X-Rays

So it's been an interesting few days.

On Thursday I was in a rush at the barn, so I did not soak Lily's foot for the first time in I don't know how many weeks, thinking at this point she'd be fine.

On Friday I went to the barn to ride. While grooming and tacking up, I noticed Lily was resting her left hind ALL the time. This worried me. I got on, and she immediately popped her weight off that foot to rest it. Extremely unusual. I warmed her up as usual at a walk. She felt fine, but I noticed some resistance turning to the left. More concern. I asked her to trot, and she pinned her ears going into the transition but obliged. It felt like I was posting on the wrong diagonal. I looked down-I was on the correct diagonal. We changed directions, changed diagonals. That sensation of being off was still there. I immediately brought her to a halt and swung off, grabbed her rope halter and lunge line, slipped on the halter, and had her walk on the lunge. She seemed fine. I asked her to trot. She pinned her ears again when asked for the up transition, but she did it. She was head-bobbing lame at the trot, in both directions. It was the freaking foot acting up.

I was pretty upset. I left a message with my vet's office (since, of course, they were already closed for the weekend), brought her into the barn, untacked her, and soaked her foot. There were no changes in the frog, but she was a lot more sore than she had been previously, and she flinched every time I touched the skin above her heels. I wondered if she was getting ready to blow another abscess? I gave her bute, dried up the foot after her 30 minute soak, plastered her frog and heel with ichthammol, and bandaged her up with duct tape. It was dry outside, so she got turned out with little Willy for the night.

On Saturday, Marianne the trimmer came back to do Bali, and we asked if she could take a look at Lily's foot while she was there. She confirmed that it seemed like there was something inside the foot still, and she gently tried cutting off the part of the frog that's getting ready to slough off. Lily was fine with this, until Marianne put pressure over the original puncture wound. She gave a monumental flinch, which made Marianne jump. She picked up Lily's foot again, and you could see a small spot of yellow skin around the puncture wound. She said it definetely looked like there was something in there, and recommended I have the hoof radiographed, and the leg nerve-blocked so the vet could do some debriding of the wound to see what was going on in there.

I soaked the foot immediately after, and while getting ready to bandage it, I noticed something different about the puncture wound. I could see something in the hole, which Marianne had opened up. I inspected it, and it was a piece of wood! I gently pulled it out, and felt it come out in one piece. It fit in the hole perfectly, and was about 1/4" wide x 1/2" long. So this is what had been causing the problem all along. Of course, this could have been a piece of wood that wormed itself into a pre-existing hole, but I highly doubted it, as the skin fit perfectly around it-I really think she'd had a piece of wood stuck in her foot that had finally worked its way to the surface.

On Sunday, I repeated the soaks and the bandaging. I had her trot a bit on the lunge just to check her comfort level, and she seemed to be a lot less ouchy. Still a little sore, but not head bobbing anymore.

On Monday morning, I called my vet and made an appointment for x-rays for Tuesday at noon. It poured in the afternoon Monday, so I didn't even get to lunge Lily. I repeated the soaking and the bandaging.

Today, Tuesday, Dr. G came out. Marianne had wanted to be present for the appointment, and I encouraged it because I wanted the support. Dr. G can be conservative, which is what I like about him-some vets go balls-to-the-wall over little things and will charge an arm and a leg for something that didn't require such an aggressive treatment. Dr. G will protect your wallet, and he will explain why. He will spend your money only if he sees it absolutely necessary, but he usually has great success with more conservative approaches, as long as the horse's caregivers are compliant and follow his instructions to a T.

I was just frustrated because we have been treating this for over a month and it's not getting better, and I was concerned about her abscessing again, never mind the possibility of more wood being stuck inside her foot, since wood loves to splinter when it's inside living tissue... So yes, Dr. Gillard wanted to continue the current track of treatment, but I insisted on the radiographs. He said it is not a treatment, which of course I'm fully aware of. I told him I just want to see what's going on inside her foot. It's only guesswork until we really know. So he went ahead with my wishes.

