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It’s Just That Simple

When something isn’t right with a horse, you start thinking about the possibilities that might be causing the problem. You run through the list of what you’ve experienced before and eliminate them one at a time. And so it was like this with one of the boarders horses this past week.

First thing I thought about is the fact that I ran out of Prascend. It was ordered, it just wasn’t delivered in time. I ordered it with 10 days left on the old box and it took 2 weeks from the distributor. The vet said he’d be fine, but he stopped eating.

Now this is a horse who is not a good eater to begin with. He’s 27 and needs everything I can get into him. When you add something different to his grain you have to do it so gradually, it makes you crazy. If he stops, you have to go back, remove it and try again.

He would eat half of what I usually give him, so I cut it back. He still would only eat half of the new amount. I smelled the grain, it was okay. Checked his bucket and there was noting odd in it. Gave it to another horse and he ate it no problem. Removed all the additives, like his Cosequin, Hoof Pellets, Moorman’s Minerals, Flax Seed, Finish Ultimate, and Beet Pulp, still wouldn’t eat the Sweet Feed.

I feed him separate of his buddy, because he’s a slow methodical eater. I know they are all getting their teeth done in the next couple of weeks, so I watched him chewing and he’s not dropping anything.

Then I had an “A Ha!” moment. As I turned him out with the other horse I noticed that he would go to the other horses bucket and see if he had left anything, then he tried picking up what was on the ground. Not that any of them leave their food. So the light bulb went off that said “he’s hungry!” just not eating his food. I went back and took what was left in his bucket and put it in the other horses bucket and, you guessed it, he wanted to eat it. Of course that didn’t happen because his buddy is more aggressive.

So back to his bucket I went. Is it the location of the bucket? Did something frighten him there? It is the same bucket he’s been eating out of forever. What is the problem?

Next feeding I brought down his bucket from his stall with his breakfast in it.

No problem, cleaned it down to the last little oat. It was the bucket, for whatever reason. It looked fine, smelled fine, but I scrubbed it anyway.

So life is back to normal again. It was just that simple, but the last thing I would have imagined. If the bucket was dirty, caked, or had an odor I could understand it, but it was fine. Must have had a strange smell in it that I couldn’t detect.

They make me crazy, but they give me stuff to think about and write about. Go figure.

People Training 101

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One of my new boarders asked the other day – “How is my horse doing?” My reply “good, he’s training me very well.”

After I said that to her I got to thinking. They really do try to train us. So do our dogs. Cats don’t really care if we’re trained or not.

The first few weeks a new horse comes in I just try to observe them and gradually get them accustomed to the routine around here. What time they get to eat is always a biggie. If they are used to eating at 4:00 p.m. convincing them that dinner isn’t served here until 8:00 p.m. is not an easy thing. Since I feed on an every 12 hour schedule, they just don’t get it. Most barns do it to make it easier on the staff who want to go home themselves for dinner. Being that they either have pasture or hay in front of them at all times, they have to learn that they are not starving to death if dinner isn’t there at 4:00.

So this horse tried the retraining theory on me. Didn’t work. Then while I was in the barn making grain up for the meal’ he tried galloping the pasture to hurry me along. He figured I’d run out and give him his food first. Not! He was brought in and put on the cross ties to watch me make up the grain and then we both walked quietly out to be fed.

You always have those that push you or the bucket to get you to dump it faster. Not! They get backed up and taught that they wait patiently and when they are quiet, I will dump it. If they paw at the stall door, the bucket sits out side the door and everyone else gets fed until they are finally quiet, and then I come back and feed them. They learn that any noise, like pawing or kicking, brings me out of the feed room without a bucket, and when they are quiet life is good. Oh those tiny love nips to get my attention back on them. Not at my farm. I bite back (with a pinch of my fingers).

Being quiet on the cross ties gets you a carrot. Impatient on the cross ties brings out the lunge whip. You never have to use it. Just the sight of it makes them stand at attention. They get the message really quick.

