Canter Haunches-In!

Floaty trot from the other day at liberty! This was a tiny cell pic-I had to uber-crop it to get this image. But there you go! All 4 feet off the ground: she has SUSPENSION! :)

Here are the photos of Lily's feet that I had been meaning to post. These were taken a few days after my more aggressive trim and about 3 weeks after her trim with the farrier (in the first trim I did, which I mentioned in a previous post, about 2 weeks after her trim with the farrier, I had just rounded off the edges of her feet a little bit; you could barely tell I'd done anything). With this trim I did a little more:

Right front. Those toes grow so fast! A week later and they're already longer than this!

Right hind (yep, she was still resting the left hind here-these were taken last week). I put that mustang roll on there, though-I was really happy with that.

Left front

Left front. You can see the little crack I was talking about in my previous post-a result of the flare she gets on the medial portion of this foot. I had completely removed the flare prior to taking this photo.

Left hind.

Left front. Note the lateral heel (on the right of the photo) is more worn down than the medial heel. She's also trying to self-trim, as you can see by the big chip on the lateral wall of this hoof (right side of photo; almost even with my shoe.)

Left hind. Cotton was packed into the crevice; this was prior to treating. You can see why I had missed this problem before-I had just brushed the hell out of this hoof, and you still can't see the crack; it would get this packed in with dirt. Note also the stretched white line-the farrier should have corrected that with his trim, but it was never done. She also has a flare on her lateral quarters on this foot (right side of photo).

Right front. Again, medial heel (right side of photo) more worn than lateral. One thing I will give my farriers: they never over-trimmed her frog in the year that she had front shoes. Her foot will widen more in the back now that she is barefoot, but I was always happy that her heels never became contracted during her time with shoes.

Right hind. I like this foot-look at that huge frog! This is why I wouldn't DREAM of putting back shoes on her! But again there is some white line separation, and the heels here are also uneven.

I could still have done way, way more for her, but I'm afraid. I want to see a professional do it first before I do more.

Today, we lunged some more. Lily moved beautifully today, and I decided I'm just going to keep working her normally-she is completely tolerant of me cleaning her foot now, and her abscess is almost completely healed. We did a nice long slow warmup with walking, trotting, and some work over the trot fan pole (she remembered she's only supposed to trot over it!) to stretch her back.

Tracking UP! Working that engine!

Taking a break and looking pretty. You can kind of see her dapples in this one.

I also set up a cross rail and then a vertical using 2 of the blue water barrels as jump standards, and lunged her over. Here are a few so you can see. She has a nice little bascule but doesn't quite know yet what to do with her legs. We only jumped each one (the crossrail and then the vertical) 3 times in each direction so as not to overstress her tendons.

Dangling her legs over the little crossrail

She really used her back over this one, taking a shorter spot while lifting over the top of her body and really pushing with her hind legs. This is why we do these exercises.

A very nice, relaxed and easy jump over the vertical, about 2'6" high.

Leaping over the little vertical diagonally-I kept setting her up funny in this direction, but she tried her heart out anyway.

Afterwards, I actually stood up the barrels, set up a higher crossrail, which we also did 3 times in each direction, then I made a vertical, with one pole across the top of the barrels. This jump was a good 3', if not higher.

I had Lily jump it twice in each direction. Going to the left, she leaped into the air, but took down the pole, first with her front legs, then with her back legs on the second try. Like I said-she just needs to figure out what to do with her legs! But her jump was very good. At this point Diana arrived, and for once I had a witness!

With Diana in the arena with me, watching, I switched directions and had her circle to the right to approach the jump. She refused 3 times in a row because she was coming in flat, without impulsion. I knew she was also tired-she's not used to jumping, which is why we were only doing a few reps each way, but it's great cross-training for her-dressage tends to make horses tight across their backs, while jumping and work over cavaletti and ground poles helps to stretch and release their back.

On the 4th attempt, she bounded into the air, completely clearing the jump without touching it. I had her do it a second time, just so we'd be even with the 2 jumps in each direction, and this time she clipped the pole again. I had her trot over the poles on the ground between the barrels so she'd finish knowing the poles wouldn't hurt her, and we left it there. She was blowing afterwards, but not exhausted, so I let her walk out for a good 10 minutes while chatting with Diana.

I then took her into the barn, hosed off her legs, front end and hindquarters, and turned the Farmtek fan on her, and she cooled down completely while I tacked her up for a ride. Diana and I were going to go out to the park, but the weather was being temperamental (as you can see by the photos-I saw several rain bands sweep by us) and didn't really want to get drenched again while on the trails. Plus the memory of the fall the other day was still a little too vivid. My elbow is healing up well, and thanks to lots of arnica salve over the last 2 days, my hip is sore only when I get stiff (after sitting down or when I first wake up)-I didn't even bruise! And my neck, which yesterday hurt more than my hip from the whiplash, is actually 90% better today, also thanks to generous applications of arnica.

Diana was relieved that I wanted to stay in the arena, because she didn't really feel like riding after all. So I rode while she did her chores.

Lily and I did one of our usual walk warmups-loose rein, then moving onto more collected work. We practiced the same lateral stuff from as of late for about 15 minutes, then I chose to just ask for a canter-she felt great: relaxed, loose and bendy. We cantered around twice in each direction, then tried lateral work at the trot. We hadn't really done this in awhile with her foot, so she kept breaking the trot to finish the moves at a walk. So on another gut feeling, I had her pick up the canter again. On the left lead, I let her trot into the canter, and then she was there. Right in front of my leg, up and collected. I gathered her up more coming into the corner and instead of letting her fold herself around the corner, I just stayed in the same position, asking for the same bend with Lily's body while allowing her to face the same direction we were going, and Lily tried. She had it for a second, broke into the trot, and I asked her for the canter again. Asked for the bend again, and she responded: BAM! Haunches-in, at the canter! It was only a slight haunches-in (kind of like what a shoulder-fore is to a shoulder-in), not a dramatic one like you would see in upper level dressage competition, but the bend in her body was there. We did a couple of strides of this, then I released her into a walk on a long rein. Circle and change direction, then I gathered her up again. She picked up the right-lead canter from a walk. Canter around the corner, and same thing again-maintain that bend, and she totally and absolutely nailed it, effortlessly. Lots of pats, and I gave her a long walk around the arena in both directions on a loose rein.