It was very cool to watch because I've never seen radiographs taken on a horse in person. Dr. G has the digital radiography equipment from Sound Technologies, a company whose equipment I've used in small animal practice, and they produce lovely, detailed, high-quality images. Marianne arrived as we were setting up, introduced herself, and Dr. G went silent. Uh-oh. It didn't help when she started talking to him about hoof angles and Lily's heels being too low (which Dr. Gillard had also brought up before) and how barefoot trimming could help, which I agree with her on. While I love my vet, he is of the mind that hoof problems should be corrected with shoes, and he had already recommended bar shoes with pads. He recommended them again. I completely understand his point of view, and agree with him to a certain point. Sometimes you need shoes. But sometimes you can use boots. And there are a bazillion other options inbetween, such as casting the hoof. So my trimmer and my vet ended up getting into a small argument over bad farriers vs bad trimmers, and why shoes are good vs awful, and how we've bred the good hoof out of the modern horse vs most horses can go barefoot (but only if they are trimmed properly!). They both had very valid points, and to a certain degree, they were actually agreeing on many of their points. I could see it, but neither one of them was seeing it. They could have completely met in the middle, but they did not. Dr. G became very brusque and short, and at that point I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I respect this man very much, have used him for 3 years on my horses, and have the whole barn using him now. He is one of the best vets in our area, and I value the fact that he respects me as a knowledgeable horse owner, but I was afraid I was about to lose all that now.

The radiographs were taken, 6 shots total. Lily was an angel, as usual, cooperating while we shifted her weight around, put her foot on the stand, and then lifted her right front so she wouldn't move.

What did we find? Regarding the puncture wound: nothing. Big relief! No foreign objects, no pockets of air nor pus, no signs of an abscess about to blow. You can see in the lateral view where, towards the back of her heel on the very bottom of the foot, there is a small pocket, which is the part of her frog that will be sloughing off at some point in the near future. But we found something else: her coffin bone has some degenerative vascular changes going on, probably from 6 years of being trimmed with heels too low and toes too long, causing that negative palmar angle of her coffin bone. There are also some changes in the wings of her coffin bone, which also confirms this. Her coffin bone is currently straight inside the hoof capsule, so I think Marianne has already corrected part of the problem. However, her sole is being worn very thin by the sand in our turnouts and arena. She will need protection to make that stop.

I want to post the radiographs, but I'm having a hard time getting the program that allows you to view them onto this computer. If I'm able to figure it out, I will update.
Marianne wanted Dr. G to do the local block and remove the affected part of Lily's foot. Dr. G, however, suggested we keep doing what we're doing for the next 2 weeks, as now we know that there is nothing else stuck in that hoof. IF the problems continue, he will do the block and go in surgically, but he prefers I continue exercising Lily, giving her turnout (weather permitting) and encouraging her hoof to grow. I liked this suggestion, and took it. He said I should repeat another round of antibiotics. I asked one more time if I should be concerned over Lily's one-day lameness on Friday. Dr. G insisted that no, I shouldn't worry. He did have me walk and trot Lily down the aisle of the barn again, just to watch her move, but she stepped out willingly and steadily. Sound. I asked about the softness in her frog, around the puncture wound site, and he said that the humidity and rain we've been having, even when she hasn't been outside walking in the wet, make it take a lot longer for a hoof to toughen up while healing. I can accept that.

Marianne suggested I try Cavallo Simple boots with pads for Lily's hind feet. I'm not too thrilled about boots, but at this point, she is going to need something else on her back feet while she grows more heel. Plus, with the Cavallo boots, I can turn her out even when it's not perfectly dry. I like this idea-she can go out, her bandage stays dry, and it helps keep her feet from wearing down faster than they can grow. The Cavallos are easy to take on & off, which makes them the most convenient right now. I love Renegades, though. If I need boots for her long-term, I'm definetely getting a pair of those babies. The one thing I'm worried about with the Cavallos is the possibility of them chafing her pasterns. We'll see.

