Fireworks FAIL

Living out in the country in rural Texas has a lot of befits. It's quiet, we don't worry about livestock limitations, and we're not under the jurisdiction of basically anything. Our neighbors are nice and leave us alone. It's a good deal.

Well, except for holidays. During every summer holiday, fireworks stands pop up on the side of the road like evil boils upon the beautiful face of our countryside. Out here, outside of town, fireworks are legal and any Joe Schmoe can load up on as many explosives as they like, and fire them off whenever they wish. For those of us with animals, it's a complete and total nightmare.

Last year, my nextdoor neighbors didn't set off any fireworks, so I didn't have any idea that they would do it this year. The whole weekend of the 4th, there were booms and crackles in all direction, which I expected - but then the nextdoor neighbors started setting them off. They are right at the top of our hill, right on the other side of the trees, so they're pretty close.


This close, in fact:

As you can see, the horses were not very happy about it. That was on the 3rd of July, but I was able to keep them pretty quiet otherwise and everyone made it through the weekend basically all right. 

Everything went fine through the week. Dylan rode like a million bucks. I started rifling through the omnibus looking for fall shows. I bragged to someone about what a sound, strong, capable horse he is. He's 15, he's barefoot, he's sound, he requires basically no maintenance at all. 

Well, apparently the universe heard me talking, and decided to send me a little dose of humility. 

Look he's even on there, "dressage school master"

Hot and sweaty but going like gangbusters

On Sunday (July 10th), in the middle of the night, my neighbors decided again that they were going to set off fireworks. It was a quiet night, with nothing going on. I was sitting in a chair in my pajamas, feeling sleepy and contemplating going to bed, when suddenly I heard what sounded like heavy artillery going off over my house. I went outside, and not surprisingly, the horses were running in every direction blindly in the dark. The neighbors fired off several more rounds of fireworks before I got everyone settled down. In the dark, everyone seemed all right.

In the morning, they were definitely less all right.

Pax is covered in scrapes and cuts. She has a fat leg, but she seems to be quite fine and the swelling has already improved. The puffiness is related to the cuts and scrapes, and she'll be fine. But I could have done without the total heartattack I had when I saw it. 

Dylan is less fine. On Monday, he had a hot and fat leg, and had some cuts and scrapes. The scrapes are all down low on his pastern, and are basically little more than a bit of hide taken off, but the area was swollen and mildly warm. What was more concerning was that higher, where all of the major tendons and ligaments run behind the cannon bone, the are was swollen, hot and tender. Alarm bells started going off in my head. I'm pretty well versed in evasive maneuvers when it comes to leg injuries, so right away I started in with cold hosing and icing. The only thing I had on hand to knock out inflammation was DMSO, since I had used the last of my poultice on O the last time she whacked herself. so in between icings he had DMSO and wraps applied. I jogged him in a straight line and on a circle, and he did not appear to be off, so I was optimistic that it hopefully wasn't anything terribly bad.

The next morning (yesterday), I had hoped the swelling would be improved, but it was not. If anything, it was just as big and hot as the day before, and now he was lame. I switched tactics, moved to more aggressive icing and cold hosing, and applied Sore No More poultice (the Ultra Performance kind). Man that stuff is awesome. I've always been an A&Js Ice kind of girl but I also think the Sore No More products are really great, and I'm super pleased with the performance of this one. I knocked about half the swelling out of it by the end of the day, and by this morning about 75% of the swelling was gone. Yesterday I called my vet, and made an appointment for this morning to have a lameness exam and an ultrasound done. I was feeling completely panicked about the swelling - it was so classic suspensory, and he was sore to palpation in that area. All I could do was feel bad about everything, wonder why the horse gods and the universe hate me, and mourn the fact that I finally feel like I am able to ride pain free and get back to the show ring and suddenly my extremely fine and sound horse blows a leg out and we're all just going to die and the world is going to implode. It was a rough and depressing night.

Icing and more icing

This morning, the swelling was down about 75% and he seemed rather more like himself. I was slightly more optimistic as I drove to the vet, but I still had visions of massive suspensory damage dancing through my head. 