After that, we did some shoulder-in at the trot, then I let her zoom around the arena in what I call her medium trot. It's frustrating sometimes not having mirrors in the arena to check ourselves, but from what I saw of our shadow on the wall, we looked good!

Diana stopped by again to check on us and asked how Lily was doing, and I told her fantastically! I was trying to describe the canter haunches-in to her, and she asked if we would be able to repeat it so she could see. I told her we'd try, and explained it was only slight-I could see it and feel it but wasn't sure if it was marked enough to be visible from the side on the ground.

I asked Lily to pick up a right-lead canter (since this direction had been easier), and went straight down the short side, then maintained the bend going down the long side. I was able to push her hind end even more to the inside this time-Diana exclaimed when she saw it. Very, very cool.

After that, we did some more medium trot work for a couple of minutes to let her stretch out, then called it a day. It was an awesome day, indeed!

So this is kinda what we looked like. Courtesy of lonecastle, on YouTube

Rain!

Eating her beet pulp snack in her grassy paddock prior to our workout. She eventually decided the grass was tastier...But see the sun? This will come into play later.

"What are you DOING, Mom? I want to ride!"

I was FINALLY able to ride yesterday. It had stayed dry overnight, so I put Lily on the lunge to let her play before tacking up. Ummm...yeah. Good thing I did. I warmed her up at a walk, then let her choose what gaits she wanted to work at because of her foot-she would know best what hurt and what didn't.

She, of course, decided to gallop madly in a tight circle around me, performing acrobatics in the air-bicycles, bucks, kicks, a total display of her very own version of airs above ground. I swear she threw in a capriole or two... I asked her to change directions by doing a half-bow and changing hands on the lunge line, and she immediately obliged. This is the first time she's changed direction at a full gallop, and she did it by twirling on one foot, leaping into the air in a buck/kick combo to land facing the opposite direction and the correct lead. WOW! And took off running again.

She was so full of herself that I decided to just let her blow off steam at liberty. The Roundup is still in the ground of course, but I remembered that as long as we're both in a working frame of mind, she will not nibble grass while working without the lunge line. I had her whoa and calmly walked her over to close the arena gate, then set her free. She thoroughly enjoyed galloping around. She had the most uphill canter she has ever performed at liberty so far (not super-dressagey, but a tremendous improvement from her previous stilted canter), and she made me grin like an idiot by performing her wonderful floaty trot. Yup, this mare does not hurt anymore-she had been unable to do that when this whole issue started.

I let her decide when she wanted to stop. She cantered around in both directions for a few minutes, then trotted in both directions (I asked her for the changes from the center of the arena), and when she chose to walk again, I stopped moving and she came to me. Good girl! :)

We worked a little on turns on the forehand, shoulder-in, backing up, and that Parelli rollback thing with the lunge (I have no idea what that exercise is called) that used to frighten her so. I've said it before, but I'll say it again-this is the #1 gauge for finding out where Lily's head is at, and it works so well to calm her down!! She was a little hypersensitive initially, but after a couple of times in each direction, she stepped quietly away from me and turned to face me. It always feels like a dance when we do this right-when executed smoothly, it is very much like sending your partner into a twirl on the dance floor!

I then took her back into the barn to tack up. I used the new mullen mouth snaffle on her, because I was planning on just walking and doing more lateral work, since she had already gotten all her cardio in and then some. However, Judy had arrived and was riding, and seemed to be in a funky mood again, so I ended up ditching all my plans and just heading out to the park instead.

This is the first time I've ridden her out in the mullen mouth, and any other time after not riding for 4 consecutive days I probably would've switched it out for her pelham, but the decision to hit the trails had been spontaneous, and I chose to just go with my gut-my gut said Lily would be fine in the mullen mouth.

There were some clouds rolling in, but I didn't think it would affect us-I had been keeping an eye on the direction of the wind and a rain band had already swept by without touching us. We hit the skinny trails, which were damp but not muddy. We were probably 100 feet in, when we came face to face with 2 raccoons. Yes, raccoons are small. But they are also fearless, and they are the #1 rabies carriers in South FL. These two were headed in our direction on the path. Lily stopped to look at them, but remained calm. I quietly turned her around and we headed back out to the powerlines.

No sooner were we on the powerlines, than the wind picked up and the skies opened up-it poured!! Lily tossed her head, but I made her walk all the way up the powerlines and turned left at the end, facing the hills and the shelters. We stopped under a particularly densely leafed tree to wait out the worst of the rain, and of course it stopped as suddenly as it had started. I had Lily walk over to the shelter anyway-she used to go through these without a problem last summer. This shelter was crammed with picnic tables, and she took a good look at them, but I had her walk between the rows, ducking my head under the low ceiling as we went from one end of the shelter to the other, just to make sure she could still do this. We then walked onto the road, and at this point I could see the angry clouds in the sky-another rain band was coming. We turned around and trotted on the grass by the road, trying to make it to the powerlines before it started to rain again.

We didn't make it. It started raining again as we were coming even with the entrance to the main trails, so I had Lily go into the cover of the trees instead. These trails were quite wet-no puddles, but fairly muddy, which made me cringe-I had not duct-taped her foot because I had foreseen NONE of this! The rain started coming down really hard as we reached the opening in the trails that leads to the powerlines-the trees became useless as cover, and we were both drenched. I had Lily wait here regardless, which made her dance with impatience at seeing the path home but being forced to stand still. I had to turn her a couple of times, but she eventually gave up and stood, waiting. At this point I was actually glad I had ridden her in the mullen mouth snaffle-she would've been tossing her head like crazy with the pelham when asked to be still.

The rain eventually slowed to a drizzle and we left the cover of the trees to power walk back home. I wanted SOOOO bad to just send her into a gallop back to the barn, but this would've been a huge mistake for two reasons:
1. I had no interest in teaching her to gallop every time it rains-she had already tried to pick up a trot when it started to drizzle, as the rain annoyed her.
2. Galloping home is always a bad idea unless you're fleeing from danger-it would've been months before I could get her to just walk home again.