Marianne had brought along a couple of pairs of Cavallo boots in case Lily needed them, and got to work getting her fitted while I walked with Dr. Gillard outside so I could pay my bill. Dr. Gillard did tell me exactly what he thought of my trimmer (I think he's had problems with her at other barns due to their conflicting views on hoof care), but I quietly told him I wanted to try this-the previous farriers had messed Lily's feet up, and I was trying to get them fixed. He recommended a different farrier, Curtis Burns. He was the farrier of Cigar, the racehorse who retired as the greatest money earner in the US of all time. Cigar's record still stands, and this guy did his feet. He created the Burns Polyflex shoe, which is one option that Dr. G is recommending for Lily. The Polyflex shoe is actually a pretty cool concept that I will look more into, in case the Cavallo boots don't work. Dr. G is recommending them as a temporary aid, just while Lily grows more foot, and then she can go back to being barefoot. Mr. Burns is located right here in Royal Palm Beach, and is a friend of my vet's. The idea is pretty exciting. I'm sure it would be costly, probably way more than I can afford, but you can't deny that the idea of having someone of that caliber work on your horse is exciting.

So yes, I listened to everything Dr. Gillard had to say with open and willing ears, and I think I didn't completely lose his respect. Afterwards, I walked back into the barn to listen to Marianne's side.

Lily would need size 0 Cavallos for her back feet, and size 1 for her fronts. Marianne suggested I purchase the 1s, which is what she had at the moment, to use while I got the 0s for the back, and then I would have all 4 boots. I would have loved to go with this, but I had just paid a lot of money for my peace of mind regarding Lily's left hind, and told her that right now, I could only go for 1 pair, and it would have to be for the ones she needed most-the hinds, which was the size she didn't have. She was okay with this, though I felt bad-I wanted to be able to somehow pay her for her efforts. She then showed me how to trim Lily's feet once a week, just shaping her toes to keep any flares from forming, demonstrating the angle at which I should hold the rasp. This was really cool. Afterwards, I asked her how much I owed her-she had spent a good 2.5 hours with me at the barn during the whole x-ray procedure and then fitting Lily and teaching me. She wouldn't accept any money. I offered to pay for her gas at least, but she wouldn't take it. She said I could invite her out for lunch sometime. She said it with a smile.

I really like this woman. It's sad that my vet won't listen to her point of view, but I still like her. I love my vet, and I really like my trimmer-I will keep both. They have different opinions, but they have many things in common, the best one being that people like them, who really care and want to help out, are worth their weight in gold, and are few and far between, especially in the equestrian industry.

And speaking of the barefoot vs shoes debate, that reminds me of this:

A friend posted this on Facebook. I thought it was pretty awesome, so I'm sharing it with you guys. *lol* Like I've said before, I love holistic medicine, but it does have its dangers if used incorrectly. And the same can be said for traditional medicine. It would be nice if we could just integrate them instead of limiting ourselves to just one or the other.

In the afternoon, I took Lily out for a walk in the park. The arena was flooded, so that was a no-go. We walked on the pavement, which I knew would destroy Lily's duct tape bootie, and then made our way to the smaller hill in the middle of the park, where I lunged Lily for about 15 minutes at walk and trot, just to get her to work her muscles on an incline. She was spunky and a little wired, which made me extra-happy that I had chosen to just hand-walk her instead riding, as she had not been worked in 4 days. She was distracted by the horses in the pasture, and a couple of times she arched her neck, snorted and flagged her tail, but she was a good girl, never pulling on the line, never even bucking or kicking.

At the end of the 15 minutes, I brought her in to me, and noticed that her duct tape bootie was in shreds, all around her coronet band. And there was a lot of red on it. A lot of red. I had not used anything red on it-no iodine, no red Vetrap. The red was all over her pastern, too. Horrified, I picked up her leg and removed the remainders of the bootie. There were no cuts on her pastern, but when I looked under her foot, a trickle of blood was escaping through the puncture wound. The blood was all coming from the wound. However, she had not taken a single lame step-she had worked beautifully, actually.

So we cut across the field by the lake, over towards a gazebo I knew had restrooms and a water fountain-I wanted to clean up her leg and take a closer look. On the way there, I was freaking out, debating whether I should call Dr. G on his cell to ask what I should do.

Lily nibbled on grass while I wiped her pastern clean with water from the fountain. She definetely did not have any abrasions on her hair nor heels. I lifted the foot up and rinsed it too, but it had already stopped bleeding. Hmmm... I had her trot a small circle around me on the pavement towards the left just to watch her move. She trotted out fine. I then moved her to a flat patch of grass across the street, where I had her walk, trot and canter a single circle in each direction. She was fine. I decided to not call my vet, and reminded myself that it was just blood-just blood is good. She probably opened it up from the concussion of working faster than a walk in the grass on the hill. Also, any time a part of your body is trying to heal, there will be increased vasculature to that area in order to pump blood there to allow the white cells to clean up the damage. This will even happen in eyes with long-standing ulcers - capillaries will develop, crossing over the cornea in an attempt to heal the ulcer once and for all. So of course this would happen in Lily's frog, too. It happens with thrush as well. I breathed.

