Oh yeah.

So, when I picked up the pony I knew she was nice, and her former owner really had no idea how nice. The pictures she'd taken to sell her were not good and as a result no one else saw what my friends and I did when we met her. I turned the pony out yesterday in the pasture for the first time. I cannot begin to express how much I wish she was a couple of inches taller.

She ran and ran and ran, including jumping over the ditch.

Doesn't she look like she's doing upper level dressage in this one?

Naners is just happy she has someone to run with

The plan right now is the pony is off to a trainer for 30 days in a week or two and then I'll go from there with what to do with her.

Introducing Banana's Mini Me

Last week, a pony mare for sale passed through my facebook feed. I was not looking. But, her cute face stopped my scrolling. She was only 30 minutes away, and was on my way to where I was going later. I stopped. And met a mare who was wary at first, but in a few minutes was nuzzling my cheek. Her owner had a very high opinion of her horse keeping skills, to me they were sub-par, as evidenced by her feet. I said if she hadn't sold by the end of the weekend I'd be back to ride her.

I sent her pictures to my horsie friends. Everyone remarked how much she looks like Naners. And she does. A smaller version.

Our weather this past weekend was crap. It rained and rained and rained. Which, is actually awesome because it's dry here, but not helpful when one is going to try out a horse. I went on Sunday, two friends (one my current trainer) met me down there. We sunk halfway up our feet in mud. Riding the mare was not going to happen. But, when they met her, saw her move, looked at how well built she was, we decided we could not leave this pony's future to fate. There was just something about her we were all drawn to. Long story short, Tuesday I picked her up.

The above picture looks like the meeting was friendly. And for the most part it was. She was in heat so she and Ollie were instantly infatuated with each other. However, then Naners took a turn towards her alpha mare self:

No one has been maimed, though as Naners' leg wound had some pus today it may have set her leg healing back. Things have calmed down since Tuesday. But oh is pony attached to her new friends. If I take Naners out for her hand graze pony just carries on and on and on. It's getting quite annoying. I hope as she settles she's not quite so needy. She had no idea what a feed pan was, and the handful of ration balancer in it was extremely suspect. Tonight she ate it right down.

I'm slowly working through to see how her ground manners are. Fine with grooming, a little hesitant about a few feet. They are in great need of help. She's worried about a spray bottle, but was totally okay with me spraying her with water out of the hose. The vet will be here on Saturday to do her teeth and shots, farrier early next week. Then one of these days I'll get on her. I'm hoping I can convince someone else to do it first, because while she's supposedly a good girl, she's very green. And I hate unplanned meetings with the ground.

Banana's leg today

The vet and I are pleased. That's four days.

Future Employment?

I'm pretty sure Ollie has a future as a waiter.

Unexpected

This was a shocking thing to wake up to: snow. I was extra glad I'd put a blanket on Naners last night

See? It does occasionally happen.

I took it off maybe when it was cooler than I would have liked, but I much preferred the thought of her rolling in the snow instead of the inevitable mud

I also took this fabulous picture of her, worthy of the photography skills of my father

I can count the number of times I've seen her rear on one hand, so I didn't have the camera positioned for this antic. My dad, on the other hand, cuts off heads even when the subject more than fits in the frame.

And just like that, a screeching halt

Yesterday, I loaded Naners on the trailer and off we went for our lesson. She was quieter than usual, no banging at every stop sign and light (she doesn't kick, she just moves around and since the trailer is steel it makes a lot of noise.) We've been trailering a lot lately, so she's probably just gotten more tolerant of the situation (it happens. She's always bad for a bit, then gets better) We got to the trainers and I unloaded her and she stepped off so quietly, when she usually leaps. Unfortunately, she stepped off so quietly she didn't quite leave enough room for her hind legs to come down and she scraped them against the little bits of metal that hold the corners of the bottoms of the double doors. What originally looked like a surface scrape was not:

That's what it looked like after the vet had snipped off a flap of skin. There was also a pretty deep puncture that extends about an inch down from the hole, discovered when she was flushing it with saline and the skin was extending outward as the saline went in. I'm really, really glad I called the vet.

Naners is now laid up for goodness knows how long. Depends on how things go of course. Going to the rally is out, so we won't be able to qualify for PC Champs. I get to practice my fine wound wrapping skills again. I still have supplies from last summer.

Obviously, I don't wrap when we travel. She wears bell boots when I can get them on her safely (as soon as she realizes she has to get on the trailer she starts carrying on.) I've been thinking of ways to make the back of the trailer safer, there isn't a way to pad the things in a way that the doors will still be able to close. A neighbor/friend thinks we could at least take the corners off the holder thingies, which would make it quite a bit better. I shall post before and after pics when we do it, as my trailer is not the only one out there with doors like this.

I swear officer! It was like that when I got here

This is what I found yesterday when I opened the trailer when Naners and I got home from our lesson:

It looks like something terrible happened in there, maybe a murder, at least a stabbing. I was a bit frantic, checking Naners all over. All I found was dried blood around her left nostril and two tiny, wet drips. Guesses are she hit her nose, they bleed a lot, and because it is a stock trailer, so there's wind, it blew all over the place. I just can't get over all the blood. It did, fortunately, clean up fairly easily (much easier than the just oiled gravel that's all over the outside of the trailer. I tried, it's still there. I need more water than I'm willing to sacrifice from our cistern.)

Naners is fine. Today we went for a walk down the road and all was well.

It's been a fun couple weeks... not!

When last I posted I thought Naners and I were really going to slide off the eventing train and become a western dressage pair. Fortunately, I borrowed a neighbors wintec pro dressage saddle and neither of us had problems with it. Yay!

But, after I had this figured out Naners wasn't right... her back was okay, something else was going on. With it being the time of year it is, and as I was transitioning her back to grass, I felt for digital pulses, something I can never, ever feel... but there they were, bounding away. Long story short: Naners cannot be out on grass unless our temps are over 40 at night, spring or fall, (40 degrees being the magic temperature that grass can use the sugars produced during the day to grow) or she'll end up with full blown laminitis. I caught it really early, so she's okay. I just need to buy a heck of a lot more hay this year. It never ceases to amaze me how good a diagnostic tool my seat is. Every time things have not felt right to me, regardless of horse, things have turned out to not be right, even if it is so subtle it takes the vet awhile to determine the problem.

With the Wintec working it's very clear that my beloved Black Country Tex Eventer is not working for us. I can't bear to sell it yet, so it'll be collecting dust for awhile. We did a Ride a Test clinic on Sunday and our trainer agrees that the Wintec works just fine for us. Alas, I don't have dressage saddle riding muscles yet, so I'm a freaking mess in it.

We also got our fabulous bonnet from Heartland Horsewear. I love it.

Down the rabbit hole?

Argh. Since I've been able to ride again Naners has regularly had a sore back. First, I noticed she was sore after I rode her. Then I started checking her back several times a day. Generally, she's sore in the morning and not sore in the afternoon. So, one of those afternoons I put my saddle on, and she was sore after a 20 minute ride. I've been testing several variables. Today we tried a western saddle: no soreness. So, we may be looking at doing western dressage. Downside: Naners' natural gaits are much faster than a western horse should be going. Plus: blingy show shirts!