Crooked legs

I actually made it out to see Chev yesterday, and arrived right before my farrier.  He's been working with a 4-year-old filly through the barn owner for some people he's never met, and was there to ride her.

I think it's strange that people will have their horse in training and never come out to see it.  This is a "free" horse--and believe me, no untrained horse is free--that the barn owner is apparently charging the owners $700 a month for training and board.  Farrier told me he's getting $400 to train the horse (a reasonable fee), and in 30 days already has her w/t/c and stopping like a champ.  He's doing a pretty good job with the little filly.  They have signed up for another month of training (which in any other case would be wise).  What I don't get is, full care board is $260.  So what's the other $40 for?  Hmmm.

Anyway.

I can't imagine these poor people know much about horses, because their "free horse" unfortunately looks like this up front:

Oh dear.

The first time the farrier had this horse out for training, tied to a post, I literally did a double take and said, "Tell me her front end doesn't really look like that!"  I thought she must have just been standing funny, but no, she is so pigeon-toed her feet almost point at each other when she's squared up.  This conformity is so bad she already has massive amounts of sidebone forming, her fetlocks are trashed--and she's only 4 years old.

So here's what I don't get.

Besides the obvious fact that this poor sweet animal should never have been created in the first place, since this kind of conformation fault is most certainly hereditary...

Why, oh why, when this filly came in, did no one tell the unsuspecting and largely clueless owners that they had an animal unlikely to stay sound in ANY kind of work for more than a couple of years?

Why did no one mention to them that their $1400 in training could have bought them a nice, well broke, registered horse that can already do everything they hope for?

Oh yes--I know...

Because that way no one makes any money.

I want to make this clear though.  I don't fault the farrier one bit.

He has been contracted out by the barn owner to do the training.  He has neither met, nor spoken with the owners directly, nor have they come to see any of the training sessions, nor does he have any way to contact them--except through the barn owner.

What a mess.

And the poor filly is sweet as can be--of course.  If her legs had been straighter she most certainly would have been worth every dollar of training put into her.

But in my opinion, it is cruel and hastens the breakdown of a horse with this kind of deformity to ride it at all.

In my opinion, she should be made as comfortable as possible with corrective trimming and a nice pasture for as long as she can live without pain.

But as a riding horse, I don't see much of a future here.  It's true she doesn't stumble--yet--but it's only a matter of (short) time before she breaks down completely.

What a shame.

In other news, I rode the beast after more than a week off, and she was good.  Unfortunately when I got her back to the tie rack afterwards her pulling back issue resurfaced.  I decided to just leave her tied for 30 minutes, during which time she had several more episodes.  She'd get to the end of the rope, suck back and pull pull pull, almost sitting down like a dog with her hind legs braced under her, realize she wasn't getting anywhere, and come forward again.  It was actually fairly calm, if you can ever describe a 1,300 pound animal pulling with all its weight on a metal post as "calm".  This time, everything held fast, and after 6 or 7 times, she was done with that, even licked and chewed after she gave into the pressure.  I would feel worse for her (since surely it must hurt to do that)--except all she has to do to avoid the pain is not pull back.  I still think (thanks to the Hancock in her) that it will take another few sessions of this to cure her completely.  But it's a start.

Chevy has more than a few conformation faults of her own, but at least all 4 feet point in the same direction--forward!

 Does this picture make my head look big?

Back in the saddle, and some thoughts on (de)worming

Well, I'm back.  Finally.  After a lengthy hiatus.  I successfully orchestrated (with a little help from my brother) a surprise trip back to Oregon for my mom's birthday, and just got back yesterday.  Lord, do I miss the Pacific Northwest.  I visited Whole Foods.  I ate tons of sushi.  I went to bars that were non-smoking. It was amazing.

It is getting harder and harder for me to leave and come back again.  But that's a story for another blog.

So I was able to ride for the first time in about two weeks today.  The weird thing about being gone is how quickly I slip back into what a life without horses could be.  But she is always in my mind, and it was wonderful to see her again.

