At Mother Nature's Mercy

Aaah, on days like today, I long for the good old days. You know, the ones where no matter what facility you boarded at, no matter how expensive or cheap, you ALWAYS had an indoor? Boarding facilities that wanted to do any sort of regular year-long business in the Great White North had to have them - without an indoor, nobody can ride when it snows! And since it snows up there from October to April, well.... everybody had them! (Or well, all the placed I boarded at had them! Even the super cheap ones!) 

Not so here in Texas. In Texas, indoor arenas do not exist, except for the few rare ones at the super chintzy horse parks in the area. There are quite a number of covered arenas, that is true... but these are relatively rare, and exclusive. (And you have to trailer to them to use them.) It simply doesn't precipitate enough here to warrant building them for the most part. 95% of the time, this obviously isn't a problem. However, on occasions, we might have TWO WHOLE DAYS OF RAIN IN A ROW, rendering everything a completely useless muddy mess. An entire day's worth of a chilly, soaking rain makes for a very grumpy and miserably cold me, and there is little to nothing that I can do with the girls on a day like today. Sure, they could come in the barn for a grooming... but as soon as I manage to get most of the slimy mud off of them, they are going to go right back out and roll in it again! I don't miss having my horses in stalls... but I do miss them being clean on days like today. I miss being able to show up at the barn in a downpour and be able to walk into the nice dry aisleways, pull my horse out of their nice dry stall, and go ride in the nice dry indoor arena. Now that they live outside, and I don't have any place to play inside (barring the barn aisle)... days like today are a wash.

If it were this time next year, I quite imagine I would man up, put my rain slicker and waterproof quarter sheet on, and take Immy for a conditioning hack down the road in the drizzle. (I did this many a time with Gogo!) Obviously, we're quite a long way away from that still! I'm feeling exceptionally grumpy about not being able to get in more rides on her... it has been a mess of a week, and it is only getting muddier and messier.

As a general recap, even though I've touched on it in the last few posts: 

After our first ride last Sunday, I wanted to give her Monday and Tuesday off, and get back on her Wednesday. That all changed when she got scared half to death in the pasture by the other people at the facility, and I had trouble catching her for two days. The new plan was to catch her and love on her Wednesday (I couldn't even touch her on Tuesday), catch her and groom/lunge in a halter on Thursday, catch her and lunge/grounddrive with bridle and surcingle Friday, and get on her Saturday and Sunday. That all went according to plan, except for the fact that she had the Big Bolt accident to deal with on Thursday - I felt that a day off was warranted after being pushed to that limit and being able to come back appropriately from it. Sunday, of course, was the frantic last-second move from the old facility to the new one, and I also felt that it would be in all of our best interested to just get out smoothly, with as little stress as possible. That ride got nixed as well.

That brings us to yesterday. While both girls settled in very well, and went straight away to their hay munching, moving to a new place is definitely stressful, and I decided to lunge her first before seeing whether or not she could tolerate trying for her second ride on only their second day at the new place. Sure glad I did that - Immy and P were obnoxious for each other while Immy was in the barn, and a lot of wiggling/screaming/pooing ensured. The quality of her poos were pretty poor yesterday, but the mare are switching back over from the barfy coastal (who am I kidding, all coastal is barfy, what was I thinking with trying to put them on that garbage?) to the tim and orchard again, so that could be it. Or she could be burnt up with ulcers from the stress at the other facility... both are probably likely. 

I took Immy out to the roundpen to let her stretch her legs. She was full of the zooms, and it was NOT helped by the fact that P went absolutely bonkers when she saw her sister trotting around - she put on a show that would make any National Finals Rodeo horse jealous. Her bucks, squeals, leaps, and high-speed laps around the pen (which is within sight of the roundpen) had Immy on edge, but she held it together and listened to all my transition requests (even if I had to ask twice, or sometimes more than that for downwards transitions! What can I say, the mare has a lot of GO versus WHOA.) 

After our lunging session was over, I decided that it was in her best interested to NOT get on for a second ride. She was just a bit too up and fresh to really consider it. We did, however, decided to go play with some of the cavalletis that were laying around in the field - she walked over all of them like a champ! She even walked over three walk poles spaced together in a row, although she admittedly had to stop and look at them first. When she decided they were not of any concern, she walked smartly over them, lifting her legs like a little ballerina. That's my girl!

