How The West Was Spun

We Almost Lost Him

Friday afternoon after work (first afternoon all week I wasn't working late!), I ran out for about an hour to do some errands, USPS, grocery, bank.  I got home and went to say hi to the boys, like I always do when I'm in and out near the barns.  I turned the corner and Sammy was down.  He was laying almost on his back, his back legs were stuck in the fence panels.  He was dripping with sweat, burning up, and his eyes were about half rolled back in his head.  He was moaning every so often, but otherwise was completely unresponsive. 

I jumped the fence to the other half of the pasture, pulled the pins that hold panels together, and got his legs undone.  I ran and grabbed a halter, but since he was so out of it, I couldn't get it on his head, so I threaded the lead rope around his neck and started hauling on him.  He came to a little bit, and I got him on his feet enough to stagger 2 steps away from the fence, but he collapsed again.  I rang D and I rang the vet.  D was in the car in a jiff from work, but our vet was over an hour away at another call. 

Sam had lapsed back into half-consciousness again and was still dripping with sweat.  I ran and got the hose and turned that on him full blast - soaked him to the skin, but he was still completely out of it. 

I haven't had a ton of horses die in front of me - but enough to know this was BAD.  VERY VERY BAD.  The fact that he had such spiked vital signs, and he had no capillary refill (or let's say exceptionally sluggish) along the gumline, and I had no response to painful stimuli, this was not a good thing. 

D got home just then and between the two of us, we at least got his head up off the ground enough we could get a halter on him.  D then pulled on him, and we finally got him to his feet.  He was completely disoriented and stumbling while we were trying to walk him.  His back legs and all the big muscles were having muscle fasciculations (basically the shakes) while we were walking him in a slow circle.  By this time too, since I had hosed him down in a dirt paddock, he was covered with mud dripping off him and it was everywhere - in his ears, covering his eyes, matting his mane and tail. 

D kept walking him.  My vet called us back and gave us instructions and said he was hauling our way as quick as he could.  We got a large dose of oral pain-killer in Sam, and then I had a second emergency syringe of another pain-killer, so we got that in him too.  We decided that we'd see if we could move him out of the pasture to stand in a sandy area we've got by the barn and see if we could get his eyes and ears cleaned up, so we did that, hosed him down again and wiped the worst of the mud off him.  He was pretty badly cut up in a few places.  Oddly NOT his legs, which are usually the issue, but abrasions up along his hips, one side of his knee and along one eye.

By this time, he was starting to have some life in his eyes again. D continued walking him very slowly up and down the driveway until our vet pulled in maybe 90 minutes later.  After that amount of time, Sam's eyes were bright again, he was flicking his tail at flies and stomping his feet at them, and his ears were up and he was a completely different horse.

The vet checked him out: Pulse and respirations down to where they should be for a calm, resting horse.  No muscle tone problems.  Good gut sounds.  Basically, other than the cuts: Nothing.  He dosed Sam with a couple of extra things, mostly to try to help him be more comfortable if he started stiffening up from being down and in the fence, but not really because we had a clue what was going on.

The vet STILL doesn't know what the hell went on and neither do we.  We are suspicious of a seizure of some kind, but he's had no other symptoms and by 8:00 p.m. that night, he was in good enough shape to pack into dinner like we were starving him, and to be bossing Fargo around in the pasture.  He was completely fine all weekend long - no symptoms of any kind and we are just watching the scrapes and cuts, and applying a salve to them.

Exceptionally scary and even more worrisome since we have no idea what caused this.  We're all just glad he came back to us, but seriously touch and go for a bit there.  (D and I, frankly, were in far worse shape than he was on Friday night after all that.)

All for now.....

I'll Take Horse Crazy for the daily double, Alex

This weekend, if it is in fact possible, we immersed ourselves into the horses even more than usual.  We had taken Zel out with D on several trail rides and he was obviously unhappy.  He wasn't really keen on working in the arena either.  And with a high-strung horse, if they aren't happy, they are a handful and then some.  So we decided not to go any further, or do anything to make matters worse, and called our friend, Jerry, horse-trainer extraordinaire.

