Tina developed an abscess and it started last night. I decided last night to tuck her into a stall because I didn't understand at first why she was acting lame so I decided to watch her, bute her, and check her again in the morning. This morning I realized she must be abscessed because there was nothing else wrong with her left hind leg. She had one I believe about 9 months ago so I'm wondering why she's gotten one again. Researched this and it seems that there are 100 opinions out there among professionals. I'm going to a 2-day clinic this weekend and I'd like to take her. To help clear the abscess, I immediately did a White Lightening soak and buted her again. I then soaked her again in the evening. I'll soak her once or twice tomorrow. Soaking her in White Lightening helps the hoof absorb the anti-bacterial agents in the soak and fight the infection. Typically, this soaking helps the horse clear the infection quicker so I had my fingers crossed. I was against calling in a vet, who would put a hole in her hoof to drain the bacteria and introduce a large risk of secondary infection. I'm also wondering if the SmartCalm product is helping her relax - hard to tell with the abscess. She's been on it for 4 days now.
I also soaked Gems hinds tonight as they looked like a little thrush was settling in.
Tuesday, May 4, 2010
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Helping a friend and playing with horses at home
I trailered over to a friends today with Rain so that we could hit the trail together. She's having some fear issues with her mare and the idea was that I would ride her horse and she'd ride Rain. Her mare is LBI with some LBE tendencies. She's a dominant confident horse and she's caused a lack of confidence in her rider. I warmed her up on the ground and she quickly got with the program. She's a nice horse, very nice, but she needs a confident leader or she takes charge. I established up front that there was no reason to doubt that I would be the leader.
She actually did quite well on the trail! She wanted to move out, so I trotted and cantered circles around Rain so that my friend could go at her pace and Lynx and I could move out. I'm sure we looked funny to anyone that saw us. :-) I was very specific with her. I wanted her to know that I was in charge of her feet, so I often asked for a single step at a time. It took her about 15 minutes to realize it was much easier to follow my lead than have a lot of her own ideas. I moved her out whenever I could to help her have some fun and brought her back down if my friend became unnerved.
When we got back, she was in such a great place - calm, soft, no emotional brace in her mind. I was pleased (I've always liked this horse). So my friend rode her at all gaits and enjoyed herself for about 20 mins while Rain relaxed and grazed and I watched. I love helping horses and I really love helping people with their horses.
When I got home, I brought Tina in for another ground session. I put a new, heavy western saddle on her that I'm trialing for colt-starting. Tina could tell the difference between this new saddle and the other saddles I've used. She bucked quite a bit the first 10 mins. I was surprised that she bucked but she's just telling me she still hasn't accepted the saddle. That's good to know, we'll keep working on it. She's calm and easy for the act of saddling, but wearing it on her back while she moves is still quite a challenge. She's extremely sensitive!
We played in the round pen with disengaging, nice circle game at the trot and canter, and some sideways. I just wanted her feet moving so I could help her relax. When she started to blow and the adrenalin was waning, we got to work with the ball. She did very well! She pushed it multiple times in a row (vs just one push) with her legs and nosed it a lot. She was showing a bit of interest in it. I was very glad to see that behavior! She would once in a while get startled (the cinch? something else she sensed?) and I decided to stop the ball work and go back to getting her relaxed and blowing. Change of direction works very well for this as she draws in to me when I step back and fluidly moves back out in the opposite direction. She can do wonderful lead changes at the canter with this maneuver (this is COD). Her draw was quite nice, which means she's feeling safe with me, not thinking to avoid me.
It started to rain, so we did a little teeter-totter until the rain got hard and then went into the barn. I wanted to get some hoof trimming done on her and decided to keep the saddle on so she could wear it longer. Her feet have come along so nicely - I'm proud of where she is with her hoof shape. She tends to flare so she needs frequent trimming to keep her hoof wall intact.
My sister walked in with a plastic bag full of apples for the horses and Tina became so unnerved by the bag! That's our next feat - the plastic bag on her body everywhere. This will be a big challenge for her but it will also help her get to the end of that extreme fear. I've got bags hanging and blowing in the wind around the barn now and in the round pen. She's still got a special reaction when a bag is in a humans hand versus hanging around attached to an object.
We'll keep building! This was Tina's 4th session of 7 for confidence-building.
After the weather passed, I pulled Gem out and did some liberty with him. He was cute. He's so playful! We had some fun working on his cutting pattern (moving left/right fast when I do), flc at liberty, stick to me. I taught him to rear and he enjoys getting his hooves in the air. Now I will refine it so he can do it w/o a buildup to it and only when I ask specifically.
She actually did quite well on the trail! She wanted to move out, so I trotted and cantered circles around Rain so that my friend could go at her pace and Lynx and I could move out. I'm sure we looked funny to anyone that saw us. :-) I was very specific with her. I wanted her to know that I was in charge of her feet, so I often asked for a single step at a time. It took her about 15 minutes to realize it was much easier to follow my lead than have a lot of her own ideas. I moved her out whenever I could to help her have some fun and brought her back down if my friend became unnerved.
When we got back, she was in such a great place - calm, soft, no emotional brace in her mind. I was pleased (I've always liked this horse). So my friend rode her at all gaits and enjoyed herself for about 20 mins while Rain relaxed and grazed and I watched. I love helping horses and I really love helping people with their horses.
When I got home, I brought Tina in for another ground session. I put a new, heavy western saddle on her that I'm trialing for colt-starting. Tina could tell the difference between this new saddle and the other saddles I've used. She bucked quite a bit the first 10 mins. I was surprised that she bucked but she's just telling me she still hasn't accepted the saddle. That's good to know, we'll keep working on it. She's calm and easy for the act of saddling, but wearing it on her back while she moves is still quite a challenge. She's extremely sensitive!