I know I've mentioned many times that I love my vet, but I'll say it again - I love my vet. We have a great repertoire and he trusts my input. I feel that he knows that I am capable as a caretaker, and that I know a fair bit about both injuries and anatomy. We get on very well, as he is willing to listen to what I have to say and work with those parameters, and I am willing to defer to him as the expert and take his advice as well as do whatever he instructs me to do. Not to mention he's the best leg guy around - he's the one I want for a lameness evaluation. Nobody else will do for me. Because Dylan is both insured and very special, I handed off his lead rope to the tech and told them, "we do whatever we have to do get him sound."

And to my surprise, he was already sound in a straight line. Like, totally fine. Not an off step. We flexed him on both sides, and.... totally sound. Dr. H palpated him, and found that the suspensory was not painful, but the check ligament was. Suddenly I felt much more hopeful. Could it just be a check ligament? We put him in the roundpen and sent him both directions, and he was sound about 95% of the time, with a few random head bobs in there, but they were quite minor. Dylan is a huge man baby - if he were a human he would be that macho jock that gets the man flu and acts like he is going to die from the sniffles, so I was hopeful that it wouldn't be too bad on ultrasound.

 

And man did I ever get lucky. Everything looked to be in really good order and good size, except for the check ligament. The body of the ligament was not damaged, but there was some swelling and minor damage in the area to the tissue. Dr. H classed it as a check ligament strain, which is about the best case scenario I could have ever asked for aside from there not being any kind of problem at all. It's just a check ligament that did the job it was supposed to do - stabilize the DDFT and help prevent damage to it. Dr. H said he will likely be back to work in as little as just a few weeks - we are rechecking via ultrasound in two weeks to see how he is looking. In the meantime, we are doing the same protocol - coldhosing, icing, poultice, wrapping, rest, bute and Uniprim to knock out the crud and swelling around the cuts. We discussed it and decided to keep him in turnout with O as company, as this is the best chance to keep him quiet, and the injury is minor enough that it shouldn't cause a problem. 

And I'll be having a word with my neighbors about the fireworks. 

MARE! Come ON!

O's done it again. She sliced up her OTHER hind leg, right before a show! WHY!

What the....

I lunged her yesterday and she was fairly good. It's interesting... she lunges easily to the right but drives horribly to the right, and lunges horribly to the left but drives easily to the left. She bends great driving left but goes around severely counterbent when lunging left, and bends great lunging right but goes around severely counterbent when driving right. She has always been this way and no amount of chiro, dental, massage therapy, craniosacral work, or vet work has actually done anything to change it. Ah well... we continue to work on it.

I didn't lunge her with hind wraps or boots on, so I didn't closely inspect the hinds until I was washing her off after she was done working. To my horror, I found a big slice right on the back of the right hind. It was fresh, but not so fresh that she did it while lunging - she must have found a small part of the fence to slice herself on. I scoured my fencelines and while I'm not totally sure where she did it, I think I have an idea. Nobody *else* has ever gotten cut up anywhere on my no-climb fences - they're pretty safe! - but I think she's just been in such flaming heat for weeks that there is no escaping her odd behavior. Literally she has been in heat for over three weeks now... it's that weird transitional spring heat, and she does it every year. There is a point where it gets frustrating, and we've definitely reached that. Just go out of heat already you spaz!

Of course, Sunrise Ridge is FOUR days. Naturally.

I gave her a gram of bute, clipped the wound and cleaned it, and wrapped her legs. Today the swelling is down about 50 percent, but is still tender to touch. The other leg was puffy too - I can't say that it's totally back to normal after the cut she received on that leg. That's how she plays though... gets a tiny scrape, legs blow up enormously, and the swelling takes AGES to go down. She's never lame when she does it, but she does it pretty regularly. 

A perfect C? What does that mean? C for crappy? C for crazy mare?

We're doctored and wrapped up again for the night. We'll probably keep that routine up until we roll into the showgrounds - if we even go. It's hard to choose in this case - she's fine, she's not lame, she just has a cut and a puffy leg because of the cut. If she was lame, it would clearly be an easy choice. I already pulled once from a show this year for a cut and a puffy leg.

We'll just have to see how she does over the next few days. UGH! Mare! 

As an aside, here she was this weekend doing her final drive before the show (was supposed to just lunge this week and rest a bit). She was REALLY hot and forward!

Baby Shenanigans

Approvals are exactly 3 weeks away now. I'm working hard every day to make sure everyone's coats and tails are holding up in the sweaty Texas heat, dumping feed into P, and working on leading skills with Pax. (Not that P is skinny... but a little extra cover for her saggy topline can't hurt. Go ahead and judge me for that one.)