Some long-time blog readers probably remember we worked extensively with Jerry up in Salt Lake with Bhen and Sam, and he got them (and really, most importantly US) tuned up, and safer and easier to ride, and then we moved, and we lost our weekly sessions with him.  Now I know it's going to seem completely over-the-top to get a trainer down from Salt Lake, when I am sure there are perfectly good trainers in NM.  Problem is, I don't really know any of them.  I have some names, but I haven't worked with them, and Jerry is sort of a perfect-storm mix of being able to work with Arabians (some trainers won't even touch them), getting great results in a short period of time, and getting the RIDER in tune with the horse, which really sometimes is the issue and not the horse itself.

So we arranged for Jerry to come visit us this weekend and he arrived on Thursday afternoon.  Friday a.m., D and Zel and he went up and worked for 2-1/2 hours or so in the round pen and the arena that are in our subdivision.  They went back in the afternoon for another session and I went with them and couldn't believe this was the same horse.  Instead of being tense and jiggy and worried, he was relaxed, floating around at the most beautiful trot with his tail up and his head down, listening to everything D was trying to tell him to do. 

  

Saturday a.m., D and Jerry took Zel and Sammy out for a trail ride, and Zel did beautifully.  For a horse with zero trail experience, he worked really hard on scary obstacles, and they did flat trotting, plus hill work, and Zel's got a great work ethic.  The boys got home just after lunchtime as the wind was picking up and a storm was brewing, and because Zel had done so great, we let him have a break for the rest of the day and we took Fargo out to the arena.

Fargo and I worked on extending out his trot.  He's been trained as a western pleasure horse, which is a very slow measured trot, and what they have required in the show ring, but it is slow to ride on trail and not the most comfortable thing to try to ride for long distances.  He and Jerry had a....uh... disagreement about things when Jerry was trying to work him through some flexion exercises (I wasn't on him - Jerry was), and he had a monster of all temper tantrums and pitched Jerry (I STILL feel horrible about this even tho it was a weird set of circumstances with the wind and something he thought was a snake, but still.  OMG.).  He also, as it turns out, has a stubborn streak as long as mine, and while he is the most mellow horse 99.9% of the time, when his temper really goes, it GOES. (Uh.  Also like mine). 

Anyway, Jerry got him straightened out and I got back on and we did some more work on his trot.  I wish we had video from the following day where he was back to being Mr. Perfect, but at least we did get some.

 

Sunday, we took both boys back up to the arena.  Jerry was a little sore from where he landed on his shoulder, so he was content to let us work.  Fargo and I got started first, and he was really quite the gentleman.  Remembered the cues he had learned the previous day, put his head down and went to work.  After a couple-hour session, we took the boys back to the house, let them and us have some lunch, and headed back to the arena.  Because Fargo is so well trained with picking the correct canter cues, and has a lovely soft western lope, Jerry wanted to put D on him to learn how to cue correctly for the canter.  I probably should have told Fargo it was okay for him to work with Jerry, when D took his reins from me, he turned his head and looked at me.  This time tho, I told him it was okay and gave him a little pat, and to his credit, he took really good care of D and packed him around at the canter for almost 45 minutes.  He was pretty tuckered out, not being used to cantering for that length of time, nor carrying that much weight, and he had already worked for 2 hours that morning, but he stayed nice and quiet and D was able to learn all of his body positioning and canter cues in that hour, so when we put him back on Zel, who (being ex-racehorse and all), he knew how to stay quiet and centered and which lead to ask him to pick up.

The boys went back for a final hour of training Monday a.m. before Jerry left to fly to Salt Lake - mostly some quiet round pen work, as Zel's pretty tuckered out from his weekend (as are D and me, to be honest), but he and D made strides together as a new team like nobody's business.  We both said to each other that would have been a month or more, assuming we found a trainer we liked and wanted to work with Zel and D, to have achieved the level that the two of them have together now. 

So... crazy?  Yeah... but a good kind of crazy. 

 

All for now.....

Fargo

I feel like I have kind of off-handedly talked about Fargo, which isn't fair at all, as he is a really nice horse.  After his shake-down with Sammy when we switched pastures, while he is respectful of Sam and Sam is definitely the in-charge horse, it hasn't crushed Fargo's spirit at all and the two of them have been out several times on trail together, so they have worked out the roommate issues and come to a (most of the time) nice truce. Sam doesn't allow him to stand in the barn with him, but he does let Fargo come stand in the lee of the roof in the shade for daily nap-time.

