Crazy Progress

In a few ways the last week has been about progress. First of all, I have a dressage lesson!!! It is on a 4^th level schoolmaster which will be incredible and it is at a barn that I would love to move Katai to. I set the lesson up partly so that I can figure out if I would like to take lessons with this instructor in the future and partially so that I can ask questions about boarding there. It seriously seems too good to be true with WAY nicer facilities than I am at now, closer to home, and although at a higher cost it is still reasonable. I am concerned that they may not have any openings or have a wait list so I am anxious to talk to the instructor at my lesson on Monday.

The other progress has been with Katai. We are having another nasty cold streak so I decided to just do ground work on Monday as well as treating hooves and feeding supplements. With my concerns about Katai’s heavy coat and my ability to ride her even lightly if it gets around freezing I’ve made clipper desensitization a priority. Since I seem to have misplaced my other trimmer I picked up one of those noisy little Wahl clippers at the feed store to use instead.

Mostly I have been able to desensitize Katai to everything but there have been two things that are so far that she wants nothing to do with and those are/were clippers and fly spray. NOTHING else has given me anywhere near the trouble as those have but for whatever reason on Monday she was extremely calm. I was able to rub them all over her while on and even trimmed a bit of her long mane hair since I needed to get her used to that other sound.  I was extremely impressed and gave her a break during our time tonight so that I don’t push too hard and burn her out.

 

Speaking of Sweater Weather

 

I think I’m going to need to do a trace clip at some point. Pony has four inch long icky hair and her eyeballs were sweating after a short amount of trotting. I had to walk her for about half an hour alternating cooler and bare to cool her to the point where I was comfortable putting her out and that was only because it wasn’t windy since she was still a bit wet. I’ve never clipped a horse before but I’ve clipped a lot of goats for dairy shows and 4-H so I get the concept however I don’t have a clipper.

I did have a trimmer but it mysteriously disappeared and it wouldn’t have done the job anyway. I was mainly using it for desensitization since it was useless for anything I wanted to do including trimming her bridle path. That means that I am in the market for a clipper. No one at the barn has them so there aren’t any that I can borrow. As mostly casual trail riders my fellow boarders don’t have the need since they mainly stay at the walk and don’t ride unless it is nice out with only a couple of exceptions.

I’m hoping to stay in the $90-$150 range and it doesn’t need to be extremely high powered since I’m mainly planning on doing a light trace clip on a very small horse as needed during this time of the year. I’m willing to take my time but I want them to last and not be toooo noisy since it will already take a lot of desensitization. Do any of you have any suggestions of what works well or what to stay away from?

I've be looking at these and these.

In other news I was at the barn again tonight but I didn’t have a lot of time since I was going to hang out with EJ (my new boyfriend?) so I just did some stuff on the ground and medicated Katai’s hooves. Her new bridle came in the mail yesterday so I spent some time getting that set up and isn’t it cute!! I also worked with her on how to properly respond to pressure on one side. She’s been getting pretty frazzled when I ask her to yield her hindquarters and has been backing up and throwing her head around so I wanted to take it back a couple of steps and work from the ground. She figured it out fairly quickly and was much more relaxed with me on the ground.

 

The Thrush Saga

I’ve mentioned before that Katai has had awful, deep Suclosis Thrush for awhile and that I found out what it was and started treating in late October of last year. Well I’m still treating for it L

I’ve tried three different treatments for at least a month each and nothing has really worked. The best was when I could scrub out all four with a diluted Clorox solution, rinse, and then squeeze Pete Ramey Goo into the cracks in her frogs but with our temperature consistently in the single digits to double negative digits I just can’t do this right now. I was hoping that the frozen ground and snow would help me out and reduce the need for scrubbing but it doesn’t seem to be the case and I suppose that her interest in standing in poop isn’t helpful.

I’ve been doing research for awhile trying to figure out a solution that would work with the cold. I really don’t mind soaking and scrubbing and all but it is completely impossible in these temperatures and whatever I do needs to be consistent. Finally last night I randomly ran into a new option in the comments on a blog I was reading. The drug is called Tomorrow, which sounds to me like a song in a musical, and is used to treat Mastitis in cattle. However, from all of my following research last night reading hundreds of posts on forums, and blogs it looks like it is a wonder cure. I ordered 5 tubes, which sounds like it will be overkill from what I found and hopefully will take care of this nasty Thrush once and for all.