I ordered a leather halter for Pax, and it nearly fits! In 3 weeks it definitely will.

She looks so grown up wearing it. She'll be four months old next week - where has time gone!?

Every night, she gets up to shenanigans after dinner:

If she fails as a driving/dressage horse, she can cut it as a reiner

O gets in on the action too!

O says, please leave me alone, Flymask Marking Girl

P is getting increasingly tired of these shenanigans. Most of the time, she totally ignores Pax, letting her do whatever she wants and pretending like she doesn't exist. She never grooms her, touches her, or pays attention to her. When Pax nurses, P stands there clenching and sneering. She's a very tolerant mother but I think if she had the choice she'd be spending her time eating and not caring for a baby.

"Really kid?"

"Maybe if I ignore it, it will go away."

See what I mean about "not skinny but also not muscular"? She is 19 years old and not sound enough to work much, with a heat intolerance and a giant red parasite sucking her down. Can't blame her for being a bit cranky and saggy these days!

It's a depressing day when your 30+ year old cripple mare has a better topline than the broodmare:

Darby says, if you could get me a better fitting halter and a flymask without holes, that would be greaaaaattttt

She looks pretty fantastic. I'm actually starting to wonder if she isn't younger than I was told. She is clearly over her mid 20's but she may be some years less than I thought. I have a hard time reading teeth, but the dentist will give me a better idea when she comes next month. What 30+ year old looks that good though? She is now eating even less grainfoods than P is! She is getting around great, so long as I keep her feet dry. Sometimes the water trough overflows (because I am spacey and forget to shut it off in time), and if she stands in a bit of mud even for a short time, she gets tenderfooted. This spring, she was getting 1-2g of bute every single day to try and turn her around. Now, I haven't given her any bute in a month and a half - she hasn't needed it. Our dry spell definitely has helped!

I'm sure she has extensive bony and corium damage in her feet (and of course, the left hind fetlock). She's not really one that we can 'fix' per se, just keep her comfortable until it is time for her to go to the gates of Dark Forest. She's not ready to go yet though - at this rate we might have quite a bit of time left with her, far more than I expected! We'll just have to see! I won't put her through any lengthy ordeals though, so we'll just keep on keeping on for however long she has. 

It's too bad she's too crippled to really move faster than a walk anymore... she'd really let Pax have it if she could get her hiney moving. That filly needs a good butt-whipping and I'm the only one around here who ever does it!

A Lesson (And Several Other Things)

When I last left off with O's continual story, I had been able to long line and then drive her hot speedy self down the road following our two weeks off. Following this, she had a day off, and then I long lined her again on Saturday. One minor unforseen problem cropped up though that I honestly just hadn't ever given a second thought to before: the wind. What does the wind have to do with long lining your horse, you might ask?

Well, I'll tell you. In Texas, we have four seasons: Hot, Fire, Wind, and Tarantulas. These seasons can come together in groups of two, or three, or even all four, or they can come as singles. They can come just in a day, or in an afternoon, or even in just an hour. Forget Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall - they do not apply to Texas. 

On Saturday, it was Wind season. It was steadily blowing at 40+mph, aided by the big stretch of prairie land behind us. Normally I don't even notice things like that anymore, but that day there was an unforseen consequence to it - the driving lines are super lightweight. Therefore, when caught by the wind, they started whipping around in the air - didn't matter if the contact was tight or loose, because if it was loose it flapped, and if it was tight it vibrated hard. The consequence to this was that poor O thought she was being whipped in the butt repeatedly by the lines. There was nowhere on the entire property that was immune from the wind - it howled no matter where we went. Poor O kept jumping forward, thinking I was spanking her on purpose even though she was doing nothing wrong. Eventually I just had to give up, end on a good note, and put her up. Lesson learned - I will not be long lining her in a strong wind ever again!

She had Sunday off due to time constraints, and then Monday I long lined her again, this time with no howling wind. She was excellent, quiet and responsive. Long lining is a really great tool that I don't use nearly enough, but really should. You do all of the things that you do with a cart, you're on the ground. You can easily work on smoothing out things that are challenging in the cart - for instance, backing her and then going forward again. She is understanding how to back up now, and is doing it very well, but she tends to get stuck in creeping reverse mode, where even when you say "whoa" or "walk on", she still takes a few creeping backward steps. Being the excellent girl that she is, if she does this on the ground I can step up to her butt and put a hand on her to stop her and reinforce my "whoa". (Obviously I can't recommend that with other beasts as it's not a very safe thing to do!) I can also come up to her and pet her and scratch her when she has done a good thing, something that can't really be done from the box seat. 