We played in the round pen with disengaging, nice circle game at the trot and canter, and some sideways. I just wanted her feet moving so I could help her relax. When she started to blow and the adrenalin was waning, we got to work with the ball. She did very well! She pushed it multiple times in a row (vs just one push) with her legs and nosed it a lot. She was showing a bit of interest in it. I was very glad to see that behavior! She would once in a while get startled (the cinch? something else she sensed?) and I decided to stop the ball work and go back to getting her relaxed and blowing. Change of direction works very well for this as she draws in to me when I step back and fluidly moves back out in the opposite direction. She can do wonderful lead changes at the canter with this maneuver (this is COD). Her draw was quite nice, which means she's feeling safe with me, not thinking to avoid me.
It started to rain, so we did a little teeter-totter until the rain got hard and then went into the barn. I wanted to get some hoof trimming done on her and decided to keep the saddle on so she could wear it longer. Her feet have come along so nicely - I'm proud of where she is with her hoof shape. She tends to flare so she needs frequent trimming to keep her hoof wall intact.
My sister walked in with a plastic bag full of apples for the horses and Tina became so unnerved by the bag! That's our next feat - the plastic bag on her body everywhere. This will be a big challenge for her but it will also help her get to the end of that extreme fear. I've got bags hanging and blowing in the wind around the barn now and in the round pen. She's still got a special reaction when a bag is in a humans hand versus hanging around attached to an object.
We'll keep building! This was Tina's 4th session of 7 for confidence-building.
After the weather passed, I pulled Gem out and did some liberty with him. He was cute. He's so playful! We had some fun working on his cutting pattern (moving left/right fast when I do), flc at liberty, stick to me. I taught him to rear and he enjoys getting his hooves in the air. Now I will refine it so he can do it w/o a buildup to it and only when I ask specifically.
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Advancing my bareback riding
Had an very great lesson with Kime today. I decided I wanted to focus on improving my bareback riding so we spent 3 hours with Zarah. First we worked on the ground (of course) and I realized I've somehow broken my "allow". Hmmm, when did I do that? We fixed that and then we worked on squeezing over jumps. I told Kime that I want to get my bareback jumping more solid so she wanted to make sure Z was going over jumps in a "rideable" manner. We worked on lots of jumping and making sure Z was efficient and smooth over the them.
We improved the falling leaf by me asking for a partial disengagement sooner than I'm used to. That allowed Z to keep the forward motion and turn on the fore with less of a struggle. We also squeezed over 2 cavalettis at w/t/c. We played circle game among the obstacles and the barrel jumps on the circle at all gaits. We were looking for Z to make the decision to go over versus me asking her to go over (maintaining gait on the circle). Her attitude was much more compliant at the end of the ground work. I've been lazy with her ground work as I've been training for endurance and spending more time groundworking others.
Then, I showed her how I'm doing with my bareback riding and we decided the best place to start was improving my ability to ride the extended/fast trot fluidly. The fast trot is the hardest gait to ride bareback because there is so much motion in the horses back. She wanted to do a "lunge line" lesson, so we put Z on the 22' and got started. She focused on transitions so that I could improve my fluidity between the up and down transitions (walk, trot, canter, fast trot, halt). It was my first time doing that bareback and it was quite a challenge! I never knew what would come next and I had to really stay balanced to ride the transitions that quickly. It was a blast and I was actually quite exerted. A couple times, I asked her to stop so I could catch my breath.
A few friends came to watch and had good things to say about how intense the lesson was. I wish I would have had one of them video the session.
Afterwards, Chrissy took a lesson with her (her first lesson with anyone besides me). I've been pushing her to do this. I know I benefit greatly from hearing and learning from as many instructors as I can. They may mean the same thing, but they say it differently and I might hear it in just the perfect way from a particular instructor. I also think they focus on different things and it helps me be more rounded. I commit to myself to take lessons as long as I'm able.
Chrissy had a good time and was glad she did it. So was I.
Before closing the day out, I trimmed Cowboys fronts.
We improved the falling leaf by me asking for a partial disengagement sooner than I'm used to. That allowed Z to keep the forward motion and turn on the fore with less of a struggle. We also squeezed over 2 cavalettis at w/t/c. We played circle game among the obstacles and the barrel jumps on the circle at all gaits. We were looking for Z to make the decision to go over versus me asking her to go over (maintaining gait on the circle). Her attitude was much more compliant at the end of the ground work. I've been lazy with her ground work as I've been training for endurance and spending more time groundworking others.
Then, I showed her how I'm doing with my bareback riding and we decided the best place to start was improving my ability to ride the extended/fast trot fluidly. The fast trot is the hardest gait to ride bareback because there is so much motion in the horses back. She wanted to do a "lunge line" lesson, so we put Z on the 22' and got started. She focused on transitions so that I could improve my fluidity between the up and down transitions (walk, trot, canter, fast trot, halt). It was my first time doing that bareback and it was quite a challenge! I never knew what would come next and I had to really stay balanced to ride the transitions that quickly. It was a blast and I was actually quite exerted. A couple times, I asked her to stop so I could catch my breath.
A few friends came to watch and had good things to say about how intense the lesson was. I wish I would have had one of them video the session.
Afterwards, Chrissy took a lesson with her (her first lesson with anyone besides me). I've been pushing her to do this. I know I benefit greatly from hearing and learning from as many instructors as I can. They may mean the same thing, but they say it differently and I might hear it in just the perfect way from a particular instructor. I also think they focus on different things and it helps me be more rounded. I commit to myself to take lessons as long as I'm able.
Chrissy had a good time and was glad she did it. So was I.
Before closing the day out, I trimmed Cowboys fronts.
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