Dogs can try to train you too. None that I’ve ever had like the JR I have now. I now no longer have to sit on the floor with her. It worked when I wanted to sit on the floor and watch TV, but it gave her the control she wanted. Slowly I am still trying to convince her that I am the pack leader. She has been quite a challenge. Every 15 seconds I get, woof I want to get up on the bed, woof I want to get down. Okay she’s short and she wants to lay with Bob while he watches TV. The getting up I get because she is short, but if you want to get down, Jump!, you’re a Jack Russell terrorist. Now if I’m in the shower she sits there and does her woof thing. News flash! it’s not working, I’m not coming out.

Most of the time we don’t think about being the pack leader or the lead mare. We’re not even aware of the fact that they are training us so well. Watch their actions and how you respond. You might need to make some adjustments.

Wasn’t there a program on TV called “Charles In Charge” and “Who’s The Boss?”

So who really runs your barn or house?

Black Beauty

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We’ve all watched that movie, probably more than once. We cry every time when Joe walks past Beauty and Beauty realizes he knows Joe. Then Beauty tries to get Joe’s attention and the tears really start to flow.

How many of you have been in that situation? I rescued my mare from the auction and promised her that I would never let her go again. I stayed true to my word and loved her, and protected her, until her final days at age 36.

Recently a friend found a horse she had ridden as a kid. Once again she will take care of her until the end. Her mare is old and cannot be ridden, but she doesn’t care. She, like me, gave up the idea of having a horse she could show, to care for this mare.

Some people search, but never find the horse of their youth. Some people are lucky enough to have a Black Beauty ending, and some people never let them go in the first place.

I’ve always thought that there should be a site that you can post a picture of a horse your looking for, and perhaps, someone would see it and let you know where you can find them, or what happened to them. Now people are posting pictures of horses that were stolen from their yards. It’s a sick world.

When we’re young our parents or circumstances allow our most precious gift to slip through our hands. Most horses are passed, like Beauty, from owner to owner. Then when they get old, and have no use, find themselves in a bad situation.

It is my goal for any of the horses that come to this farm, to live out their lives in peace and contentment. That I will be the last person in their lives to give them food and love in a safe environment. If the owners are done with them, I will keep them. Abuse, starvation, or hard work will never touch their lives. They will not end up in a sand lot, or auction. They will lay down in green pastures and enjoy the sun on their bodies. They will eat until their bellies are full. They will know a soft touch, and feel the love they deserve. I will be there for them as they cross the Rainbow Bridge. They like Beauty, in their minds, will run freely with their friend through lush green pastures.

When you get older your goals change. You get down to your bucket list. Things you want to do before you die. Mine is very simple, to care for the animals that God has entrusted to me. This is my quest, my desire, and my ultimate goal. So let it be written, so let it be done.

Patience

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Last week I told the site to publish my post. Went back several days later and found it hadn’t published it. Let’s see what this week brings.

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It’s a required course with horses, and something I’ve always struggled with (with people).

Whatever you do, don’t pray for patience. I did for years until I realized how God handles this. He doesn’t just give you patience, he gives you circumstance to learn how to grow patience.

I’ve recently talked about patience in loading a horse, we all have experienced that, but there are so many more areas where patience comes in.

Training is a big area of patience. Some horses grasp the idea quickly, some do not.

You get frustrated and your adrenaline starts pumping. Your energy changes. Your body language changes, and you know that your horse is reading all this and then his energy changes and his fight or flight instinct kicks in. Life goes down hill rapidly after that.

This, however, is not the patience I’m dealing with today. My friend told me a couple of weeks ago that I had much more patience than she has. It’s not so much patience as perseverance. And truly, it’s more determination than perseverance.

My mare Friday injured her leg 25 months ago. The vet said she was done. I told her that I “believed”, and I told myself that every day when I went to treat the leg and wrapped it for two years. She is fine and galloping around the pastures like nothing ever happened. I gave her the two years that another vet had suggested and was just about to start her back to work and wham! a Stromal Abscess in her left eye. So once again she can’t be ridden. I’ve been dealing with this for three months. She goes back 3/19 for a recheck. So I’ve been dealing with four medications six times a day and now we’re down to four medications four times a day. (Still medicating only three four times a day after visit for another month.)