It always amazes me how quickly Chev gets completely out of shape.  It isn't that she forgets things (necessarily), she just loses some of her strength that makes her canter nice and even, and her other gaits cadenced.  So.  I noticed that right off the bat.

We had a large herd of antelope cross the road and jump some fences, and that was more than enough excitement to get her tail flagged.

Afterwards, it was time for her bi-monthly deworming.  I'm from a wet area, so I believe in and grew up with rotational or feed-thru worming.  I grumbled something about my dewormer only going up to 1,100 pounds, and the barn owner responded with:

"How often do you do that?"

"Every two months," I said.

"Well I only worm once a year.  They don't really need more than that."  She then proceeded (as per usual) to make me feel like my way was wrong, stating that it's a waste of money, that you can tell by looking at poop and hair coat, etc, etc, etc.

I said I'd keep to my schedule.

Having known horses who succumbed to dangers of lackluster or non-existent deworming programs, I believe in sticking to it.  In fact, I'd wager that good deworming programs are largely to thank for the greatly increased average equine lifespan over the last 20 years.

I also worked in a vet clinic, and saw plenty of nasty parasites--and I know enough to know that most aren't visible to the naked eye.  And if they are, boy howdy do you have a BIG problem!

I order my deworming packs ahead of time through horse.com and write the month on them in sharpie to help me remember.  And with my old guy, I had fecal tests done to make sure my deworming schedule was working.  The vet was surprised to find not a single ova in his sample the last time I had one run, but I have yet to do one on Chevy.

So how do you feel about deworming schedules?  Do you stick to an every-two-monther, or do you just deworm when you remember?

Short ride and boarding questions

I tried out the HDR for a few minutes today.  It is really wide--possibly a little too wide.  That's not a problem I usually have with Chev + English saddles.  I have a really nice Cavallo riser pad that I stuck under there, and that did seem to help a little bit.  It's not like it's resting anywhere, and there don't seem to be any pressure points.  No roughed up hair and we didn't work hard enough to get any sweat pattern.  So the jury is still out on the fit.  I did notice some major "rolling" though...which brings me to:

My gosh, my horse is getting SO FAT.  Even my longest girth, which I think is a 52", maybe even a 54", just barely fits.  With just a thin baby pad I was able to get it up two holes on each side.  Not really enough to feel all that secure about it.  The billets on the HDR aren't ridiculously short or anything.  With the riser pad it literally took me 10 minutes (between my freezing fingers and the cold stiff billets) to get the girth on ANY hole.  I ended up managing the last hole on both sides.  A whopping one hole.  So I think that probably explains a little of the rolly-polly-ness.

Yeeeesh.  And here I was worried that she was going to lose weight over the harsh Wyo winter.

If I were to guess, I'd say she's easily gained 100 pounds.  On hay only.  Yikes.

She also got a trim and a reset today.  The shoer was having a lot of trouble with her left front foot, which is usually the easy one.  The backs she keeps trimmed down naturally, so there wasn't much to do there.  I've been wanting to go barefoot with her but the last time I tried it she was so miserable that I put her front shoes back on a week later.  That was almost 4 months ago, and the angle on her left-front (aka "pancake") foot is finally starting to look normal again.  So--4 months to repair the damage done in 1 week. 

Yeeeeeeeesh.

There is talk of moving her to my farrier's place.  There are pros and cons to the move.

I don't like to badmouth anyone, especially here on ye ol' internet, where people can't defend themselves, but I definitely have some problems with the standards of care at my current boarding barn.  There are some things that just downright scare me.  The owner has told me she'd "can" some horses if she could (which horrifies me, being the owner of a previously slaughterbound horse), frequently tells me this-or-that horse is stupid, or this-or-that owner is stupid, and that she thinks the vet is a waste of money in just about all cases.  She has told me that she doesn't notice anything unless a horse is lame.  Our personalities just generally don't get along.  I don't feel welcome out there at all.  I feel like the second I leave they're talking about me behind my back too--and I hate that!  I really do try to get along with everyone.  That's why I was such a superstar in the customer service world.  Also, out there I don't have control over how much my horse is fed (although on that front she seems to be doing more than fine).  And I have been known to get in trouble for scrubbing out my horse's pooped in water bucket.  Sigh.

