Dentist Time!

My dentist comes in from Maryland a few times a year to do client rounds in Texas. Dylan, O, and of course Big Frank were due, so I got onto the rotation. Naturally, the day she was scheduled to come out, we had a cold front come whipping in, which dropped the temperatures to near freezing. The day before had been in the 70's - this is Mother Nature's favorite winter punch-in-the-gut for Texas. Obviously there is no rescheduling when your dentist comes in from out of state, so she showed up at 8am and we got to work!

Both Dylan and O didn't have a lot to do, which was nice. O has been done by this dentist for a couple of years now, and I've been really happy her level of care. Plus, O stands perfectly still without sedation and is quite happy to have her teeth done, which is really something considering her personality! Dylan, not surprisingly, is quite a lot more suspicious about it and way less behaved. Still, his mouthed stayed pretty well balanced, and most of the work was on his incisors.


Big Frank, not surprisingly, was the one who needed the most work. He hasn't been done in 3 years that I know of, and his dental history prior to that is unknown, so we were expecting to find a big mess in there and we weren't disappointed. My dentist let me reach into his mouth when the speculum was in, which is something I've never done before - it was kind of scary! All I could feel is that everything was wavy, ramped, and some teeth felt like they weren't there at all. My dentist basically said, "yeah it's not likely he'll be able to eat much hay but we will do what we can." She was able to get the giant wave down quite a lot, more than I think she expected to be able to do. She estimates that he's older than we thought, probably about 25. He's losing some of his incisors, and he's running out of tooth, so she did the best she could.

I have to say, a week out from the dentist and he's doing GREAT. He is eating so much better than he was before - he's able to chew side to side, and most of the food stays in his mouth now instead of falling out. He's eating hay now too, although not as much as the others, and I am still keeping him on the hay mush for now. These past two days he hasn't finished all his mush, which makes me think his hunger and craving for forage is hopefully being met to some extent out in the paddock, but we will see if he continues to eat it or if he doesn't. Currently he's eating Healthy Glo fat nuggets, beet pulp, tim/alf pellets, and tim/alf cubes, plus a vitamin/mineral supplement.


Good dental work is SO important. I feel like I have a good team right now - a great dentist, a great chiro, a great vet. And, a halfway decent trimmer, if I do say so myself!

Explanations and Other Things

Blogging is a wonderful, magical, excellent, and sometimes completely miserably terrible thing to do with one's time. It's very akin to having your own cheering squad and your own execution firing squad all at the same time. I learned long ago when blogging about Gogo that there just are some things you *don't* talk about when blogging. I, for one, will never open my mouth about OTTBs again - I was so thoroughly berated for my views on them that I decided the topic was 100% taboo.  Another topic is breeding. Inevitably, when you talk about breeding, you will get scores of people who are all too happy to tell you what a piece of crap your mare/stallion are, what an irresponsible choice you are making, and what a terrible person you are. Likewise, I also just found out that if you take the resulting baby following such a breeding, and you consider changing your mind and listing it for sale, you will get attacked by that same faction of people.

I did list Pax for sale, tentatively. She has two ads up, neither of which are paid for ads, neither of which are aggressively marketed ads, and neither of which have gotten a single hit. I don't know if I want to sell her, really, but maybe I do. I will explain all my reasons in a minute, but I will also explain what happened when the word got out that I had put her up.

It started out as a well-meaning comment. Someone was curious to know if I had listed her myself or if someone else had stolen her information and listed her without my permission, because they had found the ad and didn't think I had planned on selling her. Unfortunately what happened when people saw that comment was a huge email explosion - people left and right flooding my inbox, telling me I was irresponsible, that I didn't care about my horses, that I was a greedy money-loving hog who was just here to make a buck, that I was a trashy backyard breeder, that my horses were garbage that nobody sane would buy, that I should be ashamed of myself. I'm sorry if I got defensive about it - I was really taken aback, and hurt too. It's literally exactly the same responses (and the same people) as I had berated me before for wanting to breed Gogo back in the day - they are the reason I didn't blog about planning to breed P, and why I probably won't blog much about planning to breed anything in the future if I decide to do so. I know that their from-behind-a-computer-screen opinion doesn't actually affect me in the real world, because they're not the ones here making these decisions, but still. I'm kind of a softie and I don't like getting jumped on for something I had no intention of talking about in the first place.