Of utmost concern to me right now is her belly. With a skittery, nervous personality like she has, it is safe to say that I will always be fighting The Good Fight against ulcers with this mare. It is probably best to just always assume that she has them, and to be constantly treating or supplementing proactively. If I don't do that, it is almost guaranteed that her GI system will be fried within no time. As I mentioned earlier, her poops were not so great yesterday - but then again, they are switching over to the other kind of hay, so this could also be a contributing factor. The other worrisome thing she did was this: the girls each get 1/2 a flake of alfalfa, now being added slowly back into their diet along with the tim and orchard. A bit of alfalfa is good for tummies - all that calcium acts as a good buffer! - and Immy realized I had tossed it out as she was about halfway done with her grain. She made a beeline over to it, and I caught her and tied her up so she could finish her grain (P will eat it if she doesn't!). Well, she had none of that - not when her tasty alfalfa was waiting. She wouldn't eat another bite. I did get her finish her breakfast at dinnertime though, which was good.

However, this morning she did the same thing - I markedly left the alfalfa out of the haypile so that she wouldn't be tempted to go searching for it while she had her grain in front of her, but she still only ate about 1/2 of her grain before stopping and refusing to eat another bite. She snuffled it around for awhile, but showed no interest in finishing. Possible scenario: the girls get alfalfa and timothy hay pellets as their "grain" (to mix their supplements with), but I was lucky enough to score some alfalfa/timothy mixed pellets made by the same company. (Which is nice... fewer bags, same thing!) That was the first morning the new hay pellets had been mixed in with the rest of her food... perhaps she didn't like them. Or, she was anticipating her alfalfa and wanted nothing to do with her yucky supplements. Or, she is burnt up with ulcers. 

It is hard to say. But as I said before, I'm just going to go with the idea that I need to be very proactive and keep supplementing and treating constantly for ulcers.

What I currently do for healthy tummy management for Imogen:

1) Live outside 24/7 with a shelter and a bestie (Pangea)

2) As much good-quality grass hay as I can possibly give (they do waste a fair bit of it... might look into building another slow feeder!)

3) Small amount of supplemental alfalfa twice a day (for buffering calcium)

4) NO hard grains, just alfalfa/tim hay pellets and Healthy Glo fat supplement to mix in with other supplements and herbs

5) High quality probiotic

6) Aloe juice with every meal

7) Slippery elm bark and marshmallow root with every meal (just started a few weeks ago, possibly has not taken effect yet)
8) Chamomile and SmartCalm - we'll see if they work or not, so far nothing!

Things I could do or look into:

1) Omeprazole, ranitidine, sucralfate, or the like - various hits and misses with these, they don't always work but sometimes they can be a miracle... but the ulcers almost always come back when you stop treatment UNLESS you supplement with other things, or change your horse's living/feeding arrangements. The main function of many of these drugs (not sucralfate) is to inhibit the proton pumps that excrete acid into the stomach. The problem with this? Horses need acid to digest their food! Improperly digested starches and sugars can make their way into the hindgut, which can lead to a whole 'nother barrel of apples: acidosis, hindgut ulceration, leaky gut syndrome (which can lead ultimately to laminitis!), and more. Yes, they do work, but you can end up healing stomach ulcers and creating colonic ulcers in the process! Better to try and work synergistically with the horse to make everything work harmoniously rather than throw a drug at it, in my humble opinion. 

2) Pumpkin seeds - full of nitric oxide. I hear great things about these!

3) Dried cabbage - sounds nasty but they are high in L-glutamine, which heals the lining of the stomach.

4) Papaya juice - I used Natural Plan Stomach Soother for my old greyhound and it worked great!

5) Before EVERY workout, give alfalfa and/or a few cups of hay pellets mixed with her slippery elm, marshmallow root, aloe, and any of the aforementioned things should I add them in... while she has hay in front of her all the time, I can't guarantee that she has been munching directly before I arrive.... she might be working on an empty belly, which is no good at all!

6) Oat flour - for more Betas Glucan and hindgut health (it is what make SUCCEED so good, but without the $$$$$$!)

Readers, what do YOU do for proactively keeping your ulcer-prone horse's hindgut healthy? Share away!

The girls not enjoying the rain:

Aaah, that's better!

And yes, I did go fix Immy's sliding blanket after I took the picture! ;)

Look at my horse, my horse is amazing!

Yes, I really did just reference this video. Throwback! (Not work safe. At all.)

My beloved Immy, while still occasionally jumpy and unpredictable, continues to show me every day how far she has really come. While I can't guarantee that things won't frighten or surprise her, even run of the mill things on occasion, I can definitely say that she really tries to figure out the right thing when something is complicated, instead of just throwing in the towel and shutting down (like she used to). On Friday, she truly showed her mettle even in the face of adversity - and much to my delight, overcame a very scary situation with relative ease. 