 

He's really a friendly boy.  I never have any issues grabbing him in the pasture and getting a halter on him, and a lot of times, although he makes sure to keep an eye on Sam to be sure it's okay, he will come right up to the fence to say hi to me.  He's gotten very cognizant of the opening and closing of the various doors of the house, so if I go out onto the back deck, his head comes up and his ears perk forward and he waits for me to say Hi to him.

We've had him out on trail now three weekends in a row, and considering that he is a "show horse", he's really taken to it nicely.  The first weekend out, we mostly walked, and he was fairly timid about scary monsters in the bushes and all sorts of things it was obvious he hadn't seen before.  I had him walk out in front for maybe a third of the ride, and with some encouragement and praise, he did just fine.  It's easier at the walk since the horses have time to process the visual stimuli compared to the trot.  Two weekends ago, we went out and did a nice training loop with Sam.  We just followed, but we did a fair amount of trotting on the first two-thirds of the loop - and he has a very nice, easy-going trot.  If Sam got a little too far ahead of us, I just cued him for a canter, and he moves in and out of his speeds with beautiful transitions (meaning... he doesn't stutter-step between the canter and the trot and vice versa.....) and very little cueing. 

 

He's very easy to rate in terms of speed, and he stays beautifully relaxed no matter what speed we are going.  The only time I've gotten any sort of "discussion" from him, and believe me.... VERY mild compared to Bhen or... Digger (OMG)... was this past weekend, where he led most of the second half of the ride, and once he had been out in front, he wanted to stay out in front.  He got a little excited, but more in a "OH BOY!  LET'S GO!" kind of way, and not in a misbehaving kind of way, and he let me back his speed down pretty easily.  He is constantly flicking his left ear back when I talk to him, and really... just saying his name and then what I want him to do, even after only 6 rides on him, is about all I need.  So "Fargo..... trot" will move him from a walk to a trot, or a canter back to a trot.

He's been absolutely 100% sure-footed on every technical thing we've thrown at him.  We did a little exploring last weekend, and wound up on a single-track cow trail that ran along a sheer drop-off down from the mesa top, and I never worried a whit about him.  He stayed right on trail, stayed focused and watched his feet.  If he is unsure of something - like whether the rocks on the trail are loose and might give-way, he'll slow down and put his nose down to take a second look and be sure.  I like that he pays attention to the trail, and with just 3 rides on trail, he's figured out that unless I tell him otherwise, he needs to keep his feet on the trail for me.

 

I really think I lucked out with this boy.  His under-saddle manners are really great.  Whoever did his basic training did a fantastic job with him.  I like that he's pretty quiet and got a good smart head on his shoulders.  Doesn't hurt that he's pretty cute either. 

Oh, and before anyone gets worried about Zel, since he is now in with mellow Bhen, he has turned into a complete jackass tyrant.  I have had to get in his face about leaving Bhen alone to eat, and when he went after Bhen with his teeth out the other afternoon, mommy wound up "biting" his arse thru the fence with water from the hose which happened to be on at that moment.  The little snot.

Luckily, Bhen has kind of seen it all and doesn't get upset about getting pushed around.  Here he is enjoying one of his favorite things in the entire world.  Hay soaked in his water bucket (this is best appreciated with the sound on.  and why he doesn't get to stand next to the trailer window when we camp, because he does this ALL NIGHT.)  In case you wondered, HE drags his feed bucket over to the water.  I don't put it that close or else he will put an entire flake in the water.

 


All for now......

Some Things I Know

Zel is not in any way, shape or form, a dominant horse.  He is worried about getting the crap beaten out of him by another equine, by things living under rocks, in trees, and I guess a generic consumption by various carnivores is of concern as well. 

 

We took him and Mr. Steady Eddie, Bhen, out for a 13-mile loop on Saturday this weekend (after riding for an hour or so in the arena here in the neighborhood Friday afternoon) and he did actually better than we thought he might, given his overall sort of panic-y outlook on life.  A couple of temper tantrums with D in the first couple of miles, but then he settled in and worked.   He figured out how to keep D balanced going downhill, and was really smart about placing his feet in safe places around rocks.  He had a lot of stuff thrown at him.  The local hunt club was gearing up to go out when we arrived at the trailhead, so tons of horses and dogs, and the wind was blowing, so dust and funny noises.  He also got to learn about what happens when you go to close to a tree - it makes a zzzzziipping noise along the rider's jacket, somewhere in the vicinity of his ribcage.  THAT's potentially spooky.  We ran into a guy on an ATV.  He learned about cattle, had one of the hunt hounds follow us for the last maybe quarter of the 13-mile loop.  Figured out rocks, old tires, the large-bore pipes for watering the cattle, cattle tanks - all kinds of stuff he obviously had never seen before.