And yes, I am considering selling Pax, maybe. Did I originally intend to keep her? Of course. Am I still probably going to keep her? Of course. I'm not actively marketing her, and I'm not looking to get rid of her by any means. But, if the right person comes along and says they want her, I will agree to that. Here's why:

I bred her specifically because I wanted a fancy, flashy moving, upright-built dressage-type baby. That's always what I had in mind for her. I spent two years picking a stallion that I thought would stamp her well enough to deliver that. And I did get a beautiful, well put together baby.... who moves like the flattest kneed hunter you ever saw. She screams hunter. I am hoping she gets a bit freer in her shoulder as she gets older, but she may not. As such, perhaps her talents are in that field, and that is not something I am interested in. My hopes if I keep her are to still pair her with O so I can use them as a team together, but she will have to match O's size and movement if that is the case. 

I also may breed P once or twice more before she is fully retired. Dylan is actually the stallion I was going to breed her to before I picked DDM, because I thought he would improve her movement the most - now I have breeding rights on him should I choose to use them. I also am still very strongly considering breeding her to Lasting Impression, who is Gogo's full brother. He is still sound and going in his 20's, and was a GP horse. THAT baby would be the keeper. Absolutely no doubt in my mind. 

I don't take bringing new lives into this world lightly, so I gave P this year off for sure to just rest and work on feeding Pax, while I consider all my options. I'm not here to breed crap and garbage and I'm not here to make money from this. I want to weigh all my options carefully. I want to produce only nice, sound, sane things that can go on to good lengthy careers, either with myself or someone else who loves them just as much as I do. That's all I'm trying to do here. 

So, yeah. Basically that's the story. Please stop sending me emails telling me that I need to kill myself because of what a crappy person I am. 

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Anyway. Back to what we've been up to. 

I set up a schedule for Dylan's October workouts - it's nothing insane at this point, it's mostly just for my benefit so I can strengthen up and be a good solid rider for him. I renewed my membership to WD and plan on trailering him over there 2x a week. I also will hack him here at home 2x a week. Every ride I get a little stronger and it feels so good. My bad ankle/calf is holding up well and my hips are fine. I don't think I will ever regain full flexibility of that leg though... I can't force it to happen any more because there is just a limited length that it stretches. I'll keep working at it, and working at it. But I may have to accept that I might not be able to ever cram it into short stirrups again.

Dylan lunged last Thursday, went for a hack last Friday, trailered to WD on Saturday, and then had his teeth done on Sunday (and had yesterday off because of that). He went out totally alone for his hack - this was a first, and I wasn't sure how it would go. I was prepared for him to be a noodle head, seeing as he was a noodle head the last time B and I rode them out through the neighborhood, but actually he was wonderful. He gets his giant washing-machine walk going, where you feel a bit like your stomach is going to be sloshed right out of your body, but I think complaining about a forward walk is just not something you should ever do. I rode him in the LG too, which is going to be great for trail rides. 

Wild Stallion of the North

I'm also *hoping* I can grow more mane on him than this. It's a bit pathetic! If I'm going to have a hairy horse, then damnit he better be a HAIRY horse.