We continued with my original plan, which was to work an hour in the park. I was glad I had worn my sneakers, as I had been wanting to jog with Lily. And we did-I ran on the pavement, and had her trot next to me on the strip of grass next to the road. She arched her neck and picked up the trot the second I started to jog, and stayed right next to me, shoulder to shoulder, until I decided to break to a walk again. She instantly decelerated in unison. We repeated this several times, and I was happy my cardiac endurance seemed to be up to par, if not my legs.

We alternately jogged and walked all the way to the paddocks where the Scary Cows of Death are kept, and I let Lily stand for a minute and stare at them in horror.

Staring at the Horse-Eating Cows of Death with Zebra-Striped Fly Masks

But since I was next to her, her fear only lasted a second, and she immediately relaxed and followed me as we turned around and made our way back. I grinned like an idiot watching her trot happily next to me and laughed to myself at the realization: since moving to Florida, I had yearned for a large dog to go jogging with. Well, I can jog with my small horse instead...

We walked out of the park and onto the sidewalk by the white trail, which we followed up to one of the bigger barns by the main street before turning around to head home. Lily and I were both sweating and panting at this point-we had completed our hour and then some. Yay! I'm as fit as my mare! Or maybe she's as out of shape as I am?

We walked home. When we were almost at the barn, we saw Sarah riding up the street on Romeo, and we stopped to chat. Suddenly, the skies opened up and it poured buckets. Lily and I ran home-I was sprinting and she was doing her extended trot next to me. She is such a good girl-she never once tried to get ahead of me nor pull.

In the barn, I rinsed Lily's hoof on the wash rack, put her in her stall for a second (she had cooled off, thanks to the walk prior to the downpour, and from the downpour itself), and drove home to change my clothes (the apartment is only a mile away-less than 5 minutes. I was drenched! My hair was dripping!), and quickly rushed back to the barn to bathe Lily, and soak and bandage her foot.

Even after all the bleeding earlier, she was not resting the foot tonight. Good. I want her to just heal already!

The Trimmer

Marianne Allen the trimmer came last Sunday and did Lily's feet.

It was a pretty awesome experience to watch a real trimmer at work. I had spoken to Marianne extensively about Lily's diet, riding and turnout schedule, and about wanting to learn to trim myself, and she was pretty excited about meeting me, especially after telling her I'm a certified vet tech. The feeling was mutual. :)

She took measurements of all of Lily's angles, compared medial and lateral angles on each foot, length of toe from the front, and length & width of foot from underneath. As the current (now previous) farrier had said, she said that Lily's clubby foot is actually the ideal, as it is wider. All it needs is to allow the heel to grow. Her other "normal" foot is the width of a pony's! :( Hopefully it gets wider over time and with correct trimming. Her hinds had overgrown bars-they had flattened and started to invade her soles. Also her toes in the back were so long and her heels so flat that she had a negative angle to her coffin bone. Think about walking with a 2" wedge under the ball of your foot, with all of your weight on your heels. Nonstop, 24/7. Yeah: ouch! This puts strain on her rear suspensories (maybe why they seemed intermittently sore...) and on her loins, sacrum and croup. I confirmed that she had always been sore in this area since I've owned her, and had always assumed it was due to the dressage. When the chiropractor came out at the beginning of the year, her sacrum was the only area of her body that needed major adjustment. It will be awesome to see if this improves over time with the new trim!

Marianne took off all of the excess bars on Lily's feet and trimmed her toes back, especially her back feet. After she was done, her hinds looked textbook-perfect! Her fronts finally look as short as they should be, and she rasped off all of her flares. The way she was standing changed right away: her hind feet came up right underneath her, and if she rested a foot, she kept it right next to the other instead of off to one side like she used to (I always thought this was odd.)

Photos taken the day after the trim:

Front feet. Note both hinds on the floor!

Left front

Left hind. This was her worst foot of the 4.

