Daily walks

I started Curly on a joint supplement this week, hoping to relieve some of his back pain. How long until the stuff starts doing its job, though?

I also made an appointment with the vet to begin looking for the cause of these troubles. My internet "research" is making me worry too much so I need to begin eliminating some of the more horrible possibilities. Today I convinced myself that he has some sort of degenerative arthritis in his spine and will just continue to go downhill, quickly. Of course, I have nothing to base that on, just a web site that may or may not be accurate. Gotta love the internet!

I have been hand-walking Curly several times a week as well. I don't know if it is helping at all, but I do know that I am enjoying the time with him. Plus the boy needs to drop a few pounds so the exercise has to be doing some good in that department. The walking and jogging can't be hurting me any either!

Today I took him into a pasture that has a few dirt hills in it - along with 2 other horses and a donkey. Curly wasn't too sure about the little donkey and kept an eye out for the him the whole time we were going up, over and around the dirt piles.

Catch up

Life has been busy around our house (nothing unusual there!) so I've been ignoring the blog for a while. We've actually been spending a fair bit of time doing horsey things lately so I thought I'd write a quick entry and record some the recent events.

Curly is still receiving weekly visits from the acupuncturist. After 4 visits, the poor boy appears to be in the same amount of pain as before. And both Dr. Norris and I are stumped as to what may be causing him so much pain. He has never had an animal not respond at this point, and the doctor has said he will discontinue treatment after one last visit. Curly, bless his heart, patiently stands through each treatment even when we can see that it is quite painful for him. Makes me love the big guy even more....and as I've already said before, it helps explain some of the bad behavior he has dished out over the past year.

Electrical currents have been added to the acupuncture treatments - Ouch!

The next step is a trip to the vet. It is possible that the back pain is secondary to another problem - like arthritis in a joint somewhere. So we'll begin the process of testing for bunches of other things as soon as I have a penny or two in my pocket to pay for all of this. I'm crossing my fingers that we discover the cause quickly and easily.

E has been working with Monte on a consistent basis and things just keep getting better and better for them. At her 4-H Halloween ride she was able to ask for, and get, a counter-canter for the first time. Their costume, by the way was very cute. Monte was very patient with the whole mermaid tail thing. (I'll post a picture of them as soon as I remember to download from the camera!)

She joined Pony Club this week and will begin riding with that club very soon. I'll be curious to learn which she likes better in the long run - Pony Club or 4-H. For now, I'll be taking her to both (Tuesdays - 4-H, Sundays - PC).

A roll in the mud....

Fun times at the barn yesterday. The weather is wonderful (60+ degrees and sunny, sunny, sunny!) so we pulled out both horses for a couple of hours.

I spent my time with Curly working on leading. Simple stuff, I know, but the boy tends to turn into an anchor at the end of his lead rope whenever we walk off and I wanted to correct that behavior. We practiced in the round pen, with me walking on both sides. He wasn't too sure about me being on his off-side since this isn't something a person usually does, but I think it is important for him to learn this.

E had to work to get Monte clean enough to saddle up but once they were out in the arena they had lots of fun together. She said that he really wanted to go, go, go but he's really out of shape and couldn't maintain the pace he was setting for himself.

Monte was dripping sweat (and mud!) when they finished. E spent 10 to 15 minutes washing him down, really getting all the dirt off his coat before releasing him back to the pasture. As she walked back around the barn (100 steps?) another rider walked past us smiling and saying, "You missed a spot." Huh?

And then we saw him.....in the short amount of time it took E to walk around the barn, Monte had rolled and completely covered his nice white coat in mud! It was amazing, really. Only his the spots on his head and the insides of his legs were anything near white.



E will be brushing him out again today......

:-)

Pincushion

We had the acupuncturist come out to do some work on Curly this afternoon.

The other day when I was brushing our boy I noticed that he has quite a bit of back pain and since no one has been riding him, that had me concerned. I've already written about how I think some of his behavioral issues may be related to pain and poor saddle fit; seeing that he's in pain even when a saddle hasn't been on his back for a while has me thinking that there may be some other underlying problem beyond just the saddle.