So we walked. I could see the rain moving away ahead of us against the light of the setting sun (pretty cool) but knew we had another band approaching fast behind us. We had to turn right at the end of the powerlines to take the white trail/asphalt bike path back to the main road, and here we were caught by the rain again. I let Lily trot here, as we have done it before without her trying to accelerate. For whatever reason she chose to trot on the asphalt instead-wet asphalt is cleaner than the white clay, for sure, and probably less slippery, now that I think about it, and it was a good exercise for strengthening tendons. We only did this for about 10 yards before we were on the street, and there we just slowed to a walk for the rest of the way home.

OF COURSE the minute we stepped onto the barn driveway, the rain stopped. I hopped off Lily and led her over to my truck, where I had a dry shirt (yesss!). I was soaked and cold and at this point didn't care-I sat in the truck with the door open and stripped to my sports bra and switched shirts, Lily's reins looped on my boot. She's such a good girl-she tried to sneak a bite of grass, but I gave her a firm "No!" and she immediately popped her head back up and waited.

She had been WONDERFUL on this ride, and she received Stud Muffins, had her foot disinfected with antimicrobial shampoo, had a long anti-fungal bath with a deep scrubbing (she stretched her neck out and made goofy faces while I scrubbed!) and then had her foot soaked for 30 minutes. She kept taking it out of the tub, but she was back to normal in terms of resting it-she was alternating feet or even standing square. *Relief!!* I dried it, sprayed her frog with iodine, stuffed the crack with cotton and antibiotic ointment, then applied ichthamol to her abscess (which is also healing fantastically-it has stopped draining), and put her away in a nice, clean fluffy stall for the night with her haynet. She was definetely a happy horse. :)

Continuum

So life is supposed to go on, but it is difficult. The last 5 days have been like climbing a very steep emotional hill. Working over the holiday weekend did not help-we had a record amount of euthanasias, to the point where the freezer where we keep the bodies in the meantime before the crematorium can pick them up (in Florida it is illegal to bury pets in the ground because the water supply is so close to the surface-all dead animals must be cremated) overflowed. They had missed a pickup day because of the storm, and we had an unprecedented and unusual number of deaths on top of that. At one point I'm rearranging the bodies in the freezer, then trying to get it to close by sitting on the lid, and I just start laughing and sobbing at the same time hysterically. It was just cruel...the whole situation was just plain cruel to the point of being ridiculous.

On the upside, however, I got to work with good techs and a decent doctor, who, despite the hospital being insanely busy and us having to play Jenga with the dead bodies, managed to make us feel like we were worth a million bucks. It was a little ray of light in the middle of a whole lot of darkness.

And of course, Lily's treatments have continued. She rests the leg on and off, though I have seen her resting her other leg as well-a sign of improvement, I hope. I was unable to ride for 3 days in a row due to the crazy work schedule, but it was dry at night, so she got to go out with little Willy and move around on her own. She has 2 more days to go on her antibiotic, and I have continued to give her bute, though only once a day. Her reactions to the treatment vary-on some days she doesn't care, and just wiggles the leg, but day before yesterday, I actually got kicked in the ear! Both wash racks were wet, so I had cross-tied her in the middle of the aisle, however, so I don't know if maybe Pink tried nipping Lily while I was working with her.

I was just finishing up, stuffing the crack with a tiny piece of cotton covered in the doctor's medication, which usually ellicits no reaction at all from her, when suddenly she actually lifted her leg out of my hands, and kicked back. She has NEVER done this before! She missed hitting me square in the face by inches, and the side of her fetlock slammed against my ear. My jaw felt dislocated, and my ear was so hot it seemed impossible that it was not bleeding. I stumbled back, then stood still, furious, holding my ear while she danced forward on the crossties, trying to get away from me. Thankfully, the crossties did NOT give (it would've been a reward for the naughtiness) and at the same time, she didn't do anything where she could have hurt herself either-when the crossties didn't set her free, she piaffed in place, then settled to a trembling standstill when she realized I was not going to hit her.

After confirming that my ear was, indeed, not bleeding, and that my jaw was still in place, and after taking several deep breaths to let my temper simmer before approaching her, I picked up her foot again, and checked that the cotton was still in place. It was. She was wiggling the leg, so I simply held it up for a few minutes, not touching her foot, until she stopped. She did not get cookies that night, and I came thisclose to not buting her, simply because she likes the molasses I pour on it so much, but in the end I did give her her anti-inflammatory. I then turned her out with Willy for the night.

I have since started wearing my riding helmet when treating her frog.

Yesterday I was finally off, so I decided I'd lunge her in the arena to let her expel energy, since, it had been a week since starting her treatments. I'd had a particularly bad day on the Lucero front, and felt it wasn't a good idea to ride when I was angry at the world. I was still thinking about this when I went to put Lily's rope halter on. She felt my rage and immediately stiffened when I put the halter over her head. I saw her reaction, and I slowed my movements and let my breath out, clearing my head from everything except Lily. It's amazing how attuned she is to me-she immediately relaxed when she felt my own emotional release. I put my arms around her head and kissed her, "It's not you. I'm sorry." When I stepped back, her eyes and ears had softened, and she turned her head and nuzzled me. "It's okay." she seemed to say, as she blew softly on my cheek.

Judy had applied Roundup to some of the weeds in the arena, so I probably won't be working her at liberty out there in our remaining time at this barn. From what I understand, Roundup stays in the ground forever, and is extremely toxic to horses when ingested.

There was a storm brewing, and the wind had picked up just as I let Lily out onto the end of the lunge line. Of course it started whipping through the trees with tropical storm force, and Lily took off, bucking and doing bicycles in the air with her front feet, and almost ripping my arm out in the process. She showed absolutely no signs of lameness or soreness in that left hind. I reined her into a smaller circle and after she had settled into a steady canter, asked her to change directions. More bucking and bicycles, as we made our way from one end of the arena to the other. Lightning flashed horizontally across the sky, and a couple of potted palms next door fell over. She bolted, tail tucked in, then suddenly, as if a lightbulb had gone on in her head, she turned toward me unbidden and came trotting to me, coming to a stop right in front of me and giving a deep sigh.