Before moving out to Wyoming, which is horse country for sure, but only good for horses if you have your own land, because it's darned near impossible to find boarding facilities here, I had my horses at a partial care barn in the Emerald Valley in Oregon.  It was really a good situation for me.  The barn fed AM & PM--I provided all hay, set up the amount of hay to be fed, and made little baggies of supplements and grain which they dumped for me--and they provided the shavings.  I did all the stall cleaning, feed set up, etc.  I really liked having a say in all aspects of my horse's care.  I also really liked the barn owner and her husband.  Nevermind that her daughter could outride me at age 6.  They were all great.  I miss boarding there.

So--I could move out to the farrier's place, with his two mares.  He does have a small (outdoor) arena and I would be able to be in control of hay, supplements, feed grain if I wanted, etc.  I also really like the guy and I feel like it would be a good situation.  I also know he would appreciate the extra help since I am sort of fanatical about keeping things horse-related clean and orderly.  But--then I give up the large arenas and Chev gets moved away from all the horse buddies she has now.

If you don't mind leaving a short (or long!) comment, where do you board your horses?  What's the care like?  Or are you one of those people who make me green with envy--do you have your OWN facility?

Why do I always feel like the problems I worry about the most in my life are horse-related?  (This one's rhetorical--you don't have to answer it unless you feel the same way!)

But, I guess that's what happens when you care about them.

p.s. Chev's knee looks less swollen today, and didn't cause her any lameness issues during our short ride.  I'm pretty sure at this point she banged it on something.  The actual joint doesn't seem affected at all, but we'll still take things slow for now.

Take care of your pony

Boy, if there's one thing that will screw up my ride every time, it's not having enough time.

Does this happen to any of you?

Since I'm "self employed" it doesn't happen to me all that much anymore, but when I was living on more of a set schedule, it was a guaranteed recipe for disaster.

You'd think I would have learned my lesson and just not ridden if I didn't have enough time.

By "enough time", I mean at least a couple of hours.  It amazes non-horse people how much time can be sucked up in a barn.  But not me.  I'm realistic.  I know if I have one horse to ride, it will take me two hours to get the job done fairly.

At least 10 minutes to groom out and boot up, another 15 to lunge and see how she looks that day, 10 more to finish brush and tack up, 15 minutes of warm-up, 20 of hard work, 20 to cool down, another 30 to untack, brush out, let her loose in the round pen to roll, then brush her out again, blanket her, check water buckets, fencing, etc...you get the idea.

I am always amazed at the people who will come out, ride their horses into the ground with no warm up, and put them away wet.  In 20 degree weather, that's pretty miserable.

There's an old horseman's adage that says, "A good horseman always sees to his horses' needs before his own."

I have always loved this maxim.  And I believe it to be true for all the living things (or tiny humans) who rely on you for care.  I don't have children, and my parents will tell you I've been saying I'll never have them since I was about 3 (which coincided, curiously, with the birth of my only brother).  So my pony and 3 kitties are my babies, and I make sure to care for them the absolute best that I can.

It takes no small amount of empathy and self-sacrifice to follow the horseman's code.  If it's a blistering hot day, unless I'm going to faint, the horse, done with her workout, gets her saddle pulled off and a hose-down before I get my drink of water.  If it's cold, the horse gets her saddle pulled, her saddle blanket left on for a few minutes, curried down, brushed, dried off and blanketed before I think about heading somewhere warm for myself.  If there's ice in the water buckets, I break it and clean it out.  Even if it's 15 degrees out.  My hands will warm up again eventually.