Things started out run of the mill on Friday. Immy was easily caught in the field (hooray for being back to normal!), tolerated more mane pulling (like a champ! Although it helps when you continually shove cookies into her mouth!), and was extraordinary good about bridling (for her). I opted to try while she was crosstied in the closed-in washstall, so she was secured and also had nowhere to back up. Normally, I do not EVER try to do something difficult when the horse is tied or crosstied, just in case something terrible happens and they set back or get tangled, but I decided to give it a try. Much to my surprise, while she raised her head and rolled her eye a bit, she stood still and allowed me to touch and pet her head, and put the headstall on without further issues. She took her cookie with an air of, "well, I suppose that wasn't so bad." I think that it will just take time, just like with everything else. The more times I handle her head and bridle her, the more she will realize that she has neither died nor been clubbed over the head in the process. It will become run of the mill, like blanketing and haltering. (The sight of a halter or blanket used to send her into a panic!)

I think she's about ready for a noseband, too!

Following her grooming session, I took her into the arena for some more lunging and grounddriving. This was a big step, seeing as I have only driven her while in the roundpen, which is obviously a much smaller area. She has done very well with it, so I decided it was high time to start working in a larger area. Little did I know it, but I was in for a big surprise!

It started off fine, with her lunging in both directions like a champ. She has given up the pulling, thank god, and now stays nicely with light tension on the line the entire time. We finished with a nice whoa, and hooked up the lines for grounddriving. It started off relatively innocuous, for the first 5 seconds or so... and then a truck unloading hay backfired right next to the arena. She spooked, spun around in shock, and found herself facing me with pressure on her mouth. I tried to quiet her and move towards her, but she had absolutely none of that, and threw it into reverse. Backing turned into scooting sideways, which turned into trotting, which turned into an outright bolt. I'm not He-man, and running behind her trying to stop her is most certainly terrifying (and totally impossible to boot), so I did the only thing I could do - I let go. She zoomed to the far end of the arena, rounded the corner, and came back up the long side, where she came to a stop and stared at me from a distance. "You are a silly girl," I told her as I approached. She continued to stand and look at me, a little unsure but unmoving. I caught her, loved on her for a minute, and rearranged my lines. "Walk on," I told her. She did. A minute up the way, at the same spot she had spooked in before, she started to jig forward. This time, I gave her the whoa command, and she stopped dead and turned her head to look at me while I praised her. She went on to have a great session, with calm walk-ons and whoas, and lots of steering in both directions.

I consider this session to be a huge success. Yes, it started out not so great, but the fact that she not only was able to be caught after she had been scared so badly, but was able to put her fear aside and get back to doing her work, means far more to me than what happened in the beginning. It also makes me very happy that I have this mare, and not someone else - someone else might have caught and punished her for her "naughty" behavior to start. I cringe even thinking about it. 

Yesterday was supposed to be her second ride (and today her third), but considering that she had been pushed to the limit on Thursday and that she had responded beautifully, I decided to back off and give her a day to just relax. This is not a mare that can be pushed and pushed - she works best when she is pushed, then the pressure is taken off for a day. She is not game for continual challenges. Maybe someday she will get to the point of having the mental mettle to deal with it, but for now, there is no need to overly stress her. Slow and steady wins the race... if you do anything wrong at this stage, they don't forget it, so it is better to just take your time and go as they are ready. This horse of all horses is NOT going to be the one that goes from zero to w-t-c broke in 30 days. As they say, "take the time it takes so it takes less time!" - erasing a bad experience takes five times as long as it does to give them a slow and good experience in the first place, if not longer. 

We had another big change today - we moved barns. I didn't speak about it before, but ever since the failed roundpenning attempt, there has been awkwardness and some bad blood at the barn. Immy was tagged as a nuisance following this, and was blamed for a few incidents that she had little or nothing to do with. (A gelding chased a filly into a fence repeatedly, and Immy was blamed for it, because supposedly the gelding fell in love with her? The girl that witnessed it said that my mares were getting chased by the gelding too, but the next day I was told that it was Imogen's fault. I don't know. One of a few incidents.) Being at the barn was stressful and awkward, and we all were getting increasingly unhappy. Immy's interaction with the other people at the barn was sending her into an emotional tailspin. I had already been considering hightailing it out of there when the BO texted me and said that she needed to downsize on her boarders due to unforseen circumstances, and wanted to give them all a head's up. I volunteered straight up to leave as soon as I could, and frankly I couldn't wait to get out of there. It is a risk you take when you move to a new barn - no matter how pretty the facilities are, you just never know what kind of a situation it is going to end up being. I feel relieved to be out... very, very relieved. It wasn't worth the stress. 

The girls are now in a situation that had been offered to me long ago, but I never took until now. They have a big paddock (with an awesome shed) all to themselves, and have all the high quality tim/orchard they could possibly want. Best of all, they both stay for free so long as I help feed the other two horses on the property!   

Girls dressed and ready to leave the other facility and head to their new home:

They look so snazzy in Gogo's light blue stuff! Quincy's things were all red, and Metro's things were all purple, but light blue is my choice from Gogo on!