It was great to be able to take Bhen out with him.  Bhen's pretty much seen one of everything.  The Apache helicopter that came out of one of the canyons last year startled him, to be sure, but otherwise?  He's sort of blaise about all that stuff.  We trotted just under a half of the 13 miles and walked the rest. Didn't set any world records, but also tried to be sure we went slow enough it wasn't a spook-fest for Zel, where he actually had time to look at and process the scary stuff.

Today, Sunday, we took the gray boys - Fargo and Sam - out on a something like 8-mile loop on the trails right here near the house.  Lots of technical stuff with serpenting single tracks, and tree stumps, rocks, and since the trails are multiuse, more dogs and people.  Fargo did really well.  He's got a little anxiety about rock cairns - the obviously look "wrong" to him and he doesn't want to go to close to them, but he did really pretty well for his first time out on trail.  He's not particularly spooky.  If something scares him, he tries to kind of keep it in direct line of sight while scootching by it.  We followed Sam for a while, and did a little bit of trotting to keep up with Sammy's big walk, and then we led for a while out to the overlook and back home then.  Fargo's got a nice trail walk once he figured out it was okay and he didn't have to mince along like we were doing western pleasure.  His trot's not quite as nice as Bhen's, but I've not ridden many horses with as smooth a trot as Bhen's got.

 

When we got home, we pulled Bhen out of his half of the pasture and put him in with Zel.  Zel's been having a lot of trouble holding his own against Fargo, who he is obviously terrified of.  And to be fair, rightfully so, as Fargo is a little napoleon.  (I am a bit uh.... perturbed?... at how freakishly similar Fargo is to Digger.  Same oral fixations.  Same little dictator complex, where they will NOT leave a lower-ranking horse alone, and will just constantly pick at them and drive them in circles.  Same HUGE downhill walk.  And when we stopped at the overlook today, he turned his head and put his nose on my foot, which is EXACTLY what Diggs did when he didn't want to stand and wanted to going back down the trail.  Where do I find these creatures?).  Anyway.  Bhen is still the dominant horse, but he doesn't torture Zel about it.

 

We then put Fargo and Sam in together, and I think Fargo thought he was still the king, so he wandered into the barn and Sam does NOT tolerate other horses in his barn without his permission and he went flying in there, all 1250 pounds of him, with teeth bared and lining Fargo up to kick him into next week.  D and I had been hanging out along the fenceline - just in case such a thing occurred - and I went tearing in there after Sammy and backed him out along the fence with my best mare evil eye and voice.  He knew he had screwed up, and while I don't mind him being the dominant horse (and frankly, kind of figured that was going to be the scenario), he cannot do it in a way Fargo gets hurt.  Luckily, horses being smart creatures, Fargo has figured out his new second-in-command role pretty quick and is staying out of Sammy's way and for his part, Sam is just moving him with an ear flick and some snake eyes, which I can live with.

So we will see how the living arrangements work.  We'd like Zel not to be terrified 24/7, and while Bhen is gonna tell him how it is, he's a quiet enough, nonaggressive enough horse, that I don't think he will hurt Zel physically.  It's always interesting getting to know everyone's personality - and this is what we know.

All for now.....

Horsey Updates

I think we are a go with both the new horses.  I know y'all have been waiting for an update.  I was kind of out of pocket for a while as this was my Remicade dosing weekend and it sort of knocks me for a loop.

We had a bazillion and one x-rays done on Thursday at the big equine clinic.  None of the things that were of potential concern showed up as much on the films, which was great news.  Zel's feet actually are "practically perfect" in terms of interior structure, and the odd mar that you can feel on his knee doesn't show as anything on the films and definitely has no joint involvement. 

Here are some casual pics of the boys hanging out in the nice sunny weather in the middle of last week.