I think this way of treating your horse is something they quickly come to rely on.

I think it fosters in them a feeling that their needs will not only never be ignored, but taken care of promptly.  On the rare day that something calls me away from my usual untacking routine, the horse stands quietly, knowing I haven't forgotten her.

I respect her desire to be warm and comfortable back in her own pen on par with my desire to return to my warm comfortable house.

A horse whose needs are neglected quickly "learns" that he will be ill treated, and it makes him anxious about saddling, riding, and being tied at the end of the ride.  It's a shame.

It's something that makes me want to take on horses I can't.  I have to content my brain with knowing that I can take good care of the one I have, and be happy that she'll never know starvation, ill-treatment, or neglect.

The accident prone horse

As I said last time, I've been planning on giving Chev some time off.

She's been working hard lately and I don't want her to lose her work ethic, her good attitude or her soundness.

So I resisted the strong urge I felt to grab the hackamore on my way out the door today.

I drove out to the barn, haltered her and led her out of her large pen, down to the grooming area.  I took off her blanket and immediately noticed her knee.

I know Chev, so I know this isn't normal.  Can you see the swelling?

Here, I'll circle it for you:

Ugh.  I hate dealing with horsey injuries.  Things that seem small can be devastating, things that seem catastrophic can be superficial.  I've never dealt with a knee injury before.

Now, Chev is what you would call an "accident prone horse".

My favorite injury of hers so far was getting a 2" long toothpick thick splinter lodged way up in the side of her neck.

I had her on turnout all summer in these really nice, individual (didn't want her to get kicked by another horse!  Oh, no!  Have to be cautious!)  turnouts, with awesome, new, horse-safe wood panel fencing.

I brought her in one evening, and gave her the usual grooming once-over to make sure she was fine.  I got to her neck, and felt something strange.  It felt like a toothpick was lodged under her skin.  There was no obvious entry wound, no blood.  I thought I must be going nuts.  

Maybe it's an Alien implant?  I thought to myself.  Ha, ha.

Then I found a tiny, completely bloodless entry wound, about 2mm in diameter a few inches down her neck from the object under her skin.  I probed some more at the skinny bump and heard a tiny snap.

Oh no, I thought.

I called the vet right away, he told me not to worry and came out the next day to do local surgery to remove the two huge splinter fragments from way up under her skin.

On the plus side, since she needed to be sedated anyway it didn't cost me too much more to get her teeth done at the same time.

Doesn't it seem like sometimes the most careful owners are the ones with the horses that can get injured on ANYTHING?  I see those horses out in barbed wire with tractors and scrap metal in their pastures and I just KNOW if they belonged to me, they would have killed themselves long ago.

I remember my old barn owner saying, "God takes care of ignorant horse owners."  And while I'm fairly Agnostic, I have to think there's something to this.  People do the stupidest things to their horses, and somehow they not only live but emerge unscathed.  But I, the hyper-vigilant, always worrying horse owner, get to deal with all kinds of stuff that just makes you shake your head and go, "Boy, how did she manage THAT?"

No matter what I do she finds something to get injured on.

So I did what I usually do when something looks off.  I snapped her on the lunge line to see if she was lame, and evaluate from there.

She wasn't.  She moved fine, actually.  I didn't see any lameness.  So that was weird.

I palpated it and she didn't like that much.  It was obviously sore but not hot.  I would have cold hosed it under normal circumstances, but given that it was already 32 degrees out with a windchill down to 17, I figured that would just be cruel.

(Sidebar:  If you look closely at this picture you'll see a horizontal dent under her right knee.  That's from getting kicked full in the cannon bone by a hind-shoe wearing gelding when she was 3.  But that's a story for another day...)

See the swelling on top of her left knee?  It's a little hard to see in the picture because of the strong shadow on her left leg, but all the swelling seemed to be localized to the top lateral aspect of the carpus, and there was no swelling/edema lower in her leg.  I also found no puncture wound, etc. even though I looked closely. (But look at those gams in the back!  Holy cow!  I wish mine looked that good.)