I made up my mind from day one that she was not going to lose this eye, not after two years of wrapping her legs. I’ve had horses who have lost eyes, but I wasn’t giving in to this one. (Not that I gave in to the others either.)

It’s up to you on what matters most. Horses might be one of the best teachers of patience, but only if you, as a student, are willing to learn. In the end, it does pay off big time. The satisfaction of knowing that you beat the odds is so empowering. (I’m waiting for the empowering thing.)

Patience, perseverance, or determination? It doesn’t really matter what label you put on it, the only thing that matters is that you follow through on what “YOU Believe.”

The Art Of Observation

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I had so many titles to pick from I couldn’t decide which one I wanted. “Cinderella at midnight” A little bit of knowledge” or the one I chose. This title is a more positive and constructive start to this post.

A little bit of knowledge can become so dangerous. Someone sees something that works with one horse and thinks they can apply it to another. Then add it being a strange horse and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. All I can do is sit here and shake my head.

Okay, here’s the set up. My friend and her teenage neighbor trailered to the other side of the forest for an afternoon trail ride. They had a good time and it was getting close to dinner so they went to load and go home. Well the neighbors horse wouldn’t load. (Let me say right here I do not know the trailer or the horse, nor the teenager either. That’s my disclaimer for this story.) So they tried for two hours to load this horse. A person riding by stopped and asked if they needed help. They accepted her offer and they put a rope behind the horse and it pretty much sat down and still didn’t get into the trailer.

So my friend says to me. I didn’t want to run a chain through this horses mouth, it’s not my horse. Say what!!!!!! Yes she saw me do that with the OTTB she had sold a year ago. I knew the horse. I knew the horse had been on the track. I knew I didn’t have to use the chain. The horse just dropped his head and followed me onto the trailer with a slack lead line. I saw the vet use it on the horse when she was doing something. All she did was put it in his mouth and he dropped his head and let her proceed. She explained it’s an old track thing and if it’s been done before you didn’t even have to make contact, they just relax and go with the flow. Now this woman thought about doing this to a horse she barely knew. If it was an OTTB it might have worked, or maybe not. If they applied pressure the horse could have panicked and hurt them, hurt himself, or flipped over backwards. The rest of the story is that my friend loaded her horse and brought him home because it was getting dark. Her husband came to the site and walked with the girl, through the woods, to get the horse back to her barn.

So I just put out that they needed to feed this horse in the trailer for a week and get him to like being in there. Well she said that the owner told her that he wasn’t food oriented and that she had suggested that. I said, “well then the horse just doesn’t trust them, and doesn’t respect them, and until he does, nothing is going to work.”

So she then tells me that they are going to do positive training. They are going to load him at home, take him to the same place, and then the young girl will ride him home. Hello????? Yup that’s positive training for sure. You’re positively training him that he doesn’t have to load to go home. Her response – I didn’t think of that.

Once again. Every time you work with a horse you are either reinforcing a good habit or a bad habit. Oh my.

No comment.

Zebra vs Horse vs Flies

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I just read a very interesting article from the University of Bristol, England.

They did a study on Zebras, Horses, and Flies.

Basically they found that flies will avoid Zebras, but will go to horses. Then they dressed horses in Zebra sheets and neck coverings and the flies avoided the horses too. They conclude that the stripes confuse the flies eyes. They do mine when I focus on them, but then, a lot of things confuse my mind lately.

They are also pursuing this thought with what might confuse driverless cars.

It’s a worthwhile read. You can find it under “Zebra stripes are dazzling – particularly to flies.” Or “Why do Zebras have stripes? Perhaps to dazzle away flies.” By Associated Press London.

Gives you something to consider while you wait for Spring to arrive.

Residual Effects

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Okay, I’ve already lost this one too.