Right hind

Right front. See how much more upright it looks? :)

Left front. Sorry-I rinsed off her feet so the undersides would be clearly visible, so all 4 feet were wet.



Left hind. You can't see it well in the photo, but in real life you could clearly see the puncture wound towards the end most proximal to the frog apex. What now appears to be a crack is just a ridge of frog tissue-no crack anymore; it has healed. She was very good for the trimming of this hoof, indicating that it doesn't hurt anymore.



Right front. Her flat and slightly crooked foot. This is a horrible angle; I had it tilted forward too much. The lighter part of the frog is where she took off some excess tissue that had not been worn down properly. The trimmer said it is sometimes possible to correct the crookedness of the foot if the anatomy of the horse hasn't been completely compromised over time. We'll see. Hopefully this can still be fixed.

Right hind. Another horrible angle to the photo, but one heel really was lower than the other. However, this was the best of all 4 feet, and the one that looked the most picture-perfect after the trim.

 I lunged her on Monday, then let her move around at liberty just to watch her go. She seemed a little tentative at first, and then she was off-she did her lovely extended trot, snapping her feet forward and higher than she ever has before, simply because she could now land heel-first! No, she did not look like Totilas, and she never will, but in the Lily Trot department, this was the best she's ever moved. Her canter seemed less lateral, more of a 3-beat. Afterwards, I tacked her up and rode. She was light on the forehand, extending and collecting easily, on the bit 90% of the time, and lateral work, while always easy for her, seemed even easier than usual.

Our following rides this week have been very, very good! We have done more of the same, especially focusing on getting lateral work done at the trot, since she has been doing so well at trot and canter. My problem at the trot is that she has discovered her medium, and now loves it! It is hard to bring her back from it into a more collected trot, so we have been transitioning from medium trot to canter, or from walk to the collected trot. Now, transitioning from collected trot to medium trot feels like soaring! I think it is her favorite transition right now. She arches her neck proudly, her ears come up and relax, and she zooms along. I can't help but grin like an idiot every step of the way. This is such tremendous progress for her!

On another note, we have continued practicing trot-halt-trot, and she has stopped being impatient. I am starting to feel that lift of her withers that is so beautiful when seen from the ground, when she takes off into her floaty trot from a standstill at liberty.

The biggest difference in her, however, is in the way she stands. 24 hours after the trim, she was standing with her hind feet in front of the vertical, a sign of heel pain. This was an improvement, though, from her constantly shifting her weight from one hind foot to another while standing. She was standing square, but with both hinds a little further forward than normal. Heel pain, yes-she's most likely always had that due to the previously long toes, and this stance is a sign of heel pain. But the fact that she doesn't have the overgrown bars digging into the underside of her feet nor the long toes meant that she could finally put weight on her soles to give her heels a break, instead of just resting one foot or another.

48 hours after the trim, I saw her standing square, normally, for the first time since I can remember. Her head was high and ears forward, and I swear she was smiling. And no, it was not feeding time. :) She really seemed the most comfortable I've ever seen her, just standing still.

Standing square!! :D

Go Team Barefoot!

10 Happy Things

I was over at Funder's blog, and found this, and thought it would be a good idea to do this too (*lol* actually, the pun wasn't intended, but there you go.) This is from a post of hers from 2009.
Does anyone else here read other people's blogs from the beginning? I do. If I discover your blog and like your recent posts, I will go aaaaaallllll the way back and read it from the very beginning, just so I'm not lost while reading your recent stuff. This keeps me entertained at night when I'm at home by myself while Charles is working. :) I got a lot of awesome training ideas by doing this with Stacey's blog and Eventing-a-Gogo. If you haven't read Stacey's posts from when she was in Hawaii, you totally should! LOVE the way she conditioned Klein!

I will quote Funder, as I completely agree with her:
"I don't believe things can make a person happy. Other people can't make a person happy. Happiness comes from inside oneself. I'm sure you know somebody who "has it all" who's totally miserable, and you know someone with "nothing" who is just genuinely happy to be alive. I strive to be the latter."

Well said!