I'm hoping she just banged it hard on something (like the corral she's in) and that the swelling will go down soon.  If not, then I'll have the vet out to make sure something else isn't going on.

I thought about buteing her, but I'm always hesitant to do that in this kind of situation when I don't know exactly what's wrong or if it's causing her much pain--sometimes taking the pain away makes them feel awesome, and they re-injure themselves even worse.  I decided against the Bute for now.

So for the time being she'll be getting some much deserved time off.  She'll have her feet done early next week and just veg out for a while--probably a couple of weeks at least.  In the meantime I'll keep a close eye on that knee.

In the small outdoor arena today

Also, when I was grooming her today I noticed that she was SHEDDING.  In February.  In 30 degree weather.  I sure hope this means we're in for an early spring!

A bit of a break

I last rode Chev on 2/4.  We had some good moments, I was brave and went right to the hackamore for the whole ride (no snaffle bit warm up this time!).  But she felt pretty stiff and a little sore and I know we've been working really hard lately, so I'm giving her a few days off.

Chevy has one of those brains that sort of short circuits if you ride too much.  She's not a horse you could do arena work with every day.  She needs a couple days here and there to work things out, and I think the indoor arena rides left her a little frazzled (and more than a little muscle sore, since she needs to be so much more collected to work in a 45' wide space).

So we are both getting a little bit of a break.  I'll go out and visit her tomorrow, turn her out in the arena so she can have some time away from Speedy to roll and charge around on her own terms.  I'm sure she won't mind the break.

Plus she's due for some new shoes in about a week.  So maybe we'll pick up there.

Here's what it looks like around my neck of the woods (errr, prairie):

Platte River path, Douglas, WY

I took this the other day when we went for a walk along the river.  This is in town...so that gives you an idea of the kind of booming metropolis I live in.

On the upside, without horse riding weighing heavily on my mind, I did get some work done in my studio over the weekend, and got back to painting a little bit.  I've been mostly working on drawings and trying to come up with some extra money.

If YOU are one of those rare horse people with extra funds laying around, consider a commission!  I am great at horse portraits, and I really enjoy doing them (after many years of art school and not being "allowed" to draw horses, it's a treat!).  And yes, this is a shameless plug for work.  I only have one small project I'm working on right now--a logo for a horse trainer I know up in Washington state--and heck, even if you don't have any money, looking is free!  I would love it if you went in & had a look around.

Here's the link:  www.mandrewsgallery.com

 Sparkafide print close-up

Happy riding!

Do you have a plan?

Today I want to talk about something no one wants to think about.

Do you have a plan for your horse if something terrible should happen to you?

On my fridge I have a note that reads, "In the event of my death: Chevelle is to go to M****** C******.  Her phone number is *** *** ****, she is in Washington and she will expect the call."  I have it signed and dated at the bottom.

My Significant Other knows the plan should I die on the highway, have some sort of unexplained heart attack, or get abducted by aliens.  The remaining money in my bank account is to be used for shipping Chev to Washington.  My two beloved kitties, who have always lived with the SO, will continue to live with him.

I made sure to pick her next mom as carefully as I could.  The woman I picked knows Chev, and was even involved in her early training.  They have a special bond.  Hell, they love each other.  And I know she would be well cared for for the rest of her days if I wasn't there to share them with her.

I need to have an actual will drawn up, and to mail it to my parents and everyone else who would be involved in this situation.  But I feel at least a little comforted that there is a plan in place should the unthinkable happen.

I couldn't bear to think of Chev sold off to who knows where.

Most state livestock laws dictate that in the event of the owner's death or abandonment, unless someone can legally take possession of the horse, the barn he is boarded at is free to auction the horse to the highest bidder and pocket the change.

So...

Do you have a plan?


ETA: I now have a legal will & testament dictating the information above. Signed copies are going out to all concerned on Monday.