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I haven't posted it yet, but I have a few yearly goals made up for Imogen! These are more or less set in stone, except for when they aren't. Especially with a horse like Immy, her state of mental being will dictate where we are in terms of goal completion more than anything. If something is going to be too much for her, we will work on it in stages, but we're not pushing for anything. We have time, and we'll get there.

2013 Goals:

1) Make bridling a total non-event!

2) Be able to body clip by next winter - including bridle path and face!

3) Be going W-T-C decently by the end of Feburary

4) Be jumping small things by June

5) Be able to attend an event (schooling) by the end of December

I think it is lofty, but doable. By going W-T-C, I don't mean able to jump out and go do a great dressage test, I mean going comfortably and confidently with rhythm relaxation at all three gaits. I think, with that in place, it will be perfectly doable to be jumping little bitty bits by June. The big goal is to be able to attend a schooling show by the end of the year - and there are loads of schooling shows in the area to choose from! Again, as always, this is going to be dictated by her more than anything - if she isn't ready for something, she won't be pushed. So long as we are making forward progress, I will be happy no matter what.

January Goals:

1) Be going W-T (and maybe try a little C?) by the end of the month, in the roundpen (maybe try a little in the arena, depending on how she does)

2) More desensitization with the clippers!

3) Have dentistry done

4) Pull entire mane

5) Continue with the theme of relaxation - in everything we do!

There are also a few cavalletti at the new place... I think it is about time to start using them!

Interference of the Bad Kind

Well! We've had an interesting (and not in the good way) few days. As a preface, everything seems to be back to normal... I hope!

As you know, I rode Imogen for the first time on Sunday, and it was fantastic. I gave her Monday off, and all  I did with both girls was to let them out of their runs at the end of the day (they had been up because of the rain). Nothing out of the ordinary happened... all was well. The next day, Tuesday, I had plans to pull the girls up and give them a good grooming, and give Immy a second day off. Both girls were standing near the gate when I arrived, waiting. Much to my surprise, when I went to go catch her and bring her in, she raised her head in alarm and moved away from me, turning on one heel and bolting off. Uh.... okay.... not normal. She wouldn't even come near me after that. I never ended up catching her at all. P came up and had dinner, then went back out again and left. Immy kept coming to the gate, but any time I walked towards the gate myself, she took off again. Eventually, I just gave up and went home, leaving her standing by herself at the gate. She was still there when I drove away, waiting for me to catch her but not wanting to be caught all the same.

Okay... what was going on?

The next day I arrived at around the same time, and both girls as usual came to the gate when they heard people arriving. Another boarder had arrived at the same time as I did, and she went into the pasture to bring her horses in first. Both P and Immy were at the gate when I arrived, but when I went out to catch them, they were gone. P came back within short order, but when I went to catch her, she too threw her head up and backed away, like she was afraid of being struck or chased. P is never, EVER, hard to catch. "Did you shoo them away from the gate?" I asked the other boarder. She replied that yes, she had chased them off to get her horses in. My heart sank as I spotted Immy down the hill, standing still and watching me with an eagle eye. The moment I turned to face her, she galloped in the other direction.

I understand now. She is getting aggressively chased away whenever anyone goes out to catch their horses... that terrifies her. Absolutely terrifies. I had no idea if I was going to be able to catch her... she wouldn't let me within 30 feet of her without galloping away. 

I enticed the yearling in the pasture over with a bunch of cookies in my pocket. It didn't take long before Immy's curiosity got the best of her, and she too came over and got a cookie from me. I stroked her cheeks for a minute, and then moved to touch her neck with my hand. Just the motion of raising it made her recoil in fear, and she bolted. (The "shooing" motion that scares her so much.) I couldn't get near her again, and night had completely fallen by this time. Over a half hour into it, I was nowhere near catching her.

I needed to get her to switch from right brain to left brain, and walking her down was never going to work. 

It was time for Plan B. I poured a whole bunch of cookies into a bucket, took it out into the field, and shoot vigorously. Hey, I'm not above bribery when I need it.

It worked like a charm. Immy and the filly came over, and after some nervous snorting, they both stuck their noses in the bucket started to snack away. I was able to reach up and pet Immy on the neck, and she no longer flinched away. I had a rope around her neck within short order, and was able to put her halter on with absolutely no fuss at all. She gave me her best Joyful Cookie Face, and I brought her up for dinner. She was a changed woman - all over me, cuddling up to me, happy to be in my presence and happy to be touched and loved on. 

Well... I guess we know the problem now. We can't have this happening though. She is nowhere near ready to have interactions with strangers, much less negative interactions. 