Also, you should all be SUPER jealous of O's AMAZING new halter. Traditional leather-only type folks are probably going to have a heartattack when they see this, but O now has a custom mule tape halter, navy and baby blue colored. I have wanted one of these FOREVER. It is so, so soft, and so pretty. I love it!

Tuesday was a milestone, and was super awesome with some super bad moments interspersed in the middle. A driving friend that I made locally invited me to come drive at her place and have a lesson with W, a trainer that I previously thought I'd never be able to work with due to distance. L is another newer whip so she and I have become friends, bouncing ideas back and forth to each other for the past few months. When she offered a chance for me to come out to her place I jumped on it! 

In the morning, I fed the mares and left them to munch hay while I loaded up my cart. This was really going to be the true test - I had taken the cart for a drive while it was in the bed, just to make sure it didn't fly out, but I hadn't gone anywhere far. I ratcheted it down with a million straps, crossed my fingers, gave O her Ulcergard and Pro CMC, loaded up, and headed out. 

Thankfully, I needn't have worried - it didn't budge an inch the entire drive. It was super secure! Easy in, easy out, and I have a warrenty on the winch should anything happen to it within the next year. So much success!!

We arrived at L's place around 9:30, and I let O out to eat hay while I unloaded the cart - or well, I parked her in front of her haybag and said a silent thanks to the gods of Ulcergard, because she was only interested in staring at All The Things and fidgeting instead of eating. I ended up having to stick her on the lunge to trot out some of the willies before we harnessed - she was quiet but fixedly convinced that the draft mule next door was an evil scary beast. I don't think she had ever seen a mule before, much less one that was galloping and snorting. Back at the trailer, she munched hay while we harnessed up and headed out to the field. 

Going over show rules before the lesson

I have to say, I was impressed with how chilled out she was. She marched into the field like she owed the place, and got right down to work. She got right to it, was supple and forward, and had a really good warmup. We then halted and stood around for awhile while Bob the pony did his dressage test.

When I picked her back up, we went and walked for awhile, and then went to go do our test. At that point, she was extremely quiet, lazy, and not very well connected. I usually take that for what it is (AKA yay you're quiet and not super hot/wild, I'll take it) and bebopped with little fanfare through our dressage test. W said at the end that she just didn't have enough forward motion, enough sparkle. I went to try and run through it again, with more forward motion - but I had none. She thought we had finished long ago, and was not interested in going through it yet again. Usually a quiet cluck sends her shooting forward at warp speed, so I use clucking judiciously when I really need it - but I had no response. I'd cluck, and she'd shudder all over like she had heard me, but didn't choose to respond by going any more forward. I clucked, and clucked, and she shuddered and poked along. I tapped her with the whip, she shuddered and poked along. I clucked louder. This was the point where she decided that she had had enough, and gave me the giant horse middle finger: she bucked. And she bucked HIGH. She bucked so very high that when she came back down, one of her hind feet smashed the rein rail on the dashboard of the cart, and bent it.

Oh HELL NO. That is a cardinal sin when you are between the shafts. She has never once done that before - never even given a single indication that it was something she'd ever even consider. Had I ever thought it would EVER be something she'd EVER do, I would have put a kick strap on her. (And from now on, she'll wear one for every drive. It's a strap that runs from one shaft over the top of the rump to the other shaft - if they try to buck, they can't physically do it, because they'd have to lift the entire weight of the cart.) As a side note: if O was a regular bucker I would never have bothered to break her to drive. If she was a kicker I wouldn't have done it either. If she did either with any regularly, I wouldn't drive her either. This is the first time in two years that she has bucked while being driven (or ridden!) - she bucks like a maniac every single day in her paddock while playing, but never ever gave any suggestion to do it while working. As it stands, she is a horse and horses do horse things - just because she hadn't ever done it before doesn't mean that's a guarantee that this would never have happened.  With a kick strap in place I can keep any future incidents from causing major trouble. 