I am so hopeful that this will finally work since this whole thing has been driving me nuts. I can see how treatment could be lasting this long if I were being lazy, missing treatments, not doing what I’m supposed to be etc. but I’ve been squirting goo into her feet, picking them out extremely well and scrubbing them out with soap and water whenever possible and there is still literally no change. I’ve also changed her diet to include almost no sugars, added supplements that were supposed to help and increased her work to hopefully load her hooves/frogs and increase blood supply to help healing. Finally I’ve got a new farrier who is aware of the issue and did a GREAT trim on her last time which is a few weeks ago now. She is clearly less uncomfortable than she was before but I feel like I’m maintaining and really not gaining on ground on this thing.

I should mention that she is not and has not been lame but she is more sensitive to things like gravel than she should be and she doesn't love having me clean her feet. She was more uncomfortable in October which is what led me to figure out the issue and start treating in the first place and she is loads better now just not completely fixed and that's what is bothering me.

Fingers crossed…

In other news I had a WONDERFUL ride tonight. We are really starting to have some communication and even though she was actually a little naughty I was able to get her to lay off and keep working and we made real progress.

The Breakdown

 

 

To accomplish the big goals I need to lay out smaller items to fix, improve and correct. The following are my goals for the rest of February.

1. Lots of Miles – Both of us need time together mostly riding. She is weak, I’m still weak and I’m getting used to her movement and figuring out the communication between us. My goal is to ride her 4 times per week through the end of February.

2. Strength – I need to specifically address her weaknesses which will require more than just time in the saddle. For the rest of February my goal is to do carrot stretches before and after each ride and to introduce more cavaletti work.

3. Communication – Katai is doing really well and figuring out some of the more refined cues at this point, at least refined for a green horse :P, but I need to do more to introduce lateral movements since everything is built on that. My goal is to introduce some lateral work to every ride as well as doing some work on the ground to help her figure this out and figure out how to move laterally without a rider on the days that I don’t ride.

4. Trail Riding – I would LOVE to have nice enough weather to get her out of the arena occasionally in February. If we have reasonable weather my goal is to get her out at least once a week for a quick ride down the road.

During my ride on Sunday I really felt like I’m starting to trust her. She still has spurts of naughty behavior but I know exactly how far they will go at this point and I’m comfortable with how to correct her and move on. I feel like we are starting to become a team and that she is becoming a riding horse rather than just a baby/green horse. I think the main difference for me is knowing that I can do what I need to when I need to rather than needing to change my routine or actions to accommodate a green baby horse and it is a wonderful feeling.

Finally Some Photos

I have been completing missing out, and missing, the horse blogging community recently. Work has been nuts but we are finally fully staffed in HR so my work load is finally getting back to normal. 

The other issue has been the weather and while I am glad that we are finally getting some rain, I'm not happy that it has been interfering with my riding.

Overall though things with Katai have been great! I just started to introduce trotting under saddle and I'm taking it slow because of the cool weather and the fact that I'm stuck in a huge open field that at times make the pony feel like she has wings. She has been excellent though and I have no complaints about her behavior. In fact she had her feet trimmed for the first time by someone other than me last weekend and she was a complete angel, just nervous even though I kind of thought she might be naughty.

Our other project has been getting her to work through her back. For one reason or another, either breeding or conditioning since shes a shorty and always has to stretch up to do horse things, she has developed a very high headset when trotting. She is nice and relaxed and swingy through her back at the walk but the trot is a whole different kettle of fish.

I'd had side reins on her quite awhile ago a couple of times but it was clear to me then that she wasn't ready as she started to curl a bit. Since then she hasn't worn them at all but since recently she has been trying to root the reins out of my hands I thought that I might be able to work on two birds with one stone :)

Here is what I got. She was obviously still tight through the back and trying to avoid the side reins but she also balanced herself sooooo well and started to really use her hind end. You can see from these pictures how tight she is through her shoulder so that is certainly something we will be working on but her natural balance had me grinning the whole time.

She was really starting to get it at the end and was working nicely through her back so we ended on a good note.

I think the plan is to work her in side reins again next time for a short time in both directions and see if she remembers what she learned this time and then we'll go from there. I want to work more on trotting under saddle and while I know it will take her awhile to become comfortable and balanced with someone riding her it feels like I'm riding a giraffe right now so I need to do it in combination with this to help her learn to use her muscles correctly.

My Little Pony

Look at Katai's new duds!!!

She is going to be fully outfitted in her pony appropriate tack soon. Now I just need a cute matching saddle pad but that needs to wait until I get another good sized paycheck. All this came from the leftover money I had from my bonus after I finished paying my bills and credit cards.

Now I just need a clippers so she doesn't look like a Yak ;-)