On Saturday, we went to WD for the first time. I don't have any pictures of that unfortunately, seeing as there were a bunch of people XC schooling and I had a very hot and screaming stallion to deal with. I think this is just kind of the way he is - the first time he goes out somewhere, he has to be all manly and screamy and prancy, and then once he has been there he chills out. He yelled and screamed for all he was worth, but aside from a few dancing prances he was otherwise really very well behaved. He stood tied at the trailer (mostly still), rode quietly (and very well!), and then stood to be hosed off at the end. Every ride gets a little bit better with him - I think I am just sitting straighter and stronger. We weren't doing anything fancy by any means, but had some nice trotwork, a few good mediums, and some flying changes tossed in here and there. When he gets bothered or confused, he gets a sideways piaffe thing going, and he has almost none of that going on that day. Although he did get really hot and bothered by the mirror and tried to inch over there every time we passed it..... ah well.

Sunday the dentist came. She is the one who did P and O last year, and I was really happy with her work. She flies in from up north a few times a year to do the rounds in Texas, so we made sure to get on her list. Both P and O had minor work done - compared to P's MAJOR work done last year. O was a little bit crooked and off, which didn't surprise me - she bends super well one way but not the other. Dylan's incisors were WAY super long, which was taking his molars out of occlusion and giving him very limited lateral movement in his jaw. I figured this would be what we would find, and it was. 

Checking those long snaggletoofs

Following this, O, who is hyperemotional at best, decided that something changed in her life, so she was going to die. I actually posted this status on Facebook the following morning:

"Sorry to my entire neighborhood who had to listen to the operetta happening at my house all night... O is too hyperemotional to eat after she gets worked on in any way (this time, teeth), so all night she kept wandering away up the hill looking for wolves to pick her off because she is convinced she is dying. Which sets Dylan into a total galloping screaming frenzy because she is the only mare he could ever love on this whole planet and she must be convinced of his love so she will come back and not kill herself. 

I know I for one *loved* listening to that all night long..."

When I went out to feed them that morning, O was lying flat out next to Pax, rolling her eyes up at me in despair, playing a Sarah McLachlan album, asking me to read her will and testament. She was *sure* that she was going to die.

Luckily, the second the haybags got filled, she jumped to her feed and started gobbling, all traumas of the previous night forgotten. Mares....

Maintenance

The girls had a maintenance-filled weekend: teeth, feet, and O got bodywork as well! It was good timing - I knew she'd need some TMJ massage work once she had gotten her chompers attended to.

I've had a hell of a time trying to figure out what to do about the girls' teeth down here. In CT I had an amazing dentist, but haven't been able to find anyone down here that I've liked. I had P done when I first got her by a very pricey dental specialist, and while I think she did a pretty good job, it didn't seem to help any of her problems like I had hoped it would. When she went away to be leased, she was about due, so I told her lessee that she needed to be done while she was there. The lessee of course *said* she had it done, but I highly doubt it, and when I got her back in May I knew I needed to have her looked at. I didn't want to have to sedate her while she was pregnant, so when we took her up that first day to be scanned and found she had a huge follicle ready to go right then, I decided to just go ahead and get her done at the vet right then before we bred her. A vet I had never met before (jr. rookie vet I assume) came out to do her, and I wasn't terribly happy about it, but gave the go-ahead. I have regretted it ever since... P has been dropping HUGE gobs of food out of her mouth every time she eats, and it didn't get better over time. She was only done 5 months ago, but I couldn't stand it any longer... I had to do something.

O I had done a year and a few months ago, and while I didn't think it was too terrible of a job, I delayed having her done again because I didn't have anyone that I liked well enough to trust with the job.

Thankfully, after much ado, I managed to get ahold of a Natural Balance dentist, who is a northerner that happens to make regular trips down to Texas. I had heard nothing but good things about her, so I was excited to have her out.

