I’ve probably said this before, but it’s worth reposting.  It’s horrible to get old and stupid (I’m not senile, I’m stupid.  Stupid can be fixed, senile can’t.)  So I make notes, lose notes, make more notes, forget the notes on the kitchen table, or lose them in the bottom of my pocket-book.  So now I have several spiral notebooks around and write things in there.

Ran into a problem about a month ago with a new boarders horse.  The horse started coughing.  It wasn’t something the owner thought to tell me about, but when I mentioned it to her, her response was “oh yes, he does that whenever it gets dry and dusty.”  Well I have a few horses with runny noses due to allergies, and this one will now go on cough meds automatically this time next year again, before the problem gets ahead of us.

If you keep a record and notice a pattern you’re ahead of the game and don’t have to fret as to what is going on.

You can notice that some horses get runny noses certain times of year.  Some horses have a tendency to get a mild colic when the barometric pressure drops.  Some will develop a cough a certain time of year or because of allergies or dry, dusty conditions.  I had to change bedding because it was too dry and dusty for both me and the horse.  Then there are always reactions to some shots or food stuffs, dust mites, or mold.  When my vet said “dust mite” I rolled my eyes and said, what dust and cob webs.  We don’t have that around here.  Her response was that it’s just apart of a barn environment.  Seriously??? I hadn’t noticed that at all.

If you make notations on a calendar or a journal, you can check back to the previous year and see if there is a common thread to the problem.

Desert would get a mild colic if he got more than one shot at a time.  My neighbors horse would colic every time a front would come through because of the drop in the barometric pressure.  Bob’s Clyde mare would cough at the start of the hunt season for the first four years we had her which were caused by allergies to weeds.  Zoey has problems with her ovaries every August.

These are all things that happened the same time every year, and the only reason I knew that was because I made notes.  Whenever something would show up with a horse, I’d make a note and check back to see if it happened the same time last year and if the circumstance was the same.

Whether we are young or old, we cannot remember everything about every horse.  Especially if you have a barn where horses come and go.  If you only have one or two, you stand a change.  Get into the larger numbers, and you’re on your own.

“Write it down, make a little note.”  I know it’s a song and has nothing to do with horses or old age, but it makes sense, horse sense.