It was the most moving thing that she has ever done for me so far. We stood in the middle of this raging windstorm, side by side, Lily's ears relaxed and eyes drooping simply because I was standing right there with her. My heart went all squishy inside.

We stood like that for what seemed like a long time. The wind calmed down a bit, and I sent her out onto the end of the lunge again. Judy had set up the arena as a sort of obstacle course, with the 3 water storage barrels in a small triangle in the middle, a small cross-rail by the arena exit gate, a pole "L" in the corner by Bali's turnout, and a fan of 4 trot poles at the opposite corner. I steered Lily towards the trot pole fan on the lunge. She did everything in her power to avoid them-veering towards the inside, or circling wide around them. I shortened the lunge and aimed her towards them, making their approach inevitable. She completely surprised me by leaping like a deer into the air and clearing all 4 trot poles in a single bound. All 4 poles. It was like a 10-foot wide jump, with a good 3 feet of air.

We tried again. And again. Each time, she jumped the first 2 or 3 poles, then tripped over the last 1 or 2 poles, even when giving the command to TROT...Goofy mare! I tried taking some photos of her incredible jumping skills, but the light was dim due to the storm clouds. This is the best I could get:

You can barely see her, but she's coming out of the right of this photo to leap over the first 3 poles...

Jumping over the first 2 poles. Note her position-it looks like she just cleared a 4' fence!

Finally she trotted once over them:

HIGH STEPS! *lol*

Then we switched directions. This time she continued trotting over the pole fan, but still with the same ridiculous high steps.

On a whim, I laid the water barrels down in a single line, and lunged her over them to see if she would jump. She refused 3 times, then on the 4th try, she did another deer jump, all 4 feet in the air, overjumping by a good extra 2 feet. It was a monumental jump that I wish I'd gotten photos of-I was looking UP at her as she cleared the barrels!

After that she realized she didn't need that much extra room to go over the barrels, and her jump was a lot more conservative. We did 4 jumps total in each direction, then called it a day. I let her walk herself out on the lunge for a long time before bringing her in.

Of course her foot was sore again after all that activity and I felt horrible. I gave her a double dose of bute, Stud Muffins, and I linimented and wrapped her legs for the night for extra support. It did start to rain while hosing her off, so I put up her stall chain and dumped extra shavings in her stall to make it extra cushy so she could lie down if she wanted to.

Today, she was feeling better again. It had rained in the afternoon and the arena footing was damp, so I wrapped her foot in Vetrap and Gorilla tape (there are 2 rolls of duct tape at the barn and for the life of me I couldn't find either one!) to keep it dry, and tacked up. We did a long walk warmup, first on a loose rein, then the usual lateral work we've been doing at a walk (shoulder-in, shoulder out, renvers, baby leg yields), then moved up to a trot. She did not feel sore at all-very even in both directions, and did not resist any of the lateral work. We did some more trot-halt-trot transitions, which she did fairly good on-she trotted off after each one, but not as snappy as she's supposed to. I did give her a break though, because of her foot. I made her wait extra long during one of the halts and she got soooo pissed because I was making her stand! She began tossing her head until she got her curb chain off, but stood still while I turned her head and reached forward to reattach it. I then let her trot off.

She was a really good girl. We did a canter half-circle in each direction because I just wanted to see how she felt. She was reluctant to pick up the left lead, so she is still sore on that foot for sure, but she is feeling better: she maintained the canter until I asked her to walk after the half circle.

Most of what we did was walk, however. We did tackle the trot pole fan again (at a walk), and she tried dodging it, even at a walk, "I really don't want to jump that today." she said. "But you're not supposed to jump it; I just want you to walk over it." I replied. After 2 more tries and much giggling from me at my mare's silliness, she finally grumbled "Alright!!" and stepped hesitantly over the poles as if they were going to jump up and bite her! I saw the lightbulb moment again, "OH! I get it!" and so we walked over the fan a few times in each direction, no more high steps, and no more hesitation. She's hysterical though-I've told you guys how my reward for her is to let her stretch down at the walk when she does a good job, and how she sometimes anticipates it. So right after going over the poles in both directions, she pulls her head down as if saying, "Ok Mom, that was hard and I did a good job. Give me my head please." I did.

Our achievements for the day: leg yielding around the barrel triangle, and then doing a shoulder-in/turn on the forehand combo around one barrel, in both directions (at a walk). She did a FANTASTIC job, and I was able to keep her going without getting her frustrated.

Diana arrived at the barn, and poked her head out the arena gate to say hi and ask how I was doing. The day before she had been asking me how do you get a horse to move laterally, and so now while we were talking, I shifted my weight first one way, then the other to make Lily sidepass to the left and then right. (Yes, we were showing off!) Diana completely lost track of the conversation, watching Lily move sideways so effortlessly.

My mare rocks! :)

On another note, I noticed today that her neck has started to smooth out. Back in May, it was lumpy, and it had me concerned-I knew I had to be doing something wrong somewhere. According to Hempfling and Equus Magazine's conformation series, this kind of neck lumpiness may be caused by use of side reins and draw reins:

May 18, 2012, back when we had our picadero work phase. Note the 3 giant knots in Lily's neck.

As you guys know, I only used draw reins on her very briefly back at the beginning of the year, and only very lightly-only as a suggestion. I really, really hate this, and would never do it to my horse:

But I had been using side reins about 50%-75% of the time when I lunged her. I figured it couldn't hurt to try, though at the back of my mind I was afraid she'd continue to overdevelop the underside of her neck.

I'm happy to report I was proven wrong-the experiment worked.
This is her today:

The knots are still somewhat visible when she turns her head (I did ask Dr. Gillard for a reference to a good equine massage therapist months ago, when I first noticed these knots, but apparently there are none in our area that are good enough for him to recommend!), but are so much less obvious-I haven't worked her in side reins in over 6 months

My trimming equipment arrived. I rasped her feet a bit, but you can barely tell the difference. I'm being timid-I want my farrier to check out my work before I do more. I do love my rasp and gloves, though! Along with the equipment, I also ordered the book Horse Owner's Guide to Natural Hoof Care by Jaime Jackson, and have started reading it. One fascinating thing I read on there (pg 266):

"The "double-back" is a physical characteristic wherein the longitudinal muscles that parallel the horse's spine rise up even with or above the interjacent spine. This muscular configuration occurs in sound, healthy horses that move naturally most of the time. [...] Xenophon noted that the double-back was a sign of correct training and that it was more comfortable to ride than horses with unnatural backs with protruding spines and withers."