 

Fargo is definitely the dominant horse in this pair.  Luckily, Fargo is easy to catch, so if we need to do something with Zel, the current key is to haul Fargo out of the pasture and then go back in and get Zel.  I think Zel's had some not-great experiences in his life, and he tends to be a flight-first, ask questions later, kinda horse.

 

We took the boys up to the arena on Saturday and got on and rode.  Or... I guess D did a lot of riding with Zel.  Fargo and I putzed, as I am normally pretty feverish and a little out there the day after my Remicade, but we wanted to get them a trial run at least nominally, since D is on travel for 10 days, and the 30-day trial clock is ticking.  And while Zel had a temper tantrum at one point (which I give D a lot of kudos for managing EXCEPTIONALLY well without getting upset or angry at Zel), he did really well, considering he's had a total of about an hour of time under saddle in the last year plus.  He has the most beautiful, effortless trot, and again, even out of shape, and with an extra 6000 feet of elevation working against him, he worked for probably 45 minutes at the trot and didn't even break into a sweat.

 

Despite the fact I have the feeling that Fargo is not the uncomplicated soul I had thought he was (and is, in fact, a whole lot more Digger-like than one might expect), he was a great mount for me on Saturday.  He obviously has been trained to be an independent worker, so it didn't bother him at all that we weren't toodleing around with Zel.  And in fact, when Zel has his meltdown, he stood stock-still, didn't move his feet, didn't do anything (and this is important - a lot of times when one horse goes haywire, the other horses play into that and go there too), so I was really happy with the fact that he took care of me while I was sort of in lala land. Makes me hopeful that will be the case out on the trail too. 

Neither of the boys was bothered by the arena flotsam and jetsam much either.  It was kinda windy, so occasionally some of the metal fencing would bang, and Fargo would turn his head to double-check what it was, but not in a spooky way, just in an "Oh!  That thing is banging.  Okay." way.  We didn't ride them on the road, but we did have cars and trucks pass us, and that seemed to be an okay thing for both of them as well.  Pretty non-phased by the dressage cones, and the cross-country jumps and the other things in the arena too, which was nice.

We've got a little work to do with Zel on some trust issues with us - which we knew would be the case.  But we can already see that he's made a lot of improvement in that in just a week with us, and D has been very patient and consistent working with him, so I think we'll get him headed in the right direction fairly quickly!

All for now...

Four Horse Boys of the Apocalypse

My home office (where I work every day) is on the ground floor of our house - we have a walkout/finished basement, and my office looks out into our stone courtyard.  But just on the other side of the courtyard fence, about 200 yards from the house, our pasture line begins.  Some days if there is a storm brewing, or they are just feeling fiesty, Sam and Bhen will gallop and play Wild Stallion games with each other and even with the windows closed in cooler weather times, I can feel the ground shaking from impact as they go tearing around in the pasture. 

So imagine how that'll sound with 16 horse tootsies and not just 8.  Yup... the rumors are true, we are adding not one, but TWO new horse boys to the herd.  (And before anyone panics and I know y'all will ask - as of right now, neither Sam or Bhen is going anywhere.  We have space for 4 and they will always have a place here.  Assuming Sam doesn't move to Hollywood to star in the talkies or something.)

You might remember we went to Texas about a month ago for the stock show?  While we were there, we also went on a stealth horse-shopping visit to a ranch.  The owner raises Arabians and she has a lot of horses.  72 on the ground right now... or make that 73, as she just had a pretty gray filly hit the ground a couple of weeks ago.  She has a LOT of really nice horses, so we were able to go and look at ones that filled our preliminary qualifications to suit D as a new competitive horse for this season, so we can easily retire Sammy and not worry that we would do anything to make him sick from his metabolism going haywire.  We didn't want a really young horse - we wanted something D could potentially start riding this season - and we wanted a gelding and we wanted 15 hands or taller.  Those were the basics.

This is Zel:
 

He turned 7 on Valentine's Day this week.  He is a pretty bay, 15 hands tall, and his previous career was on the race track.  He wasn't really keen on that job, so after a season there, the breeder brought him home, got him placed with a western pleasure trainer so he could get sort of "retrained" from being a track horse, and then he got to spend a season ponying other horses at the track and basically hanging out back at the breeder's farm.  Despite the fact that he is "race bred", he is a kind and gentle horse.  He's not wild and "Arab-y" really.  D actually thought he might be a little too quiet for what he wants, but after he tried some other horses, he threw a saddle back on Zel, and the two of them took a ride around the breeder's 140 or so acres, and Zel figured out he was supposed to work (Oh!) and got his mojo going.