I was not disappointed. Both girls were so well behaved that neither needed sedation (which is great, because last time P was done she needed two different strong cocktails, which was 6 drugs total!). O was a bit confused about the whole speculum idea, but the dentist was super gentle with her and gave her closed mouth breaks after every bit of work. O had a big ramp on one side of her mouth, and the other side was overfloated (still!), but after getting worked on, she had occlusion on both sides again. We'll have to see if it helps her TMJ issues or not... hopefully it will. Admittedly, pretty much nothing we've done to her (chiro, bodywork, dental, craniosacral) has done anything to change any of her quirks, so this probably won't do anything either, but at least I can rest a little easier knowing that she won't have so much of a headache anymore.
As for poor P, she had big problems. Apparently the vet completely missed one back molar and it was sticking way out - imagine the strain! She also had all sorts of other hooks, sharp bits, and overfloated parts, not to mention some seriously overgrown incisors. She's been gobbing food out of her mouth and chewing straight up and down since she had her teeth done, so none of this surprised me.... just made me feel really bad for her. After each adjustment, the speculum would close and come off, and P would release BIG TIME - shake her head and yawn, and yawn, and yawn! Every single time she did it.
The best part came when she was eating her dinner grainfoods. She was chewing normally and NO MORE GOBS falling out!! Yay!!! Yesterday she was chewing a bit up and down again, probably due to muscle soreness and memory (she hasn't used the correct muscles in god knows how long), but it certainly wasn't anything like it used to be, and I think it will continue to improve as she gains muscle strength.

The following day, the girls had a touchup on their feets, and O had some bodywork done. The bodyworker noted that for the first time, she actually had a little bit of muscle soreness in her back, and had some balls of muscle in her butt as well. The butt-balls we attributed to the extra pushing power we've been asking for while driving, but the back muscles were slightly concerning. It wasn't enough that I could detect anything on palpation myself, but she had some spasms when the bodyworker was going over her. This horse, regardless of saddle, has never once been backsore EVER. The one conclusion we can make is that my shafts are just too heavy, and my cart is riding unbalanced, putting too much bouncy weight onto her saddle. There are some things I can do to fix this - like putting a counterweight in the cart under my seat - but the problem isn't easily remedied. The cart is unbalanced, the shafts are too narrow, the metal isn't fantastic quality, and, well, yeah. It's a GREAT little starter cart, but I want to get into this beyond where I am right now. I think it is time to put it up for sale and start looking for a nicer upgrade - something I can show in!

I've been lunging O without any equipment on lately, but I've been wanting to get get back into a chambon again instead of the Faux-ssoa. I did some tinkering with my system instead of straight up buying a new chambon (Gogo broke the last one)... and did you know that if you are creative enough, you CAN make it into a proper working chambon? No joke!

I'll have to take some pictures to show how I did it. It took a few false starts, but we got a good working model. (Note: chambon is NOT for green horses/horses sensitive to poll pressure!) She wasn't quite sure what to do with it at first, trying to tuck her nose behind the vertical to get away from the poll pressure, but then realized that she could in fact stick her nose out AND lower her head. Good mare!

It's been a pretty good fall so far overall. My biggest regret so far is that I haven't been able to get out to the State Fair to enjoy some Deep Fried Everything. Although, admittedly, with sneezing snotting kids everywhere, and people around Dallas freaking out going WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE FROM EBOLA RUN FOR YOUR LIVES, maybe this isn't the best year for it anyway...
(We're not all going to die from Ebola don't worry. People are very silly about these kinds of things.) 

End of April Analysis; May Goals!

A little bit late on these, but better late than never!!


 For the first time in a long time, I never made up monthly goals for the past month. That isn't like me at all, and it felt very weird. What it did do for me, however, is give me a little bit of time to think about our situation, give it a real go-over, and come out on the other side with a few answers (and a few things that still need considering.)

I have a new set of goals for May, ones I plan on actually sticking to for the first time in several months.

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May Goals:

1) Mandatory week off! I've been working her hard and a recent really nasty heat cycle has left her crampy and stilted all over. She deserves some built-in downtime!

2) Once vacation is over, trailer out once a week for exhibitions at local barrel races (we need some softer arena footing to do canterwork around the barrels - it's very hard to do that on our hard ground/slick grass)

3) Once a week long, slow, easy hacks/trail rides (possibly bareback/in a halter, or some combo of that)

4) Slow work on the barrels at home (barrel-ssage) - emphasis on flatwork and rideability, which is critical!