Horses don’t always hold on to things they’ve been taught, or do they? As some people have selective hearing, horses sometimes have selective remembering. You’ve been there, conversation goes…… Rider – I taught you this last week, or we went down this trail yesterday, or you passed that rock every day of your life, what do you mean the boogie man lives behind it? Horse – I have no idea what you are talking about. Are you crazy? You want me to do what????

But there are things that happen to them that leave a lasting impression. Especially when the fight or flight instinct kicks in. They will remember anything they perceive as a threat to their life. Then comes your part where you have to convince them that you will protect them and, whatever it is, won’t hurt them. Not always an easy thing to do.

I’m dealing with several of those issues right now. Had an Equine dentist assistant whip my horse into a dental trailer. I’ve mentioned this before. She hesitated, he hit. There was no need for that. She always would load with no problem. Well it is a problem now. She will load, but not as easily as she used to.

Then there is the Intranasal Flu Vaccine. They all hate it. They have come up with a mist now which is supposed to be easier. Someone needs to convince my horses of that. Just when I start being able to worm this one horse it’s time for a flu mist and we’re back to square one with “your not getting anywhere near my nose ever again.” He just doesn’t get the concept of I’m heading for his mouth, not his nose, and the vet does the flu, not me. Someone roughed him up over the years and he’s not letting go of that thought.

Residual effects don’t go away easy, bet you’ve personally found that out once or twice.

So what do we do? Stay calm, be consistent, and be persistent. Be patient, proceed when you have plenty of time to work through the problem. Keep a calm energy, be soothing (if it’s frightening), and be firm (when it’s just resistance). They are like children waiting to see who gives in first.

It wouldn’t hurt to bring a drink, lunch, and sometimes, a sleeping bag. Only kidding, but I have brought a drink. When you feel you are tensing up, and your adrenaline starts pumping, stop. Drop your energy level to you toes, take a deep breath, relax, and start again. The more uptight you get, the less chance you have of success.

I’m always surprised at how long I can out wait a horse. Since by nature I am not a person of patience. However, with horses I am.

Remember when you were a kid (yes baby goat), and your mother wanted you to sit at the table until you finish something you hated to eat. Eventually you would fall asleep at that table, and your mom would let you go? Well don’t give in. You are stronger than your mother. You learned from her.

The key things to remember are time, patience, calmness, and determination. Never hurts to mention this again.

Still can’t find my grammar and spell check, use your imagination.

Which Came First The Chicken or The Egg?

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Let me start by saying, I lost my editor and spell check and I also lost this post once already. So if you see mistakes, I’m just thankful I have a post to have mistakes.

Okay, I’ve had tough cases before, but so far, this is the toughest.

It’s another one of those, multiple vets, xrays, MRI’s, Chiropractors, and ending up with a ton of different issues. This horse has issues from the tip of his ears to the bottoms of his hooves, and from his nose to his tail. The owner has finally found a vet that didn’t just write him off as a lost cause, but ………… He’s doing the pealing back the onion thing, but keeps finding more layers. He’s healing one thing and finding many others.

My thought was pull his shoes off, turn him out for a year and let his body heal, and then see what we are left with. However, this vet is set and determined to find out what it is now. I get it. The girl does want to show him before she’s not a Junior anymore, but my first reaction was “is he just milking them?” I spoke with him and he seems on the level, but I’m not a trusting person by nature.

How does an 8 yr. old horse have so many things wrong? I have 28 yr. olds that don’t have that many problems. From torn soft tissues to a kissing spine, inflammation in the foot to vertebrates that don’t line up. Lame in the right front, kicks out with the back left. The front right foot seems to be the major problem. The dreaded word “Navicular” was used with inflammation around the coffin bone. The owner read me the MRI report and everything that was mentioned was moderate. Nothing sent out a red flag and said “this is what the problem is.”