I formulated a new plan for the week: 

Wednesday: Just be able to catch her and love on her (SUCCESS!)

Thursday: Groom, love on, low-key lunging without bridle (SUCCESS!)

Friday: Lunging/Grounddriving with bridle

Saturday: Ride

Sunday: Ride

As per my schedule, I caught Immy, gave her a thorough grooming (including a leg wash), and lunged her in just a halter in the big arena. I wanted to keep everything low-key and stress-free, and was very successful in that pursuit. She was happy, relaxed, and peaceful in the crossties, happy to have her grooming and eat her cookies. She lunged like a perfect angel. To top it all off, she let me PULL HER MANE!! Or well, part of it... but it is DEFINITELY a start! It wasn't that long ago where I couldn't even cut it with scissors without her completely losing her mind, so this is a HUGE step for us. I only did a small portion of her mane at the base of her neck, but everybody has to start somewhere. Amazingly, after some preliminary wiggles, she stopped moving and let me do it without fuss. I kept shoving cookies into her mouth every time she let me pull without moving, so she had some pretty good incentive to hold still. 

Not saying it for sure helped or did not help, but when I first crosstied her, I tried out my bottle of Soothe Me spray from Zephyr's Garden (I LOVE their products and can't say enough good things about them!). She was very, very peaceful... maybe it helped! I am trying out the Soothe Me, Calm Me, and Settle Me sprays... I firmly believe in their other products, and regularly recommend them to clients and friends alike, so I can't wait to see if this helps her too.

There is supposedly some wintery mix coming in tonight (maybe, possibly, no idea... Texas weathermen can NOT predict winter weather to save their lives!), so we'll see what we have to work with tomorrow!

AND! January Goals and 2013 Goals coming up soon! 

2012 Year In Review

Without further ado, here is Imogen's 2012 Year in Review! I can't believe I have been working with her for an entire year now! Added in are November and December from 2011 as well, when I first started to play with her!

November/December 2011:

I give the best synopsis of Imogen's history (then known simply as Bay Girl) that I can, and start to play with the then half-wild, uncatchable, terrified little mare in the last week of November. I am able to catch her (mostly), watch her freak out and need to be sedated for the farrier, and am able to crosstie and brush most of her body. I make plans for December, and am able to pick up all four feet without getting trampled or kicked. I manage to get a blanket on her, but have some trouble getting it off! I learned just how panicky she could be about having her face touched (and couldn't properly crosstie her or put a halter on her), but she became increasingly friendly and easy to catch, so we let her out into the mare field (she had been living in a small pen). And she was still catchable!

January 2012:
We make some goals for January, and tackled blanketing some more. I try and fail to get Bay Girl to take a cookie from me - she is convinced they are poison and wants nothing to do with them. I hatch a master plan on how to make deworming less of a nightmare, and am completely foiled by a clever little Mustang. By the end of the month, she takes a cookie from me after all!




February 2012:
I am told at the start of the month that Bay Girl will be leaving to go have her foal (due in March) at another facility and that she won't be back. I am absolutely heartbroken over this. I try to stay positive, focus on my incoming Pangea (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!), and have lots of fun when she arrives. Bay Girl leaves at the end of the month.... I say a miserable goodbye to her and fully expect to never see her again.

March 2012:
I get a text on my birthday that Bay Girl has had a colt! We share the same birthday, and all went well. Best birthday present ever! And I get even BETTER news at the end of the month - the two of them were COMING BACK to our facility!! I'd see my beautiful girl again after all!!




April 2012:
Mid-April, Bay Girl and her colt Elvis arrive back at our barn. Bay Girl is skinny but very slick and shiny in her new summer coat! I don't get to do much with her, given the fact that she now has a colt (who belongs to someone else) at foot, but I do manage to play with her a bit and get a flymask on her. Through a series of pulled strings, I managed to figure out the embryo transfer facility that Bay Girl belongs to, and make contact with them, FINALLY. They tell me all the mares are up for grabs for $1k, and I put it out on my blog to see if anyone would like to chip in for her. In just a few days, we have over $400, and the number grows every day!




May 2012:
I still can't do much with Bay Girl, given the Red Pest at her side (who is quickly turning into a large PITA), but deworming day comes and goes without fuss! She is now so catchable and friendly that I take a huge leap of faith and remove her catch halter - the first time it had been off in many, many, many months. I manage to convince her that other kinds of cookies aside from the ones she is used to are ok to eat, I muse on whether or not she is just a plain bay or actually a rabicano, and the donations reach $700!!