Also (same page):

" Leslie Ann Taylor and Carol Brett of England [have written]: One common symptom of saddle damage is the horse that is described as having 'high narrow withers'. It has long been accepted by the equestrian world that certain horses have this as a natural conformation...[but] it is usualy a lack of natural, healthy muscle below and to the rear of the withers that makes them and the shoulder blades appear more prominent than they should be. This lack of muscle mass is often caused by the pressures of a saddle fitted or used in a way that does not allow normal movement and blood flow in this area. There are so many horses who have this 'compromised' shape to some degree or other, that it is considered normal."

Lily:

May 2011. Note the high withers and the discernible shoulder blades.

August 2012. BIG difference in her back, withers and shoulders! (And demeanor, too!)

Mr. Jackson also proposes that most healthy, balanced horses in their natural state, without riders or ill-fitting saddles, develop a "double back" of muscle, as clearly seen on the bay stallion below:

Lily's back, today:

A "double back" if I ever saw one!

I guess we're doing something right! Coooooool!

Vet visit

Dr. Glen Gillard, one of the best vets in our area, if you ask me, was able to come out today after all! I called the office again at 9:00 am, right after they opened, and they were able to squeeze me in for a 10:30am appointment! I was already at the barn to remove Lily's bandage from her foot and clean her stall at that time, so I decided to just hang around and wait.

This is how she's been resting that foot for the last couple of days. See? It's not the normal way a relaxed horse will rest a foot-she sets it off to the side, keeping all of her weight on her right hind.

I did attempt to soak her foot in hot water with Epsom salts, but she was not thrilled about the hot water on her sore foot, and eventually managed to spill the entire tub of water (I used one of our giant rubber feeders for this-if she stepped on it by accident it would give) between trying to talk to Rose and flirt with Bob. She spilled the soak in the process of wiggling her butt over to Bob so she could squirt all over the wall of his stall...when I turned to look, BOTH Bob and Rose (who is a mare!) had their lips up in the flehmen. Apparently Lily's hot stuff...



Iffy about the hot water.

I shooed Bob out into his paddock, "She's MY mare!" (him and I argue about this), patiently made Lily stand straight on the cross-ties again while she rolled her eyes at me, and hosed down the wall of Bob's stall to remove Lily's urine. Mares!

It's a hike to the hot water tap, so I ended up using room temperature water with Epsom salts instead. It's not as effective but this still works-I know from personal experience from treating infected cat bites. This she tolerated better, especially when I put her feeder with bute, crumbled Stud Muffins and a drizzle of molasses in front of her.

Room temperature soak while she eats her bute-and-treats mix

I finished picking her stall while she ate, and then I moved her over to the other, dry wash rack to allow her foot to dry before doing anything with it. Some gunk did come out after the soaking; I wiped the underside of the hoof clean and wrapped a small hand towel around the hoof to keep dirt out of it.

The giant crack in her frog. Nice and clean after her Epsom salt soak.

I ended up not doing anything else with her foot; I let it be so Dr. Gillard could see it as is, and put her back in her now immaculate stall.

Mark and Dianne showed up to do their chores while I was puttering around waiting for the vet. Once she had settled down, Lily was in uber-sweet mode. Dianne and I stood in front of her stall talking about her, and Lily poked her face out, sniffed at Dianne's cheek, then stuck her nose under my chin, and started nuzzling the collar of my shirt, making doe eyes at me (she gets a very soft expression, and her eyelids droop a little). She's always very sweet with everyone, but I was moved by the extra gesture for me. After that, she was extremely attentive, watching my every move as I did the minis' stalls and cleaned up around the barn, even though both Mark and Dianne were working down by her stall.

Dr. Gillard arrived 45 minutes late, which is the norm for all equine vets in our area as the South FL equestrian scene moves into fall and the busy show season. He had me walk Lily up and down the barn aisle to watch her move, and then took a look at her foot. I explained what had happened while applying the Today and showed him the syringe. After palpating her frog and eliciting some flinching, he said she should probably receive a broader spectrum topical antibiotic, plus an oral one (thank God-I did want systemic antibiotics, since I have no idea what that hoof looks like on the inside), bute twice a day (already on it!), and inject the crevice with hydrogen peroxide to get oxygen in there and kill any anaerobic bacteria once a day. He gave me a 20ml syringe for this and a 14G IV catheter for this. Afterwards, I would stuff the hole with cotton dipped in the topical antibiotic medication. He told me to only wrap the foot if she was going to be on damp footing, and to definetely walk her-either hand walks or tack walking was fine, to promote circulation. Yesss! We get to ride in the wide open arena after all!

As soon as the doctor left, I proceeded to treat Lily's hoof. I poured 10mls of hydrogen peroxide into the syringe, removed the catheter stylette and attached the catheter to the syringe; prepared my cotton with medication; and had Dianne hold Lily with a twitch while I did this. Getting that catheter tip into the crevice was not an easy task, as Lily kept kicking out half-heartedly (the twitch did make a difference in her level of cooperation). In the process of her wiggling her foot around, the catheter tip did end up slipping in farther than I originally wanted, but I used it as a chance to quickly inject the peroxide. Bubbles and blood came out. I squirted the rest of the peroxide into the crack, then let her rest the tip of her foot on the floor and with cotton-tipped applicators, I gently stuffed the medicated cotton into the hole. I thought this would be more difficult than the peroxide injection, but she actually tolerated it very well.

I put her back in her stall and mixed up some beet pulp with the Tucoprim powder that Dr. Gillard had prescribed. She ate most of it without a problem.

That afternoon I returned to ride. While grooming Lily and tacking up, I noticed she was either standing square or even resting the right foot, in a normal way. Yay! She already feels better!