He's one of the breeder's personal favorites, personality-wise, and she is a stickler for good manners.  All of her horses are exceptionally nicely behaved.  She has 5 breeding stallions on the property and we walked in to visit 3 of them in their areas and you wouldn't know unless you looked for... ahem... working parts, that they were stallions.  All of them were quiet, gentle, let us go up to them after a quick assessment, and give them withers scratches. 

Here's Zel again, out with his trainer this past summer for a tune-up.

 

D, as you might imagine, is really anxious to get him home and see what he can do!

So.... while we were not really shopping at all for me, although at some point in the next year or so, since Bhen's in his mid-teens now, I figured I would have to start looking for a new horse as well.  Really not a rush, and I thought I'd probably help D get squared away with his new boy, and then worry about myself.

But.

D tried out this little gray gelding who was a bit too small for him, and when he got off, he said "You know... really... this horse should be yours.  He would be perfect for you."  So I got my saddle out of the car, and we threw that on Fargo, and off we went.  Fargo's breeding was as a show horse.  He won his halter class as a 2-year-old at the national Arabian show, and then he was put into training in western pleasure and reining, both of which he showed at for a year, and while he doesn't mind any of those things, being an easy-going, friendly little chap, he does NOT like to be stalled.  He gets very anxious and agitated, and starts chewing, and the breeder was worried he was going to get ulcers, so she "retired" him at 5 and brought him home to hang out with her mare group as the uncle to some of her yearlings.  She's had a hard time selling him because if you want a show horse, you want a show horse you can... uh... take to shows.

Anyway, he IS perfect for me.  D and I had plenty of time to talk about it on our 11 hours of driving back to NM.  He is taller than Bhen, but not too tall that I can't get on him without looking around for a stepstool or a rock.  He has three years of professional training and is perhaps THE BEST TRAINED horse I have ever sat on.  Oh... and did I mention cute?  Yah... he is CUTE.

 

After a lot of thought and talking to the breeder, who gave us a HECKUVA deal on this two-fer for both horses, I decided to go for it.  This gives me the flexibility of having a backup horse to ride if one or the other needs some time off for any reason.  It lets me take Bhen along with Zel for his first few endurance rides to help keep him calm and focused at the start and give him a buddy if he needs some support.  And if Fargo's trial ride is any indication about how mellow and laid-back he is about... well... almost everything... I won't have much trouble getting him legged up to ride this season either. (I should note the video is of D riding him.  He hadn't been ridden in a little over a year and had no issues with the tractor up over the hill moving hay bales, or the farm truck that drove out behind us to watch, or really anything at all.)  I don't think - maybe I'll be surprised, but I don't think - he is a speed demon and I am totally okay with that.  Bhen is not always the easiest horse.  He has a lot of motor and he thinks I am an idiot (which he constantly tells me by shaking his head back and forth when he thinks I've screwed up and put us on the wrong trail or if we aren't going fast enough to suit him).  I will be happy riding along and looking at the scenery since I don't always have days when I'm 100% but I still really need to exercise my horse.

We are headed back to Texas to pick the boys up and will have them home and hopefully settled soon!

All for now.....

Horsey Things

I thought y'all might like some horse-boy eye candy.  Many thanks to those of you who have asked about Sammy.  I think he actually is doing pretty well.  D and I had the boys out for a few walk-rides before the snowstorm that hit just after Christmas, and he was his usual power-walking self with Bhen having to trot to try to keep up.  We didn't do a ton of miles.  Just walked over to the arena one day to let him walk around in the sand over there, and then a second, more technically challenging ride up onto the mesa out behind our house, and down along the power lines with rocks and uneven ground.  He did great with both and if his feet are hurting him, we sure can't see it.  He's been busy and active in the pasture too, which is a good sign.