So here are 10 things I enjoy about my life:

1. Charles - I'm living the life I'm living right now thanks to him and one of the most enormous leaps of faith I've ever taken. We knew each other as kids. One of my aunts, Lucy, was a kindergarden teacher, and Charles was in her very first class. He was a HELLION of a child. His mom says my aunt tamed him, and they became lifelong friends as a result-they are close friends to this day, some 30 years later! I couldn't STAND him. He was that annoying little kid who would come and poke your shoulder repeatedly, "Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey..." Yup. That kid. Our families would hang out a lot when we were little and then as we got older, and we were all teenagers doing Very Important Things, we all kind of drifted apart for a little while. I stayed good friends with Charles's younger brother James, and even invited James to my junior prom. He was just easy to be around, and he was a good friend. Charles was the older super cool brother, who had an attitude that he was too good for us at the time, so we kind of ignored him. Flash-forward a couple of years to the summer of 1997. I was 17, and I'd been working as camp counselor at my mom and aunt's art camp, plus working extra shifts as counselor at my barn's riding camp too. It had been a very long day, and I was taking a ride home with my aunt Lucy, but she had to stop by James's mom's house to pick up some papers for her master's degree (they did their masters together). I was exhausted, but I perked up thinking I'd be able to hang out with James. As it turns out, James wasn't home, but Charles was home from college. I had not seen him in a few years, and had even forgotten he existed. His hair was long and he only wore contacts at the time, and I looked up into his hazel-blue eyes and it was like the world stopped.
I was never really the same again, and neither was he. Years later when I asked him about that moment, he said that at that instant everything in the world had gone silent-it was just him and me, in that second.
He was in a group of Sea Scouts, and I joined, not only because it would be awesome finally getting to camp out around the island, but also because it would be a chance to get to know him better. One of our best adventures was Mona Island, a small island off the west coast of PR used exclusively for research. It's called the Galapagos of the Caribbean for a reason-not a soul lives on that island, other than Dominican and Haitian refugees, and there were stories of pirates too. There's a small research station on the opposite side of the island from where we camped. It was one of the wildest places I've ever stayed at, and on top of that we got trapped on that island for 4 days due to some major storms that rolled in. All of the tents flooded except Charles's and mine-we were the only ones who had set up our tents properly. Since the 25 of us didn't fit in 2 tents, we moved to a run-down shelter by the one dock. Our food ran out, and our last 2 nights on the island, we slept on the sand on the beach. But we had an absolute BLAST, exploring the internal cavern system of the island, and trying to swim all to the way to the sunken ship off the beach. Yes, a sunken ship. We were eventually rescued by the Coast Guard. Everyone was anxious to return home, but Charles and I would've been happy to just stay on that island forever! We made some lifelong friends on that adventure, and being the ringleader of the group with Charles made me decide that I wouldn't mind hanging out with this guy forever.
For the next year, I waited to see if he'd come around. He showed signs of liking me a lot, but our relationship was limited to the Sea Scouts. I loved talking to him-we never ran out of subjects, and he could be so incredibly annoying at times. We'd get into these verbal skirmishes where we would try to one-up one another. I was the only one in our group who could beat him at this. The look on his face when he couldn't come up with a retort was worth a million bucks. It was never boring being around Charles.
And then I went to college-I was accepted into the Natural Sciences program of the University of PR, the same department he was in. One day, in utter frustration, I gave him a really long letter where I basically told him I adored him, and wtf? Did he like me or not? Just stuck it in his hand when dropping him off at our department's parking lot, and left him with it. The next day I asked him if he'd read it. He said yes. He admitted he liked me a lot, but he was not ready for a serious relationship at the time, and he didn't want to lead me on. He explained he was doing a lot of things that I would probably never agree with, and our relationship would be doomed before it even started. I appreciated his honesty, but I was devastated. As it turns out, he was absolutely right: he was active in the Puertorrican rave scene when it was at its strongest. He was correct-at the time, I would've been horrified.
We stayed friends, however. That letter I gave him? He kept it for years after. I moved on and had other relationships, but I was always looking for another Charles, and of course, there was no other quite like him. Charles left the island and moved to Orlando to get an A.S. in film, and we stayed in touch via an occassional e-mail every few months. It was bizarre when we reached a point where we were giving each other relationship advice. I still loved this guy, but I was in a serious relationship at the time.
And then, one Christmas Charles came to visit his family. And he wanted to see me. He had been back to visit before, but this was the first time he'd wanted to hang out with me, ever. I don't remember what movie we went to watch-I was just hyper-aware of him in the seat next to me. We said good-bye that night, but for the first time I KNEW that he felt exactly the same way about me as I did about him. I saw it.
After that, we stayed in touch by phone. We'd call each other once a week, like clockwork. And then my grandfather died, and a part of my world as I knew it ended. I decided that you just can't sit around waiting for things to happen-sometimes you have to make them happen. James was getting married, and Charles was coming for the wedding. He'd asked me to be his date.
Well, I was his date and a whole lot more, and that was that. Before the visit was over, he'd asked me to move to Tampa with him.
And I kind of said yes. I spent 6 months travelling back and forth, first because I wanted to make sure I liked Tampa and had a chance of doing something productive with my life over there, and also because I wanted Charles to be sure that this was what he wanted. He was a bad boy and still had to grow up a bit before we could actually live together. At this point in his life, he had no problem growing up-he changed, on his own, without me ever having to ask, because he wanted me there. I won't deny that throughout those 6 months I was terrified he'd one day wake up and say, "F- this, I want to stay single!" I felt like I was jumping from a cliff with my decision to move in with him, hoping that somehow I'd be able to fly. But he never once showed any kind of doubt or hesitation in his commitment to me. He was in, 100%.
In December of 2004, I shipped all of my books and clothes to Tampa and flew in with my cat, Shakti, and my laptop. Nothing else. And that was it-that was the beginning. I jumped, and I flew after all. Life with Charles is definetely an adventure, every day. I love him more than anything, and he is truly my best friend.