To her credit, the noise of the impact did not frighten or upset her (I've seen videos of some spectacular wrecks where the horse kicked the cart and then scared itself half to death). She didn't kick out in any way either, just set herself up for the buck, bucked once, and then came back down. I was so surprised by it that I hauled her to a stop, backed her, and then sent her strongly onward into a tight circle. She was mad by this point, and tried to canter, shaking her head and plowing strongly into the contact. After fighting with her for a minute about her wanting to grab the bit and zoom off, I pulled her out of the dressage ring and set her butt to work for several minutes, darting back and forth from a tight left circle to a tight right circle, back and forth and back and forth in small figure 8's. She quit grabbing the bit and pulling, and settled into a rhythm, back and forth and back and forth like she was hypnotized. Once I felt that she was finally listening and responding, we went back into the dressage ring and did the test over. She was sharply attentive this time, listening to any requests for more forward movement without jumping too hard at them, and really paying attention in her transitions. I thought she might be fidgety and hot when halted, as she tends to get, but she was stock still and attentive, actually waiting for me to ask her to move off. She was a bit above the contact and not very connected during this run through the test, but the fact that she was listening attentively made that less important. 

I think there is a really fine line to walk with this horse, and it is constantly shifting. It's easy to either get sucked into a fight, or let her bebop along in order to avoid a fight altogether. I've been talking a lot lately about sweet talking her into being a lady, but I think I am probably just taking it too far. It's easy to fall into the trap of asking her to do something two or three times and being satisfied with her doing it on the third try after ignoring the first two, because she did it without killing anyone, but she really should be doing it right on the first try. I need to be a more proactive driver - I need to communicate with her better, and more. There needs to be a better running dialogue instead of just a few commands here and there.

After my second run through the test, we took another break and chatted for a bit about strategies for cones. We took a few pics too - note O the sweaty, sweaty beast after getting her butt handed to her for a few minutes:

We then ran through the cones course a few times. This was the first time I had gone through a cones course with them actually set to a competition distance, and it's crazy how tight they seemed! I need to practice at home for sure, or else I will be sorry! By this point, O was absolutely on her A game, briskly and smoothly gliding through every set of cones, taking a buttery soft contact and listening to every half halt. W nodded and said, "looks like a winning cones course to me!"

We finished our session with a walk down the driveway to cool out, complete with L's other mare galloping around like a total maniac. O was quite tired at this point, and would have been happy to walk down the driveway, but I could see her brain starting to leak out of her ears when the other mare went zooming around, so we went right back to the trailer when we were done and finished. 

Me: "Please whoa damnit"

Galloping palomino for added fun

Definitely lots to take away and think about. Lots and lots to think about! And lots and lots of work ahead of us! It was a great lesson and I am looking forward to the next one.

O was pooped on Wednesday, to nobody's great surprise. I caught her napping in her shed:

And even dreaming!:

Today I was going to drive her down the road for a bit, but unfortunately when I arrived in the afternoon, I found that she must have been laying in something that her skin reacted badly to. Her belly and one side was covered in HUGE hives!

My poor paper-skinned beast. She has tomorrow off anyway due to time constraints; hopefully by this weekend her bumps will be gone. 

Day 303

Pmare is at day 303, and getting bigger. I have NO idea HOW she is getting bigger, but she is!

Today was the first day the mares got to be naked in two weeks. The weather has been so horrible and cold that they stayed blanketed all the time. They were VERY happy about it, P especially. Both mares are shedding, and if you look on P's shoulder you can see her yearly dapples coming in!

Day 303

She is steadily building her bag. It's a little bigger every day. Still has a long way to go but it is definitely growing. I'm going to guess she'll go within the next 4 weeks.

As for O, the weather is improving but she happened to do this lovely gem to herself:

Paper-skinned beast

She seems to be quite fine, she just stuck her leg somewhere she shouldn't, scraped it up, and it blew up. She has paper skin so every time she gets a cut, BOOM! Massive swelling. Oh well, what's a few more days off anyway....

Beep Beep, Noobs Coming Through!

So, it's kind of hot in Texas right now.

Yes yes, I know I clearly needed to fuel up but who wants to get out of the AC when it is freaking 117 out!? 

We thankfully were in a little erm, hot pocket per se, and it cooled off shortly to a balmy 110. Currently today it is cooler with a high of 106, and "dangerous heat warnings," which basically means "for the love of god just don't go outside." 