 

We have been really closely monitoring his food intake, however, and I have changed up his feeds so they are eating 3 times a day, but less food at each feeding (which means going out in the dark at 9:00 p.m. to give them the last feeding of the day, but hopefully means his insulin levels aren't spiking from going without food for all the overnight hours until 6:00 a.m. when we go back out in the dark to feed breakfast).  Our vet really wanted him almost skinny, which is, with Sammy, a relative term, because he is NOT a tiny horse.  But you can probably start to see some ribs and his shoulderblades in this picture, so I am hopeful we are helping him get down to the least extra weight possible for him.  We are trying not to starve him, although I feel certain HE thinks we are, but if it keeps him healthy, then we'll do what we need to.

 

We have found some grain-type product he can eat (low starch, no sugar, higher protein with added vitamins since the rest of his diet is pretty sparse), so he now gets that in the mornings and his medications and a joint supplement that doesn't have MSM in it (which, upon doing research, I found can also trigger insulin problems.  Who knew?).  Still having some problems with snack foods.  He doesn't like any of the veggie-type things he can have, and he's sort of meh about the diabetic candy, but he is constantly looking for something when I go out there to take coats on or off, so I'll have to keep looking.

And Bhen?  Well... he doesn't mind eating 3 times a day, although he also is on the cookie search.  It probably won't hurt him not to be getting treats as much either, and he still is getting his small cup of regular grain in the mornings with HIS supplements, so I suppose there is that.  Not that he's wasting away......

 

All for now........

For a change....

Something good - REALLY good - to report.

When Sammy had his ER visit a couple of weeks ago, here's what we found out:  He has developed an Equine Endocrine Disorder, of which there are two types.  He has the insulin-resistance version (think type 2 diabetes in humans), and not the thyroid version. His likely is due to his breed.  Morgans (he is half-Morgan) have a predisposition towards this, and he is getting to "that age" (between 12 and 14 - he's 13) when it often rears its ugly head.  

When we were at the vet, they pulled lab work and his insulin level was 801.  Normal is 32 to 187.  This metabolic imbalance pushed him into a laminitis episode.  This occurs when the connective tissue which holds the main weight-bearing bone of the foot in place inside the hoof becomes inflamed.  It breaks down and allows that bone to rotate within the hoof (think of pulling Velcro apart).  In severe cases, that bone can come down through the hoof itself, necessitating putting the horse to sleep, as it is not curable.  Sammy's case at least was relatively mild and we caught it early, but that's what was causing the severe pain - he had it occurring in all 4 feet.  Ow.  (Some of you who follow horses know this is the same condition that Barbaro developed in his non-fractured leg after having to support his weight on 3 legs while the fracture healed.  It's not always metabolic-related, but in our case, it was.)

So we got him home, and he's been on some endocrine medication to try to help regulate his system.  He's had to go on a no-sweets (OMG - NO COOKIES!), no grain, no alfala diet.  He has been royally pissed about this, let me tell you. 

However, our vet came back and drew some lab levels Monday and he just called and the results are really good.  Not perfect, but really really good.  Sammy's insulin level is now down to 157.6, which is at the upper end of the normal range, but MUCH MUCH better than 801.  Our vet thinks we've likely caught this early with him, and he's give me the A-OK to take him out for a walk in another week and check him out for pain levels or any gait difficulties.  We'll do another insulin/glucose check in 30 days, but hopefully we've nipped this in the bud and it'll just be a case of being sure to watch him closely for any signs of another recurrence.  Going forward, he'll have to be on his endocrine medication for life, and a low/no-sugar diet, with grass hay only.

Considering how many bad outcomes there were with this scenario, despite the fact that we'll probably have to back him off to being a limited distance/more casual riding horse, he IS still rideable and isn't in pain, and doesn't have to euthanized, all of which were potential things on the list of Bad Things. 

THAT makes me happy.

All for now......

Totally Random Tuesday

I'm having a sort of quiet and subdued week here, hence the radio silence yesterday.  So here are some random things you might (or might not want to know).

D is on travel all this week.  I'm doing my usual gourmet menu of sandwiches and cereal.  I also had a dose of Remicade on Friday and I'm still sort of trying to get my feet back under me from that, so not bothering to cook doesn't really sound all that bad.

Sammy gets the melanoma(s?) on his nose taken off today.  I'm sure he will be thrilled to death that the vet is coming to visit him.  Bhen will likely attempt to hide himself behind the big guy and pretend if he can't notice us, we can't see him.  This does not work.  He still is hopeful.