June 2012:
It's official, she is in fact a rabicano! There is a lot of speculation on whether or not her GIANT ENORMOUS BELLY has a secret baby in there... it is definitely a bit concerning! The Red Pest begins creep feeding, and I continue to play with Bay Girl whenever I can (hard with the colt hanging around causing trouble). To my complete amazement, donations reach $999 at the end of the month - WE DID IT! Now... WHEN would this become reality?
Looking back at the next picture and comparing it to now, I can't believe how much her body has changed!!




July 2012:
Elvis celebrates his 4-month birthday. I get a taste of how fragile our relationship is when I accidentally poke her in the eye with her flymask. (Thankfully this was shortlived.) The two of them temporarily get another mare and foal to hang out with, but only for a few weeks (and I laugh a lot at the size difference between Elvis and the other foal, who is only 2 weeks old - she can literally walk underneath him!) Other than that, I don't get to do much with her, much to my dismay. There literally isn't any way to work with her with the Red Pest around, other than to catch and groom her.

August 2012:

I continue to wonder whether or not she is pregnant - I don't think so, but her belly is definitely HUGE. I struggle to get ahold of the ET facility vet, but after much trying, I finally track the guy down and strike a verbal deal with him. Now all we need is for the foal to be weaned and for the lessee to return her to the ET facility! As luck would have it, weaning day arrived at the end of the month, and Bay Girl went back out into her old field with her old friends while the Red Pest stayed up in a front field with his babysitter. It was very low drama, although Bay Girl did not appreciate the way her new herdmates bullied her for a few days! I talk to the ET facility, and all they need is for the lessee to terminate the lease and to bring her back, and a check! The waiting game begins!

September 2012:

I figure out how to avoid the deworming issue. 9/11 come and goes, and I write about being an American. The lessee is completely AWOL, and Bay Girl is still at the main farm and not yet mine. I get tired of waiting, and decide to begin training her in earnest, starting with lunging loose in the roundpen. She is a quick study, and is doing walk-trot-whoa by the end of her first session, and walk-trot-canter-whoa by the end of her second. She even wears a saddle pad for the first time without fuss! She also gets a new name: Imogen!

October 2012:
Imogen has her first lunge lesson with an actual lunge line, and she nails it. She also wears a surcingle for the first time, and also nails it! (She also comes into flaming heat.... thankfully she is NOT pregnant!) The one-year anniversary of Gogo's death comes and goes, and I write about never being the same again. Imogen wears a bridle for the first time and does quite well, aside from an unsurprising amount of confused mouthiness! Putting the bridle on proves to be a problem, but wearing it is just fine. Despite the fact that Elvis was weaned two months prior, she is still at the main farm!

November 2012:
I FINALLY BUY IMOGEN! A few days later, I trailer her home, where she makes fast friends with Pangea. We lunge for the first time outside of a roundpen, and she does quite well! It takes a little while to transition her off of her sweet feed and oat diet to her new healthy diet (and who can blame her, why eat salad when you can eat candy?), but eventually she decides that it is tasty enough to snarf down with ease. She wears a saddle for the first time (!!!!), and we work on lunging in full tack, and wonder how to help her with her earshy problems. She also wears a big rope saddle, and doesn't care! I also teach her to pony off of Pangea, and she does wonderfully. We are well on our way to saddlebroke!

December 2012:
Imogen goes into the AquaTread for the first time, and does GREAT! She gets ponied out on the trail for the first time, and doesn't bat an eye at anything, not even when we have to walk over logs and go around the stock pond. We move facilities, and she absolutely loses her mind - she is anxious, hot, and very stressed right from the get-go. (But we do get some productive work in.) I let the barn owner roundpen her, and while it goes okay the first time, it is a complete disaster the second time. I abandon the idea, give her a week off, and have been at odds with the barn owner ever since. She loses weight very rapidly, and I cut back on her workload and up her feed. I attend an awesome large animal rescue class, and we ground drive for the first time - and she does great! Christmas comes and goes, and when I return we get back to lunging, ground driving.... and OUR FIRST RIDE. She does GREAT!!!





It is amazing to see where she has come from where she was. There is still a VERY long way to go, but the sky is the limit now. I believe in her, and I believe in us. We can do anything we set our minds to, so long as we have each other.

The past two days have been full of drama and bad things, but that is a story for tomorrow. For tonight, I choose to look back and remember... and look ahead and smile. 2013 goals coming soon!

FIRST RIDE!

WE DID IT!!! Oh, I have dreamed of this day for so long!!!

We've been prepping for this day for a very long time. To go from a horse that couldn't even be haltered in a stall to this.... there really aren't words for it. Miles and miles of prep work on the ground went into this day, and it all paid off. Despite it being cold, windy, and generally miserable outside, I decided to suit up and decide whether or not to get on depending on her demeanor today.