With that said, the horses either get worked at the buttcrack of dawn, at the last rays of light, or just not at all. We don't have an arena or lights, so we just work with what we have. It's pretty nice out first thing in the morning, if something else isn't already scheduled and in the way. It's not half bad in the evening either - once the sun starts to go down, the humidity is low enough that the temp drops back down to 'relatively reasonable' status pretty quickly.

All the driving and bodywork we've been doing has only helped O. She has a little bounce to her trot that she never really has had before - a little loft per se. Once she gets going forward that is... she is also a LOT quieter than she ever has been before, which is definitely a trait I want to continue to cultivate.

I managed to get a Very Boring video of us driving today! I'm sorry that it is as boring as it is, but remember, Janky currently doesn't even have a seat yet, so I only have a metal pole to sit on. There is only so much bouncing around that my poor butt can handle! I'll get around to repairing it this week.

Beep beep, here come the noobs! Lesson on how Not To Do It: have your old mare follow you around for a little while during your warmup for some exercise. NOT the safest thing to do with a green driving horse, but the fastest speed Pmare ever chooses these days is meandering walk. Later in the video, you'll see her parked in the far right corner, just keeping an eye on things.

I have to admit, being lazy and poking along at the walk/trot is not something I ever expected this mare to do!
 

Janky blew a tire today as I was putting it away, so I will need to repair that (just needs a new tube I think) as well as get a seat made. Having pneumatic tires is kind of a problem as we have some bouncy terrain to work with, as well as have a zillion goatheads. I will probably need some heavier duty tires if I don't want to risk a real blowout while underway.



Poor O also managed to get herself into some fire ants. They leave these horrible little oozing welts all over, which are itchy and nasty and can make them feel kind of crappy if they get bitten by enough of them. She luckily did not feel bad, but she did manage to get some of them under her flymask and rubbed her head raw:

Poor little booboo-a-loosa.

The Shine, An Update

I'm happy to say that my total panic over lack of shine in my horses seems to be a little bit unfounded.

For example, Pmare:

Yeah... that's pretty close to a mirror finish, and she's filthy too.

And while I don't think O looks as good as she should, she's still, you know... not half bad, really. But, she looks completely rough compared to how she *should* be looking. Or maybe I just have really high standards.

 

"Ugh, stop taking pictures, time for food now."

I think I have an idea of what exactly is going on. Apparently, mine is not the only one this is happening to - horses all over Texas are all struggling to produce a nice slick summer coat. They are all hanging onto their ratty old winter hair, and it is making them all look like garbage.We had THE strangest weather this year, complete with completely random freezes all the way into mid-May (after lots of 90 degree days in a row, it was quite shocking).

Luckily for me, this week O has gone through some pretty rapid coat changes. Her yucky, ratty old coat suddenly started standing up at attention, which looked REALLY horrible, and then she started in with a new round of shedding. She is suddenly WAY darker than she was before, which is great. Under the yucky old stuff, there is a whole lot of extremely slick new stuff. 

We'll still be doing a fecal and adding alfalfa, but I'm more confident now that this is not a belly/nutrition issue. With a vicious assault with my curry, I seem to have loosened a lot of the old hair, and hopefully it will be gone within short order.

I've been crazy busy all week, but inbetween giant rainstorms and a million clients, I had time to sneak in a nice hour long hack down the road, and two lunge days. There are days when I'd really *like* to ride, but I need to be at XYZ farm and not have disgusting helmet hair, so on those days I opt for a lunge or day off instead. I try not to do *too* much lunging, but sometimes that's just what we gotta do!

As per plan, I tried out hacking in just a halter/Indian bosal, and it went very well. She was uppity to start - this was coming fresh off our extreme WWE Smackdown fight, so I wasn't really surprised - but she settled down shortly.

Pardon the encrusted mud and half-asleep mare. I think she got some mud/dirt in her eyes, they were a bit puffy that day.

We had an exceptionally good lunge today. Our last lunge was a bit productive in the fact that I got irritated with her ignoring of my commands, and instead of letting her fizzle it out, I got after her about it and insisted that she listen. She must have gotten the message, because today she was quiet, responsive, listened to her voice commands, and barely broke a sweat. Good girls only have to do short workouts, which is something I always try to make a point of ("hey you were really good, you're awesome! now we're done!"), so we only lunged for about 15 minutes. both directions included. That's a pretty far cry from two lunges ago, when she cantered for 45 minutes in one direction before she finally decided to play the game. Good girl.

And gahhh is she not gorgeous?