5) Continuing on with canterwork - relaxation and responsiveness!

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I think those are all attainable. I'm working on rigging up a more strict schedule for her riding-wise for the month... but first, she gets her deserved downtime. The one thing my brief dabble into endurance helped me realize is that rest is just as important as training - you can't expect those muscles/bones/tissues to strengthen if you abuse them and then never let them rest and rebuild. I intend on structuring in scheduled rest every month - I think it's a priority that I need to place more emphasis on.


Pmare has a few goals this month too, which I will talk about at a later date.... one of those was to get her teeth done, which happened today! For the last two months, her only goal was to gain a little weight, and the over-achiever has definitely succeeded in that aspect. It's time to start back with some walk hacks soon too, her tummy is looking a bit saggy!


P says, oh man... I know exactly where we are...

Just like last time, she woke up mid-procedure. The dentist got it done but it was kind of a near miss... we nearly had to knock her out again.

 

 Phew.... fighting against your dentist is hard work. Apparently she was more doped up than she thought.

 Poor saggy thing... she's definitely not as svelte as she used to be! Here's the old bat several years ago:

She might be an old bat but she is still a pretty nice beast!

Going the Distance

PHEW. I think the little red mare's nickname should be The Little Engine That Could. Or possibly, The Little Engine With No Off Switch. That mare has a motor that JUST DOES NOT QUIT.

After her conditioning ride on Saturday (which now looks pitifully wimpy compared with what we did this week) and a seriously intense lunge session on Sunday, I hopped on the redhead for a dressage ride on Monday. I thought that *maybe* she'd be slightly less uppity, but she was more on fire than ever. The fitter she gets, the easier everything becomes for her.... it's a vicious cycle! She was still in heat (although thankfully coming out), and was just not having it that day. She was locked through her left side and bargy through the bit, and all she wanted to go was GO. So, I let her go - we just cantered around in a half seat (in a dressage saddle) for about 10 minutes. The more we went, the more energy she had. After trotting and cantering until we were both totally lathered in sweat, I took a walk break and checked my watch - surprise! We had been going for AN HOUR AND A HALF. She had FINALLY chilled out a little by that point, so I decided to pick up the trot again and end on a good note - she took a contact and bounced off happily, finally settled into her work. Two hours of work, and despite being totally wringing wet from heat to tail, she didn't seem remotely tired.

No, she's not that dark... she's just soaking wet. 

And she wasn't remotely tired the next day. The following morning S and I were up at the buttcrack of dawn to set out on a VERY early morning trail ride at one of the local state parks. The forecast for the late morning and the rest of the afternoon/evening was for thunderstorms/hail/tornadoes/death, so we decided that if we wanted to ride, we better do it as early as possible. We figured that we would go until the weather turned, and then we'd head home.

"Go until the weather turned" ended up being a LOT longer than we had anticipated. The weather was actually really nice (overcast and about 80), and we were enjoying ourselves. We trotted and cantered for quite a ways, stopping here and there whenever there was water to let the horses drink and let Monster Dog go swimming. O was a VERY good girl, cruising along behind her buddy on the buckle, relaxed and interested. She only had two moments when she almost totally lost her brains, both times when we were going down an incline and her friend disappeared around a corner in front of her. She doesn't have much of a problem with leaving the other horses, but when they leave her? Just shut the state down. She exploded forward, I grabbed back my reins, and she hit the contact and had a nuclear meltdown. Her legs were going in every which direction so fast that I'm fairly certain that we were levitating, despite the fact that we were going nowhere except possibly backwards and sideways. She shook her head as hard as she could, threw herself around, pitched a general fit, and tried to smash herself into a tree in protest. When that didn't work, she quit, deciding of her own accord that she was going to walk forward like a lady, damnit. She was bug-eyed, sweaty and champing furiously on her bit, but she was going to WALK and she was going to do it because SHE decided it was time to do it. Once back within sight of her buddy, she relaxed, but obviously this is going to be a continuing piece of work. Whenever Gogo would have a mare moment, I used to always say, "Oh, Gogo...." I guess in this situation it would be, "Oh, O..."