It almost was a no-go. She was up, hot, and reactive, and was especially disagreeable about bridling today. I've been bridling her in the roundpen, just so that we have more room to maneuver, but she has not improved yet. Bribery with treat and praise have not helped either - when it comes to things that really concern her, she shuts her mouth tight and refuses to take a cookie. I tried a new tactic today that actually worked surprisingly well, despite the drama involved leading up to it - pull headstall up over her head and attach the throatlatch before the headslinging begins. When she made her move to flail, it didn't come off, and she stopped her thrashing and looked at me in a sort of "um... now what? Can you help please?" way. After that, she let me pull both ears through for the first time EVER. Once the headstall is on, she opens her mouth happily and takes the bit, and she wears the entire thing without any sort of fuss or care. But those EARS. I am also dying to give her a bridlepath, but there is absolutely no way on this planet that it will happen anytime soon. She is going in to have her teeth done in a week or two, and when she is sedated I will have the vet check her ears for ticks or other nasty things, just in case. (And maybe when she is drugged I can do something about the bridlepath... maybe). She likely also needs a chiro adjustment at the poll... just... HOW to have that done when she is still so afraid of having it touched? She is still terrified of strangers as well... we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. How to explain to her that good things come from having your head touched? She is simply not bribe-able... no amount of cookies or pets convinces her that it is worth it.

Anyway. 

After a brief bit of lunging, I spent ten or so minutes doing additional desensitization work with the saddle. I've already done a lot of this, but it never hurts to do more - get on and off the mounting block, stomp on it, slap the saddle, bounce the stirrups, lean on her, pat her on the bum, stand in the stirrups, etc. I did this on both the left and right sides, the right being her more reactive side. She was still a little bit tense and jumpy, but she relaxed into it. Once I felt she was ready, I turned on the camera and went for it.

And she was GREAT. She did exactly what I expected her to do, especially given the bit of bad weather we're currently having. When my right leg materialized out of nowhere on her right side, she went WHOA WHERE DID THAT COME FROM? and scooted. She is a quick little thing, that is for sure! Hours of practicing "whoa" and standing still paid off at that point, and she stopped and stood quietly. More hours of teaching the command for "walk on" and making sure her hotheaded little self knows the difference between "time to walk nicely forward" and "time to GO" also paid off, and she listened to the verbal command for walk. It took a very long time and hours on the lunge to convince her that it is okay to just walk forward quietly instead of zooming off straight away into a power trot whenever she is asked to move forward, but I am certainly glad that she finally has the idea down. The prep work with grounddriving also came in handy, and she already knows how to steer and how to follow verbal commands from behind her. She has seen me plenty of times from Pangea's back, and so the idea of me being up there wasn't totally foreign. It all came together into exactly what I expected her first ride to be, and nothing unsurprising. I opted to go without a handler, simply because other people still scare her half to death. She knows me and had her full attention on me, and it worked. I don't normally get on youngsters without a handler, but I was glad I did in this case.

The video is a bit long and is a little bit boring, but it is worth it!

We have a very unpleasant widespread soaking rainstorm heading into the area tonight, and it is supposed to continue to rain and be generally crappy all day tomorrow. The girls are up in outside stalls for the night (there are trees in the pasture but no actual shelter or windbreak), and will probably be stuck there all day tomorrow as well. Immy will have a few days off for sure to mull this riding thing over, and we'll start up again later in the week. SO AWESOME!!

The girls say, aw crap, for real?

Dear Mother Nature...

.... can you STOP being awful for 5 seconds so I can get Immy under saddle please? 

Christmas is finally over, and the New Year is right around the corner. (I know... where did the year go!?) I spent most of Christmas Day fretting over my girls, watching the radar as a massive winter storm came crashing into Texas, wreaking total havoc and bringing several inches of rain, snow, ice, and subzero temperatures with it. I had left Immy in a medium and P in a sheet, due to the fact that I knew the chilly weather was coming, but the days preceding were nearly in the 70's. The last time somebody other than me changed their blankets, Immy bolted with her blanket still half on (thankfully she managed to slip out with only mental trauma to show for). When I went on vacation, I left no instructions for blanket changes - I didn't anticipate that it would need to be done. Poor chillybears!

Thankfully, they survived the weather unscathed. When I got home, it was absolutely frigid (for Texas) and  snow was still on the ground (completely unheard of for this area). P, who had been in the sheet, was most happy to see me coming with a heavier blanket - usually she is the one who prefers to be naked, but not that day!