If it started in the foot, why are there so many issues in the rest of the body? My initial reaction was “this horse has been in a bad wreck. Warmblood, so not a starting gate accident. The trip from Germany? A trailering accident? Stall accident? Pasture accident? Was it from birth? Training? I asked the owner and she said that she totally trusted the breeders, but the daughter said that the horse did drift to the left when she tried him out. No one has mentioned that he was ever involved in an accident, but are they telling the complete truth? Perhaps they weren’t aware of the horse doing something stupid. Horses really don’t disclose when they do stupid stuff.

Now I haven’t even seen this horse yet. I pick him up in a couple of weeks. The vet was doing a nerve block on him and will let me know the results. That would have been one of my first thoughts, but that stems back from my old vet. “Start at the bottom and work your way up.”

So the bottom line is – did it start in the foot and create problems throughout his body? Or did it start in another part of his body and put too much on that foot?

I just can’t let go of how did so much go wrong in an entire body on such a young horse, in such a short time?

I’ll keep you posted as to what we come up with.

By the way, the chicken came first.

Jumper Course or Obstacle Course

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The other day, as I was walking up from the pond pasture, I was thinking about the next thing I had to tackle. You finish one project or disaster and you move on to the next. I thought – my life is like a Jumper Course, or maybe an Obstacle Course would better describe it.

When I was a teenage I could never remember my course except for the different jumps. I’d start at the vertical, go to the coop, come around to the stone wall, over the oxer, through the combination, around to the post and rail, down to the spread, and finish by jumping over the gate out of the ring. If they were all rails, well then I was in trouble.

So it is with life. I finally finished with wrapping the horses leg after two years, and now I’m onto the eye, then around to the abscess, down to the allergy sores, around to the dew poisoning, meds for the dogs, and help Bobby.

Actually thinking of it as a Jump Course at a horse show is more fun than the reality of “This Is Your Life.” For those of you who aren’t as old as I am, that was a TV show back in the late 50’s.

It’s really interesting as to how you view things. It could drag you down or make you laugh.

It’s your choice, but I’ll take the Jump Course and laugh as I cross the finish line. It’s not a timed event, so enjoy the ride.

Why Do You Do This?

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A woman who is a very prominent trainer in our area has sent several of her horses and clients horses to me both for lay-up and retirement. When she was visiting a month ago she asked me why I did this. She stopped me in my tracks. I had to think, which I try to avoid, why do I do this? Good question. I hesitated a bit too long and she said, “because you love this, that’s why.”

It started me thinking, really, why do I do this? I certainly don’t do this for the money. Nor do I do this to make a name for myself. I’m 71 years old and I don’t need to be unloading 1000 lbs. of grain. I don’t need to be out there treating an eye ulcer every four hours. I don’t need to be body slammed by a horse. So then why don’t I just retire and enjoy the rest of my life?

Probably because I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. Bobby would like to sell everything and go live on a boat cruising from place to place. Going north in the summer and south in the winter. That would get old. I need to be dirty. I need to look out across the pastures and see the horses grazing, napping, or just being horses. I need to have a purpose beyond walking the dog in the morning with a pooper scooper. Besides even if we get a mega yacht the horses would be bored (storing hay would be a problem with the salt air) and the Catahoulas would wreak havoc on the place. I would like to do it for a few weeks to a month like we used to. Not take the horses, just go away on the boat.

I loved teaching. I loved, really loved Fox Hunting. I guess when I used to show I liked that too, but why does anyone collect and take care of geriatric horses if they don’t totally love what they are doing? I certainly haven’t had time to ride lately. But what I used to get joy and comfort out of was just grooming and spending time with them on a one to one basis. Fussing over them. Haven’t had a lot of time for that lately. I really need to look at my workload and priorities.

So why do you do what you do? No, really? Are you in it for the money (not in the horse business), the love, the glory, or the satisfaction? Do you just do what you do mindlessly? Are you even aware of what you do? Are you really aware of why you do it?

It’s winter, it’s cold, it’s a good time to think, and remember why we do what we do. We do it because we absolutely love the glorious, gorgeous, animals who have our hearts. If you don’t feel that way I think you need to rethink why you do it, and take up another sport.

Horses are a spiritual thing, they capture our hearts and our souls, and that’s why we do it.