I am totally thrilled with the pattern submissions we've had for the December Ennea.  We have a TON and they are creative and fun and well.... coming soon.  I've already started formatting them to get uploaded into eJunkie for when the next edition goes live in about a month.

While I am making a lot of progress on my Brandywine shawl (which you'll see tomorrow), next up I have a lace cowl I'm knitting for a shop sample (not for my shop - but a pretty purple alpaca laceweight).  And I have no size 2 circs long enough to knit it.  I have, I believe, every circular needle size known to man and I have no size 2?  There's been a schism in the universe or something, as I had to order a set for this pattern.  I was stunned.

I am looking forward to Thanksgiving in another 10 days.  My folks are trekking east to visit us this year and they'll be here for a week AND I have some time off on the books.  Nothing but good.

All for now....

Some Arena Work

Last week, even though D was on travel for work, I really needed to get Bhen out for some trot, trot, trotting.  His leg injury back in the end of May has sort of put the damper on keeping him up to snuff in terms of being ready for the rest of the season's endurance rides, and that, coupled with the insane amount of rain we have been getting here in the mountains, plus my odd schedule, has meant not much training time.  D, however, worries about my going out alone to ride, particularly when he's not at home, in case something weird happens.

So, I enlisted the help of Christina, who was kind enough to take a long lunch break from work one day this past week in between rainstorms, AND who was kind enough to bring her camera, and we went over to our local arena to ride. She took some awesome photos of both the boys, lots and lots of "regular" pictures of me and Bhen, and then some nifty "old-timey" look ones too.

Sammy got to go along.  The pasture was pretty slick (it had rained that morning) and I was worried about him sliding and getting a leg injury while he was racing around after Bhen left, so I just took him with us and he got to hang out.  (Please note, that red mark on his rump is actually hot-pink grease pencil with the remnant of his number from the last ride we went to and not some gash of some kind.  Although that'd be more typical for us, eh?)

 

Those storm clouds starting to build again behind Sam would come back later in the afternoon with an amazing amount of rain and thunder!

Bhen was mostly well behaved.  He's not super keen on arena work.  I think he finds it kind of boring, but it is a good way to work some of the stupids out.  He had one meltdown, just as I was getting ready to let him quit, as he was ticked off Sam was getting to eat weeds and sleep while HE had to work in the sun.  Hmpf.  That little temper tantrum earned him another 20 minutes of work at the trot.  Becase really... if you have enough energy to be badly behaved, you have enough energy to go back to work.

Here's us beginning a serpentine pattern.  I use the dressage ring markers (that's the upright tube with the H on it) as fixed points to concentrate on.  There's a whole row of them running up the center of the ring, and I like to use those as wide-spaced "poles" to go right and left and right again, and then come back around in the opposite direction.  Any detail stuff that makes him pay attention, rather than "just" trotting is great.

 

Bhen's what's known as a "daisy clipper".  He doesn't pick his feet very far up off the ground.  Great in terms of less aerobic output.  Bad if you have to actually step OVER something.  One of the other things we work on in the arena is going over those PVC pipes (which are technically marking the outline of the dressage area) at a trot, and cueing him to pick his feet up over them.  He actually did pretty well on this - we've been working on it - and only banging one back foot after he had his little meltdown and didn't really feel like listening to the driver (that would be me) anymore.

 

We worked on our canter leads a little bit, although what he really wanted to do was canter on over to where Sam was standing, so he'd try to speed up a little bit heading for Sam, and then I could just feel him deflate when I gave him more cues to keep going right on by.

WHAT??? We aren't stopping here?!? DAMMIT!

I am SO grateful to Christina for bringing her camera, because I have very few pics of us working and seeing yourself ride is really helpful to remind you of the stuff you have to work on:

• In general, I need to keep the boy's nose tipped in more.  That's one of those constant works in progress, and when he is having a cranky day (like this particular day), he doesn't like to do that, but he needs to quit fighting me about it and just do it.  So... baby steps. 
• I was happy to see that I'm not leaning forward too much in the saddle most of the time. 
• I have tried with him to point my toes further forward in the stirrups, but he is SO round with his ribcage shape that it's really really hard on my knees, so meh... no dressage form for me, I just ride tipped out and that's I think how it'll have to be for us.

This is my favorite pic of us.  I like to think he looks this nice bombing along the trail too!

 

All for now......