Other than her little oopsies, she popped over the logs, marched into the river, and moved smartly along, tireless for the entire ride. Although, she DID stop halfway through the river and refused to move again, despite me pony-kicking her in the ribs as hard as I could.... S had to actually come behind us and smack her on the butt with one of her split reins. (Note to self... bring bat next time).

We ended up logging almost 5 hours worth of saddle time, and we went for 19 miles. We made it home just in time for the downpour to begin, but thankfully there were no tornadoes/hail/general death to go along with it. 

Early the next morning, S convinced me to get up again at the crack of dawn for yet ANOTHER ride! I figured I'd just take O for a gentle little walkabout, but she had other ideas - she was fresh as a daisy, and had I not known that I had ridden her for nearly 20 miles the day before, I never would have guessed that she had even been worked at all. We logged ANOTHER two hours, with some more trotting and cantering, as well as some more freakouts when her buddies left her again. 

Once our ride was over, we cooled out, had a bath, relaxed for awhile, and loaded up to head to the vet. She's a bit hit-and-miss when it comes to loading - sometimes she hops right on, and sometimes she stands there like a mule and refuses to move. I resorted to my old standby - I ran a lunge line from her through the escape door and back out to where I could stand behind her with a dressage whip. She was NOT amused by this, and ran back and forth across the ramp a few times before decided to walk on of her own accord. Sorry mare, but we have places to be, so too bad!

Once at the vet, we checked her mouth out for issues. She didn't have a ton going on, but she did have some sharp edges, especially on her left side (which is the side she is generally harder to bend on - which of course makes sense), and a few little nicks in her cheeks. 

I would have preferred that the dentist could have made it out to do her, but I checked her out after she was done, and they did a pretty good job. Thankfully, the issues she had were small and run of the mill, so there wasn't anything major that needed to be done.

She was still a bit drowsy after we got home, and sweaty from her sedatives. She got another rinse, some liniment and a rubdown on her legs, and some extra cookies for being a good girl (once she woke up, of course). 

She's had the past three days off, which she needed. I would have liked to work her today (and wouldn't have minded putting her on the lunge two days ago for a light workout), but it has been pouring on and off, and everything is sloppy mud. On Thursday, the day after her dentist appointment, she also had four HUGE fat legs! She was totally sound, they weren't hot or tender, and she wasn't running a fever, so the only thing I can think of was that she reacted to the liniment poorly. With a leg washing and a gram of bute, they all returned to normal within the day... interesting to see. I used a different rub following this, and while it didn't cause another reaction, she spent several minutes gnawing at her legs like it bothered her... I almost washed it off, but she quit chewing, and hasn't done it since. She also pitched a bit about the wound salve I put on one of her little cuts, and ran around rubbing herself on things and rolling until she had properly wiped it all off... clearly the girl has some sensitive skin... or she is possibly just a very demanding personality who only approves of things when she decides they are to her liking.

Mares....

Back to the Grind

After a blip in catchability, one very intense dental session, and a few days of refusing to eat much of anything, Imogen is back to work and doing amazingly well. I can't believe how much better her attitude is already! 

Her little bit of time off before and after the dental work did good things for her brain. After I scared her half to death when I slapped her on the chest last week, we stepped back and did groundwork and grooming for a few days. This made a huge difference for her mentally, and I think it is a good default for when things are a little overwhelming for her. Working with an abused horse is very difficult, and maintaining trust in a relationship with a horse like Immy is a critical key. Without that, you have nothing. Obviously, there are going to be times when she needs to be disciplined for something or another (like if she runs me over again!), but she will learn with time that I am not going to whale on her in anger for no reason. It just takes time, and consistency - no surprises, and no deviations. She needs trust that I am not going to do anything scary and out of left field... it just takes time. 