We stayed in the arena as night fell, and ended up doing an hour of walk work. She was very "up" to begin with, as I knew she'd be between being in heat and not having been worked in 5 days, and she tried balking at the corner of the arena that adjoins Bali's turnout to protest the fact that she was being ridden while Bali was out having fun. I asked Lily politely to continue, but when she tossed her head in protest, I gave her one sharp kick, where she leaped straight up in the air with all 4 feet off the ground like a frightened cat, then continued walking as if nothing had happened. She didn't balk again.

We did A LOT of lateral work: shoulder-in, shoulder-out, renvers, side-pass, leg yields, shallow loops, turns on the haunches and voltes, and a cool exercise from 101 Dressage Exercises where you do leg yield to half-pass as you go down the long sides of the arena. Basically, you are maintaining the same bend as the horse moves diagonally and laterally from the rail to the quarter line and back again. She actually did really, really well with this, switching from one side to the other as I shifted my weight and leg. She especially gave me a good try tracking left, which is her stiffer side.

Initially she wanted to complain, especially since I was riding her in the pelham with a single set of reins (extra braking power in case she decided to go cuckoo), but I was very quick to reward every little effort, and she soon became relaxed and willing. The one thing she refused to do was the Ackerman Square-she was hypersensitive to my seat, and wriggled forward, backwards, diagonally, and just seemed unable to focus on sidepassing in a straight line sideways no matter how I sat-every correction from me turned into an overcorrection on her part. I switched to turns on the haunches, and abandoned the exercise for another time-I really didn't want to fight with her when she's like this. I love her sensitivity, and I also love that she totally tells on me. 99.99% of the time, when she doesn't get something or can't do something, it is completely and totally my fault-I'm contradicting my cues unawares. She'll still try, though, but will become very frustrated, "You want me to do this thing, but your body is completely telling me to do this other thing! Arrrgh!! Make up your mind!!" At this point, it's best to let it go, avoid the meltdown, and revisit the exercise at a later time when she's more relaxed and I can concentrate on correcting what I'm doing wrong.

We finished the session with a power walk on a loose rein, Lily's nose almost to the ground, her stride long, her back up and swinging. I then gathered her up and had her do 6 steps of reinback in a straight line (she tries to escape sideways), then had her halt and got off, giving her lots of pats.

Even though she has never been trained in this sport, Lily is totally teaching me dressage. She can do everything; I know she could go all the way up to at least Fourth Level if we wanted to. She may never beat the fancy warmbloods, but she can certainly perform the movements.

I just have to learn to ask correctly and accurately, each time. We'll get there.

I let her chill in front of the fan-she was not hot, but she had broken a little bit of a sweat, so I allowed her to dry before grooming her, set up her bute with Stud Muffins in our tack stall (she took 2 steps forward in the cross ties when she smelled them! *lol*), then had Diana hold the twitch while I treated her hoof again. Her reaction was not as dramatic as this morning when I injected the peroxide, and as soon as the twitch was off, I placed the Stud Muffin feeder in front of her right away, so she'd associate it with a reward. She scarfed happily while I finished setting up her feed, with one cross tie attached to only one side of her halter, which meant that when she was done, she was free to wander over to Rose's stall wall to sneak some of the hay from Rose's haynet through the stall boards.

I put Lily back in her stall with her own dinner. Goofy mare. :)

Thrush??

I went today and Lily's left hind leg looked fine, but her right hind was slightly puffy, and the tendons were sore when palpated. Not good-this meant she had been putting all of her weight on the right hind overnight. I took her out of the stall and placed her on the cross-ties, and she immediately cocked the left hind. Sigh. I looked at the foot again, and brushed the frog off with the hoofpick brush, and she flinched. I applied more Today into the crevice in her frog. I introduced the tip of the syringe (Today is primarily a mastitis medication, actually a topical cephalosporin antibiotic, but very effective for thrush, and is available in dosing syringes with a very thin, flexible plastic tip, easily inserted into cracks in the hooves) into the crevice about 1/2" and as I was applying it down the length of the crack, the syringe tip suddenly slipped all the way into the crack. Lily immediately jumped and kicked back in pain; the syringe tip came out bloody. Yup, no wonder she's holding that foot up-the infection is pretty deep.

I hosed off her right leg, placed her on the other wash rack so she'd be standing on dry mats, and put her ice boot on her right hind. I mixed some bute with a couple of crumbled Stud Muffins horse treats (she LOVES them), and let her scarf while the Today dried on her foot. I called my vet and left a message to schedule an appointment ASAP, and picked Lily's stall, at the same time debating whether I should wrap the foot or leave it exposed to air. Thrush is usually accompanied by anaerobic bacteria, which thrive in moist, dark spaces with no air. But the crack was so deep I didn't want more dirt and manure getting into it. In the end, I chose to treat it as an abscess and wrap it.

By then Dianne and Mark had arrived at the barn, and were concerned with me when I told them what was going on with Lily. I decided to use it as a teaching experience and showed Dianne how to wrap a hoof: I applied more Today inside the crevice (this time blood came to the surface and dribbled down her foot...this upset me, but I guess it's better than pus coming out of such a deep hole), poured iodine over the frog, then soaked a couple of gauze squares with iodine and placed them over the frog. I did a figure-8 bandage with Vetrap around the hoof, then reinforced it with plenty of duct tape. I then applied Sore No More gel to the tendons of her right hind leg, and proceeded to place standing wraps on both hind legs for extra support. I dumped extra shavings in her stall for additonal cushioning, and decided to keep her locked in until Wednesday. The poor thing is going to go stir-crazy cooped up, but her walkout and turnout were still damp from all the rain.

Hopefully the vet can come Thursday morning at the latest. I think it was too short notice for him to make it out Wednesday. I just need to know how to treat this infection-should I keep it covered or exposed to air? Should I soak it? Should I let her walk (for thrush and abscesses, you WANT the horse to continue to move to promote circulation, growth, and push the infection out), or confine her because she hurts? Is it ok to ride her at a walk, or should I hand-walk her? And I think she needs a tetanus booster and oral antibiotics. But then that's also the ER vet tech in me talking...hopefully this is easily resolved. And how did it get so bad? I'm guessing having a wet stall for 2 days in a row (despite stripping it and giving her fresh dry bedding each of those days) aggravated an already existent problem. I'm just upset that it got this bad...I'm really diligent about her feet, and had been applying Durasole (which has formalin in it, another thrush treatment/preventive) to all 4 feet almost every day for the last 6 weeks. I have to post pictures of her frog. I've battled some really nasty chronic thrush where the horses' frogs were flaking off. Lily's frog looks great other than the one fissure down its length.