Summer of 1998
(And in case you're wondering, his T-shirt had a drawing of a plane with Santa and all his reindeer smashed on the plane's nose...This photo was taken at an art summer camp that we worked together as counselors...with kids....that's typical Charles for you)

Now

2. My mom - I'm probably weird for this, but my mom and I are really close. We've been through some tough times, but we survived. She is also my best friend, and we have pretty much talked on the phone every day since I left the island. It makes the distance seem nonexistent. She is the best cook on the planet, and everyone says she should run her own catering business-I have met few people who love to cook as much as she does. I inherited her ability to make something out of nothing with food, without needing to follow a recipe, and have it taste really good, but I don't enjoy cooking anywhere near as much as she does. I wish I did, but most of the time nowadays, I just don't have the time. I just wish I could wave a magic wand and have Mom's home-cooked food! She raised my brother and me with my aunts' and grandparents' help, dedicating her life to us. She walked me down the aisle on my wedding day. I couldn't have asked for a better mom.

My mom and me, at Charles' and my wedding

3. Lily - she's our kid, basically-she requires the same amount of time and money, for sure! Charles actually refers to her that way, and his coworkers ask about her as if she really was his daughter. She's my therapy, my workout, and my escape, all rolled into one. Some days she still drives me nuts, but for the most part she's the sweetest little mare I've ever met. And that's not just me saying it-everyone who meets her says the same thing. It's pretty cool to see how far we've come this past year!

4. My cats - Shakti lost a long battle with cancer last week. I had her for 12 years-not old for cancer, but it's not the first time I've seen this happen. She chose me at the shelter; she was a funny-looking gray kitten with white paws, stripes, spots and orange patches-she was every color at once. She MEOWED and MEOWED when she saw me walk in the room, and just about had a fit in her little cage trying to get to me. All the other cats ignored me, so I figured I might as well take the only one that wanted to be with me! She was my first cat, and she taught me so much about them-I am a better tech because of her; not every tech or ever doctor "gets" cats, but I do, especially the difficult ones. She was the only pet I brought with me from PR (I had another cat, 2 dogs and Lucero over there), and she rode with me in the car from Tampa to South FL, sitting loose on the back seat, happy as a clam. Unlike your typical cat, she was an adventurer, and always took our moves in stride; she was also part of the original trio: it was Charles, Shakti and me. She left a big hole behind her; I miss her every day-this will be our first move without her. Shakti means "cosmic energy" and is also the Hindu goddess of creation. Hey, cats think they're gods. Just ask them-in their world, they rule! We started a theme with her. My other two, Astarte (Phoenician warrior goddess. Aphrodite was her equivalent in Greek mythology) and Dio (for Dionysius, the Greek god of food and wine, and yes-he is the most food-motivated cat I have ever met!) are certainly also little gods, with very individual personalities. Astarte was my brother's cat, and she is also a Puertorrican shorthair-my brother moved to Ohio and couldn't take her with him, so my mom brought her to me during one of her visits to after we had moved to South FL. She is a calico, THE coolest cat on the planet, almost doglike in her adoration of people, and is eerily smart and expressive. One time Charles and I were arguing and she actually jumped in my lap, yelled "GAUUU!" and covered my mouth with one of her paws! Needless to say, Charles and I completely forgot what we were arguing about, and burst out laughing! Dio is a boy, and we adopted him from the Broward Humane Society. He chose us. He's a tuxedo Manx mix, and has the cutest bunny tail and the pinkest nose. I used to call him the Bunny Cat. Now he's just the Girly Man. He talks A LOT-he is permanently banished from bedrooms because he will start talking to himself in the middle of the night. He has a very high-pitched voice for a boy. He will fetch, and he will get into cabinets and hidden garbage cans in search of anything edible he can get his little fuzzy paws on. He's a bit ditzy at times, but he's a goofy sweatheart and we love him. These little ones are the salt and pepper of our lives.