By Friday, everything had completely melted. This unfortunately meant that everything that had previously been frozen had now become total mush. The arena was soggy, so that was out. The roundpen is obviously covered, but the tractor lives in there. This usually isn't a problem - I just move it myself, and put it back when I am finished - but the ground outside the roundpen was far too soft and squashy for heavy machinery (one quick way to tick off your barn owner is to tear up their grass!). That left me with a single option: ponying! Braving the elements, I suited the girls up with a quarter sheet and a cooler, respectively, and headed out to the big pasture. Immy was a bit jumpy to start out - unfortunately, I had to whack P when she tried to bowl me over on the way out, which scared Immy half to death - but once I was up there, everything was fine. We had a little bit of trot time near the end of our ride, but unfortunately, P felt awful behind. Going into the new year, I'd like to alter her schedule some, and move her to poolwork and some light trail work and ponying only. I think that is probably about all she'll be able to handle from now on, poor old thing. 

Happy girls eating their dinner:

Today was a bit of a fiasco, all things considered. I had a horrible day from start to finish, and was exhausted by the time I got to the barn. The schedule that seems to work best for Immy is to work her one day, then give her the next off for just loving and feeding and happytime, then work her again the following day. (My goal here is to maintain her trust and our friendship, and to never have her anticipate my coming with work or  other unpleasantries). While they were eating their grainfoods this evening, I thought I'd take the opportunity to give P a quick shave and a haircut. Out came my quiet little Wahls, and the Bearded Lady was tackled. With her shaggy goat whiskers and bridlepath gone, I turned around, facing Immy with the clippers still running. The second I did it, and even though I was several feet away from her, she took off. Ooookay then... I guess we need to see that the clippers are not terrifying monsters!

Well, that was a huge disaster. I was able to catch her and touch her with the clippers off, all over her neck, shoulder, and cheek, but when they touched her nose (while off), she jerked violently and ran backwards. She finally touched them and let me touch her nose with them, but she was pretty sure they were going to bite her up until then. And then I turned them on, well away from her... and she bolted, again. I had a terrorized blur on the end of my lead rope, running around me in circles as fast as she could. With some work, I managed to touch her shoulder, neck, and cheek with the Buzzing Death Machine, but she was absolutely panicked inbetween her bouts of brainwaves. She did get to the point of reaching forward and touching them with her nose of her own accord while they were on, but it scared her half to death when she did. The clippers were on for so long that they finally died, but it ended on a good enough note. By this time, however, she was so freaked out that I couldn't even put her leadrope over her back without her bolting off again. She was shredding the grass in the small pen she was in with all of her mad galloping, so I finally just gave up pretense and took her into the arena for some additional desensitization. To her credit, having a leadrope tossed over you while you have a noisy blanket on is definitely different from having a leadrope tossed over you while you are naked, so that did not help matters. Doubly not helping matters was the fact that my seriously neurotic Monster dog was completely freaked out by the entire thing (serious separation issues, and something fast and scary was happening with mommy... must run into the pen and help! Must growl at scary horse! Must run under mommy's feet!). Yelling at Monster dog to get out of my way so she didn't get run over/trampled/kicked/stepped on only scared Immy more... the neverending cycle! (Seriously though, the dog has mental issues.... she puts herself at risk daily in her desperation to be wherever I am. She gladly throws herself in harm's way just to get to me. If there was a swirling river of lava between the two of us, I have absolutely no doubt that she'd jump in and try to swim across to get to me, even if I was telling her from a distance not to.) 

In the arena, I was able to toss the leadrope over her from both sides, and she finally relaxed a little bit. We ended the session with lots of face rubs and pets, and she actually mentally came back to me very well. She doesn't always, so that was definitely a positive thing.

Touching her nose and face with my hand is fine with her at this point... touching her nose and face with anything else is not fine. (Exception to this: brushes and combs. She likes to be brushed and fussed over, so these things are ok in her mind). I have to keep telling myself that it wasn't that long ago that I couldn't touch her face at all from the cheeks forward - hell, I couldn't even crosstie her because it freaked her too much to get that close to her face! - so this is just another step in the process. We'll definitely be working on the clipper issue. At some point, just like everything else that used to scare her to death (remember how terrified she was of blankets and legstraps? The first time a legstrap touched her leg, she did the same terrified bolting!), she will realize that it isn't out to kill her, and life is still ok. 

Tomorrow we'll do more desensitization work with the saddle - I've already leaned on her and put my feet in  stirrups and stood with my full weight on her (more elaboration tomorrow!), but I've only done it from the left side. She needs more right side work, and then she'll be ready for her first ride!

Mare-y Christmas!

I know I've been super busy and totally AWOL for the past week - Christmas has been severely hectic this year - but we still want to wish all of you Happy Holidays and a very Merry Christmas!

Top is of Gogo, middle is Metro, bottom is Quincy. No new pics of my babies simply due to lack of time, and I'm out of state at the moment!

 
 

I know I post something similar every year, but my oh my how time flies, and how we change. That picture of Quincy and I is a decade old.

We'll be back to the grind come Wednesday, so stay tuned! Happy and safe holidays everyone!