 So for now it's watch and wait, keep the foot dry and clean, and try to keep my fatalist inner voice quiet!

Isaac

Isaac arrived Saturday evening as a tropical storm. Charles had picked up more hay and shavings for Diana and me at Finish Line feed on Friday morning on his way back from work, so both Diana and I were set for the storm supply-wise. I was called to work relief at another veterinary hospital all day Saturday until 10pm, and so I did not make it out to the barn that day to get my things in order. Diana took care of everything-she took all of hers, Mark's, Dianne's, and my stuff that we had hanging either in front of our stalls or in our tack stall into the feed room, where it wouldn't blow away.

Judy found on Craig's List someone selling giant plastic drums for storing water, and purchased 3 of them for the barn. We have well water, and without electricity, the well pump won't work, so this was a good thing to have regardless. Judy has never lived through a tropical storm nor a hurricane before (she is from the Midwest), and was afraid. She had discussed moving all of the horses down to the end closest to the feed room and boarding up the walkout entrances, but no one liked this idea: if the power went out, the horses would roast in their stalls, and if the storm turned as expected, we would probably only get a lot of rain and a little wind. Plus it was a lot of work, and we've all been exhausted at the barn. There have been some issues going on with Judy and we are all doing a lot more work than we originally expected when we came to board here. We're tired, and none of us boarders who are seasoned hurricane veterans were particularly worried about Isaac, especially given that every 12 hours the news reports were placing the storm track further south and west of Florida.

Well, I had to stay up very late Saturday night because I was working an overnight relief shift at the same hospital again on Sunday night. Charles was home for the night, too, so we made a 2:00 am run to the local Walmart Supercenter and rented The Hunger Games. The movie ended up being a long one, so at 4:30 am, when the first bands of wind and rain hit us, I was wide awake. I thought Diana had been overreacting by bringing all of our stuff into the feed room, but at that point, I was really glad she did.

I woke up at 3:00 pm to on-and-off rain and wind. At 4:00 pm I drove to the barn when there was a lull in the weather. It was picking up again as I turned onto our street. This street runs in front of the park. One portion of the road has a row of trees by a pond that were serving as a very visible barrier from the wind and rain, as further down the street, where there were no trees, you could see the wall of wind and rain that was sweeping in from the park.

An example of tropical storm weather

The driveway to the barn was beginning to flood, as it always does when it rains a lot, but the rain stopped as I parked. Water was draining from the walkouts into the parking lot, and in a desperate measure to not get my sneakers wet, I took them off and, carrying my socks in my hand, I hopped into the ankle-deep water barefoot and ran into the barn.

Mark and Dianne were there, and they had been at the barn most of the day taking care of storm preparations. According to the news per Mark, the worst of the storm had already passed that morning, but I didn't believe it given what I had just seen on the short drive to the barn. Judy had parked her horse trailer right in front of Bali's walkout in a vain attempt to block the wind, but it looked like the Tower of Pisa when seen from the front-tilted towards the walkout thanks to the graded footing between the ends of the walkouts and the parking lot. Diana had not been happy when she had seen it. First of all, the wind comes from all directions with tropical storms and hurricanes, and second, if the winds had been stronger, that trailer would have ended up on top of the Bali's walkout fence, if not Bali herself. Bali's colic back on the 4th of July was not managed well by Judy, and Diana is reaching her wits' end with the handling of her horse by the barn manager.

You just don't do this:

Judy's trailer lined up in front of Bali's walkout: the Leaning Trailer of Pisa. The wind came from the east/southeast, towards the barn...had it been a real storm, this trailer would've toppled over for real.

when you know that this can happen:

Trailer turned over by the winds from Hurricane Georges, a category 3 storm that split Puerto Rico in two in 1999. I experienced it first-hand. Photo courtesy of Sol Boricua.

Mark tried to explain to Judy that the trailer was a bad idea, but she wasn't listening. You can understand why Diana, another experienced hurricane veteran, did not take take that sight above well.
Lily's stall was soaked from the rain that had blown in through her walkout entrance. (And so was Bali's-the trailer did NOTHING in terms of blocking wind and rain!) Mark had locked everyone except for Bali in with their stall guards-Bali was the exception because she will simply plow through her stall guard if she feels like going outside. Judy had had Mark move the muck buckets that we use as a water supply from the turnouts into the horses' stalls. Initially I wasn't thrilled with the possibility of Lily overturning a giant muck bucket of water in her stall, but this turned out to be a smart move in the end.

All of the horses were wearing their fly masks to protect their eyes from flying shavings, which was a good idea. I placed Lily on the crossties with her soaked beet pulp/grain mix, and let her eat while I stripped her stall. She didn't care about the wind blowing through the barn. My little Florida mare.

Lily enjoying her dinner despite the nasty storm

4 wheelbarrows full of wet shavings later, the stall was clean down to the mats. I laid down a bag of ultra fine shavings to soak up the wet from the mats, and coarser shavings on top. Normally I would've bedded the stall down deeper, but I knew I'd be stripping the stall again the next day, and if the storm got bad overnight, I doubted Lily would feel inclined to lay down in her stall anyway.

Diana arrived when I was halfway done with my stall, as Mark and Dianne were leaving, and we quickly fed all of the horses and topped off water buckets. Everyone received 2 full haynets for the night, as I was going to be at work and Diana was not driving back out to the barn in the middle of the storm to do the late dinner. We were done by 6:00 pm. The horses were as safe and comfortable as we could make them.

As I was driving home, a ferocious band of rain moved in, the rain coming down so hard that I could not see the road, even with the truck windshield wipers at maximum speed. In the 5 minutes it took for me to get home, however, the rain vanished as suddenly as it had appeared, and I was able to run from the truck to our house without getting drenched.