This week went something like this in terms of a schedule:

Monday: Dentist

Tuesday: Off

Wednesday: Lunge in halter (and P and I went with S to her barrel race!)

Thursday: Off (Future Hubs and I were at The xx show in Dallas... you're jealous, I know!)

Friday: Groundwork

Saturday: Lunge in sidereins 

And the next few days will be as follows:

Sunday: Ride

Monday: Lunge in sidereins

Tuesday: Ride

Wednesday: Pool

Thursday we have a tentative craniosacral session scheduled, but it might actually happen on Sunday... I have to hear back from the therapist and see!

I can't believe the difference in Immy since her dental work. It just kills me that it has taken THIS long to have it done (months, literally), with all of the scheduling problems (on his end), the no-shows, the problems. I almost bailed on the guy and didn't use him, just because I was so annoyed, but I am so glad I didn't. The first few days following her dental were not so much fun, due to the fact that her extractions made her mouth pretty sore, but she managed to continue to eat the softest, fluffiest hay that I had for that time. She wasn't interested in eating her grain mush until Wednesday evening. By that time, she was back to her old self, but she had lost a few pounds in the process. She was looking amazing last week weight-wise, but looks a little less filled out this week. With her appetite back and her new set of chompers, I expect she'll put it back on quickly.

When I pulled her out for her grooming and lunging session on Wednesday, I had a huge surprise waiting for me. I have a grooming routine that I go through when grooming, and for whatever reason, I always start with my curry on the left side of her neck. From there I go up as high as she will tolerate, and then go back down her neck and onto her shoulder. Usually she raises her head and resists whenever I do this, not wanting me to go near her ears or poll, but nothing happened that time. Literally nothing! The same went for the right side of her neck. When I followed over with my medium brush, she let me groom her poll with NO head raising or reactions of any sort. NOTHING!

You have no idea how huge that is. HUGE! That is the first time she has ever, ever let me approach that area of her body without some sort of resistance. I couldn't believe it. I still can't!

As for our lunge session that day, it was short-lived. The ground had been slick and muddy for a few days following our last rainstorm, and I thought it had dried out enough for a lunge, but I was wrong. She did the slip-n'-slide for a few minutes before I called it, not wanting to cause a wipeout. 

Today was her first day back to real work. Once again, I was completely delighted with her attitude - she was calm, quiet, peaceful, and totally amenable to having her head and poll groomed. Bridling her was by far the easiest it has been, simply because she let me get near the top of her head without major issue. In fact, I'd say that was the best bridling she's ever had. (It also helps to have a clear bridlepath to work with... she hates having her mane pulled on!)

Her poos are WAY better as of this week as well... only a horseperson could be this concerned about horse crap! Granted, I did change a few things to see if I could have some improvement there, and they all seemed to happen at the same time (a round of SandClear, the dental, a few weeks on EquiShure, and a secondary probiotic that somebody gave me to try, just to see)... it is hard to say what worked, or what combo of things worked. But, something worked!

She was excellent today on the lunge. She's still not 100% sure about the sidereins, but she is starting to get the concept at the walk. I'm not one to crank down a set of sidereins to force a horse into a frame... I just want her to start getting used to the idea of contact. Once she is a little further along in her schooling, I will probably never use them again. When lunging my schooled horses, I only really ever use a chambon, but obviously Immy is NOT ready for that yet. 

Tomorrow, back to work under saddle!

Tooth Fairy

FINALLY! After waiting for what feels like an eternity, the dentist FINALLY CAME!!

And... it was bad. I knew it wasn't going to be pretty, but I figured that perhaps it wouldn't be as horrible as we expected, seeing as she probably has been out eating hay and doing little else for a number of years. 

I was wrong. Very, very wrong.