Anyway, I thought we would try something a little different to take care of this.

The doctor placed several needles along his spine and one at the base of his mane. Curly did not really resist during the process, but I won't say he enjoyed it either. I'm just happy that he didn't try to kick or bite!

If you look real closely, you can see a couple of needles along his back...

The needles were left in for about 15 minutes and when they were pulled, many were bent into a "c" shape. The doctor briefly tried to manipulate some of Curly's vertebra back into alignment, but the horse wouldn't relax into the process.

On his next visit electrical currents will be added to the needles. And hopefully after the third visit Curly will no longer be in pain and his back will be healthier.

All of this doesn't give us the cause of the pain, though. I need to remember to ask the doctor about that next week....

Gingerbread Man

Farrier came today to take care of both horses. Since the appointment was at 3:00 I had to go out by myself - no big deal....or so I thought!

Curly was easy to bring in - he always is. Just walk up, throw the lead rope over his neck, put the halter on and head on out. And E says that Monte is just as easy, if not easier. He'll actually follow her with the halter barely on and her not even holding the lead rope.

But that's not how it went for me.

I walked into his pasture and he's immediately on alert mode - head up, watching. So I play it cool, meandering back and forth, not looking at him directly. As soon as I got within 6 feet of him he would charge off with his head and tail held high. I swear he was singing, "Can't catch me, I'm the Gingerbread Man!"

We played this little game of his for more than 20 minutes before he finally wandered over to the watering trough and waited for me to put his halter on. Geesh! What a little stinker! (But I have to admit that I was smiling during this whole thing. He was pretty cute with his sassy little attitude.)

Sooo, finally both boys had their hooves trimmed and were released back to their fields. Curly's shoes were removed. His conformation is not the most conducive for being shoe-less, but the farrier and I agree that it is something we should try again. The hope is that he can go barefoot during every winter. Cross your fingers!

Just a pet?

We spent some time out at the barn yesterday afternoon, grooming the boys and just basically hanging out. E took some time to ride Monte bareback - a first for the two of them. She had great fun and really loved how responsive he is. Just a slight shift in her weight or leg pressure and he was moving. She did find that his springy little trot is not so pleasant when riding this way, though.

Curly is becoming rather pushy lately, always bumping into me when I work around him and basically being a brat. He hasn't tried anything too aggressive, and I try to correct his transgressions as quickly as I can, but I don't like the way it's all heading. He is just too darn big and powerful to not be respectful; a disrespectful horse is a dangerous horse.

So this bad behavior (even if it is still minor stuff) got me to thinking about how Curly lives. Basically, he has become a very big pet. No job, no expectations from us. Is this okay?

Initially, I thought sure, why not? I mean, he's got it great with plenty of food, sunshine, space and a herd to hang with. What more could a horse want?

But I'm beginning to reassess those thoughts as he becomes more of a pest over these past few weeks. He is less willing to do even the simple, little things I do actually expect him to do - like standing quietly at the hitching post, picking up his feet nicely to be cleaned, etc.

I think he may need to be reminded more regularly, and in a more physically challenging way, just who is in charge. All this probably requires someone riding him more often than he is now ridden. He just doesn't appear to be one of those animals who can be left to pasture for long periods of time and then brought back out and ridden/handled as if the work had been left off only yesterday.

The question is, though, who will ride him?

Lame boys...

On Friday, E and I went out to the barn to check up on Monte. The swelling in his hind leg was almost invisible, but we decided to not push it with a lesson since he still seemed a little stiff in his movement.

I asked E to pull Curly out for a quick ride instead, with the thought that she could do the next day's lesson on him. But guess who was also lame! With swelling in the same spot, no less! Curly also has quite a bit of tenderness in his mid-back; when we ran our fingers down his spine there were several areas that were painful to him.

So no lesson on Saturday.....which ended up being okay because it rained so much I think we would have had to cancel anyway.

We checked back on the boys on Sunday and Monte was in high spirits with no limping/lameness at all. Curly was still a tiny bit swollen in the hind leg, but seems to be on the mend.