I was able to drive to work inbetween bands of rain, thank God, though I still witnessed a car crash into the guardrail right in front of me on the Turnpike heading north, and drove past multiple fallen trees as I was arriving at Boynton Beach. Not pretty. I walked into the emergency hospital to find a waiting room full of clients and their pets, all of the rooms occuppied and, in the ICU, a dog that had been just brought back from the dead with CPR. Talk about a stormy night. It was total and absolute chaos, like something out of a movie. Within half an hour, I had taken radiographs on 2 patients, placed an IV catheter and drawn blood on a third that was being hospitalized, triaged another incoming emergency, and presented a treatment plan to a fifth client in an exam room. The pace was maddening. The 2 technicians that were supposed to leave at 8pm stayed until 10pm to help us get caught up, but also because the weather outside was so bad it wasn't safe to drive.

Around 10pm, the emergencies stopped arriving, and we were able to catch up. By 11:30, we had either sent the clients back home with treated pets, or had hospitalized the patients that needed further medical attention. The storm outside was just getting worse by the hour. At midnight the two doctors, the other tech and I all sat down in front of the computer to check the radar, and saw that a massive rain band was moving over us, with more coming right behind it. None of the forecasts had said it was going to be this bad. There was horizontal rain outside, and the trees were being whipped and beaten mercilessly by the wind.

At 2:00 am there was a lull in the storm and we were able to take the hospitalized dogs outside for a walk, but by 3:00 am the onslaught began again. This was the image I found online of Isaac, courtesy of www.weather.com:


Isaac Sunday night

As you can see, the wind and rain we were receiving over South FL were pretty much equal in intensity to that at the eye of the storm. This explained a lot. Still, the hourly forecasts didn't even begin to describe what we were experiencing in person. We were dreading the morning and having to drive back to our homes in the storm.

Judy texted at 6:00 am - the electricity was out at the barn, but everyone was fed and watered.

Charles had an easy drive home from downtown Fort Lauderdale, but my drive home turned out to be pretty much as bad as I expected. It was windy in Boynton, but with a timid sun peeking out among the clouds. Halfway home on the Turnpike heading south, I could see the bands of rain-the road disappeared into a gray nothing topped off by dark, ominous clouds. I drove through 4 of these bands, one right after the other, a full 20 minutes of pummeling rain and driving wind, where the water was coming down so hard I could barely see the car in front of me. I had to hold the steering wheel with both hands to keep the car in my lane. It was terrifying.  It really should be illegal to drive around in tropical storms. Florida doesn't take them seriously, endangering the lives of everyone who is forced to go to work in inclement weather. It's ridiculous. A tropical storm can turn into a hurricane at a moment's notice if the conditions are favorable, and it has happened in the past in Florida. And then what do you do? You stay stuck at work for the next 24-48 hours, in a building that may or may not be hurricane safe, or you drive home in dangerous conditions to make sure your family and your posessions are safe? It's a catch-22.

In Puerto Rico, everything was shut down 24 hours before the storm, whether category 3 hurricane or just a tropical storm, and for 24 hours after to ensure that people stayed safe. I prefer this approach BY FAR.

We did have electricity at home, so I was able to shower with hot water and go to bed with AC. I went to the barn around 6:00 pm. It was cloudy outside, but the wind had died down, and it was sprinkling on and off. The power returned to the barn as I was walking in! It was good that the muck buckets had been placed in the stalls, as it had meant no one had had to worry yet about having to fill their water buckets from the water drums.

There were puddles in the turnouts and the arena, but it has been worse, so I turned Lily out with Willy while I cleaned her stall. The stall was pretty wet, as expected, though not as wet as on Sunday. Lily had a grand old time playing with Willy in Bali's turnout after 48 hours of being cooped up in her stall.

"Come on Willy, let's play!!"

Snorting at the big water puddle

Willy started looking for the perfect spot to roll, and Lily followed suit

A little rolling competition...*lol*

Lily's bucks

And an example of just how much air she can get between herself and the ground. That's a good 3 feet! From the angle of the photo it looks like she was about to kick at Willy, but she was even with the puddle-Willy was a good 20 feet away from her, and just happened to be running around in the background.

Her floaty trot

And a nice uphill canter

A more extended trot.

"SNORT!!"

And they're off again...

I took out 3 wheelbarrow-fulls of wet shavings from her stall, and bedded it down deep. Around that time Diana arrived, and she put Bali out in the arena. Lily is in FLAMING HEAT and kept flirting with Bob over the fence and squirting, so I moved her and Willy out to the arena with Bali. The dressage arena had been taken down, and the horses had an absolute blast running back and forth through the water without having to jump over the dressage arena rails. The arena looks so much bigger without the dressage rails up. I wouldn't mind if Judy left it as is.

Lily and Bali walking off in the arena, almost perfectly synchronized

All hyped up from running around

I set up Lily's feed while the horses ran around and around outside. I finally went to get Lily, and they had settled down to grazing. Bali gave me a hard time when I went to get my mare, trying to wedge herself between Lily and the gate so she could escape first. I had to chase her off. Sometimes Bali tries to use her size and weight to get what she wants. I didn't let her this time. Diana ended up coming to our rescue and helped me close the gate behind Lily before Bali could try to charge through again. Lily was getting worked up, being her typical in-heat hypersensitive self, and ignoring what I was asking her to do, so I turned her around and calmly had her back up all the way down the hallway to the wash rack. I hooked her up to the crossties, and her eyes were bugging out, calling for Bali while Bob ran in and out of his walkout in the stall next door. *sigh* Horses.

I ignored Lily's nervousness and she settled down while I hosed her off on the crossties, since she was splattered with wet sand from the arena, and noticed that she is resting her left hind a lot. She always seems to rest it, but she was resting it more tonight. I felt all up and down her leg, and couldn't get a reaction from her, so her tendons seem to be okay. She does have a little crack in her frog, and I'm wondering if she doesn't have some thrush in there that's flaring up with all of the wetness of the last 2 days. I applied some Dry Cow Today to the crack and put her in her nice fluffy dry stall, leaving the stall chain up for one more night. I want to see what that leg looks like tomorrow. Hopefully it's just a bad case of thrush.

A watery moon was visible driving out of the barn, with some clouds sweeping in, but more like a normal South FL late summer evening.

And that was it for Tropical Storm Isaac.