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.