I liked the dentist, and he did a good job. He was gentle, kind to her, didn't keep her head elevated for longer than he had to, and didn't keep her in the speculum for lenthy periods. She was sedated heavily, of course... definitely not sure this could have happened properly otherwise. Not everybody likes to sedate for dental work, but I honestly think it is a far better idea. Better to knock them out than to have them clamped up rigidly and fighting you the entire time... they get super sore super quickly.

 The first thing we found when we opened her mouth was her age - he estimates her to be turning approximately 8 this year. Good news! He also noted how seriously long her incisors were - not a good sign. Next we found that she still did in fact have her wolf teeth, just two little top ones, and both of them were broken - a good sign that she's likely never been floated before in her life. He extracted them both, and then gave me a good look at what exactly was going on in there. HOLY CRAP. She had two broken premolars (slab fractures, in 308 and 408), opposing issues with the teeth above them, GIANT hooks on both front top premolars, multiple SUPER sharp edges, tons of cheek lacerations... gee, I wonder why she ever got to be so headshy? (Obviously the abuse did that, but for real, I bet her teeth hurt like hell!) It was a total nightmare.

(P-mare says, wtf are you doing to my sister!? She was there for moral support.)

The float took awhile, as expected, and she started to wake up near the end, but she managed to hold it together. Bonus for me - she was still out *just* enough so that I could scissor a bridlepath off! I also pulled the top part of her mane, although she was none too pleased about it. I tried to break out the clippers, but that really woke her up, and she bolted to the end of my leadline and stood snorting in the corner of the stall. Okay, guess not today... we settled for a little muzzle shave with a hand shaver instead, which she more or less tolerated. Of course, afterwards, she associated me only with the terrifying clippers, and once again bolted off and refused to speak to me again. She also refused to eat basically anything, which did not surprise me. It must feel awfully weird in there, not to mention probably super sore from the extractions.

The next day, she felt better, and ate a little bit of her mush for breakfast. By the afternoon, she was quite willing to talk to me again, but still wasn't all that interested in eating, so I left her with her food bucket while S and I went and rode Rue and P out on the trails. It had torrentially poured the night before, so everything was sloppy soup, but we made it work. The horses had quite a scare when we stumbled upon a terrifying set of emus (seriously, who had pet emus at a construction site? They were just wandering around at one, nonchalant!) P had such a fit when she saw the first emu that she ripped clean out of one of her Italian bells... those things are tough, how do you tear them clean in HALF?

Back at the barn, Immy had not eaten one morsel (so worried about P being gone.... I've been making efforts to separate them every day no matter what, because this is ridiculous!), so I gave up and let P finish it for her. By the next morning, she ate about 90% of her grain-mush, and by yesterday evening was back to licking the bowl clean. Phew! I can't really blame her though, having seen the state of her mouth - it was horrible.


I had an amazing surprise yesterday, when I went to brush and lunge her for her first day back to work post-dental - she let me brush the top of her poll with NO issues, NO head raising, no nothing! She usually permits me to do that, somewhat unwillingly and with a raised head - she's not very keen on it, but it gets done. Yesterday, on both sides, she let me do it and get that close to her ears without even thinking about raising her head!! That is the FIRST time that has ever happened. Either in her drugged stupor she just accepted things being up there, or she feels that much better after the dental. AWESOME! (She's obviously not cured of her headshy issues, of course - but this is a huge step in the right direction!!) It was too sloppy still to lunge very much, but we did a little work, and then called it a night. S came down and decided that she was going to a barrel race that evening, and for kicks we decided that I would go too and bring P - not to race, of course, but just to ride around. What fun that was - P took the whole thing in stride while wearing nothing but a rope halter while I was riding around, goats/steers/bulls/calves/swinging ropes/screaming cowboys/millions of horses and all! Next time, we are going to bring Immy along to pony off of P - what better way to expose her to a WHOLE bunch of things while still having her calm and confident buddy right there? It's perfect!


Happy Valentine's Day!!!