Consistency!!

Yes ladies and gentlemen we have it! I've always known that if I had something regular to work towards (like lessons) that I would be able to manage some of that consistency that I was lacking (plus lets face it, the weather has been reasonable finally) but I couldn't know until I tried! Since my lesson last Thursday I've worked with her or ridden every day including tonight and she has been great! She had her hooves trimmed on Sunday and they are looking way better and less thrushy. Our biggest struggle now is in gaining some strength, both of us. She isn't blowing or sweating much at all but she doesn't want to keep trotting and I can tell by the way she moves that it is still hard work. Luckily I know what to do about that :-)

Tomorrow I'm going to work her at a trot and canter on the lunge and then she will get Thursday off since I have a riding lesson set up for that evening.

I also managed to make some progress with clipper desensitization and was able to clip some of the hair on her shoulder with my itty bitty clippers. Next step is to work with her on the big girl clippers. I've been holding off on that step because she's got a vet appointment next Saturday where she is not only going to get her spring shots, and coggins but will have her teeth floated and her wolf teeth out. That's going to make riding out of the question for a little while and a bit out of the question for a long time. I'm planning on letting her recover for awhile and then will proceed with lunging and riding her in her halter until her mouth has completely healed but I will have plenty of time to work on clipping

Honestly the timing sucks but this needs to happen and it might as well be done sooner than later. Unfortunately my previous vet had told me she didn't have wolf teeth or I would have had this taken care of earlier but luckily a vet that was out for a different horse at this barn did me a favor and looked at her teeth to see if they would need to be floated and said that she did have small wolf teeth that should be removed.

Oh well, we will get some good bitless bridle time :-)