Dio & Shakti

Astarte

5. Diana - Diana and I have only known each other for 3 years, but it feels like much longer. I've never been the best at making friends, but like Shakti when she saw me at the shelter, there are a few people in my life with whom I've just clicked instantly and hung onto. Diana is one of them.
I was boarding Cloud, my Quarter Horse gelding (go to My Equestrian Journey to read what happened to him), at the boarding facility/horse rescue that I'd adopted him from. It was a weird place-rickety and kind of falling apart, except they did have a nice arena. The barn manager was pretty cuckoo and definetely chemically imbalanced (I finally really understood what "manic" meant after meeting her...) I was kinda sorta friends with this whackadoo simply because it was wiser than being her enemy. It was rather lonely at that barn, however, until Diana arrived.
Diana was hugely pregnant and she had this big Percheron cross mare who had the biggest poops in the entire barn, and yet she still insisted on doing her stall herself. She said taking care of Bali kept her sane and got her out of the house. We all tried to help her, but she would insist on grabbing her 2-wheeler wheelbarrow and pitchfork and mucking her stall herself. I don't know what it was about her, but I just adored her right off the bat and wanted to be her friend. It was like I'd met a long-lost sister. When she first arrived at the barn, she had Bali in my same row of stalls, but further down at the end. Her stall flooded from beneath with the first rains, and she had to move Bali. I encouraged her to come over to my end-the stall next to Cloud's was empty, and we could share a tackroom. The barn manager was surprised about my offer, as I had always enjoyed having my own private tackroom for all my horsey stuff, plus I ordered a month's supply of 3-wire timothy at a time, which took up a lot of room. But I was willing to compromise just to share a tackroom with Diana. We were like college roommates when she first moved her stuff in, getting all of our stuff sorted so it made sense (all our hay and feed on one half of the room, and all of our tack and supplies mixed together on some shelving units I had on the other half) and we called each other "Roomie" for the longest time. She took 2 weeks off from the barn when she had her baby, and I took care of Bali for her, making sure she got plenty of turnout, cleaning her stall, setting up her feed. Bali and Cloud became friends too-she had a huge crush on him, and he would play with her, running around in the paddock next to her. He didn't do this with any other horse-he'd always been somewhat of a loner. When Cloud was taken from me, Diana kept an eye on him, and made sure he always got fed and had fresh water, and would give him kisses for me. She helped make sure he got adopted into a good home. She was my heart horse's guardian angel.
And now she boards her horse next to mine, our mares are friends, we share the tack hook rack in front of Bali's stall for our mess of halters, fly masks and lead ropes, and share the same wall of our tack stall. She'll do my stall if I'm having a sucky day at work, and I'll do hers when I know she's had a long day. I'm not a big sharer, either, but I'll share the whole universe with this woman. She talked me out of one of my biggest funks since I left PR when Lucero died, and more than once has given me better advice than the vet himself when I've had issues with my horses. I will miss her terribly when we move.

Lily and Bali

6. My career - Being a vet tech is tough. Especially when you work emergency and critical care. When you work general practice, you get to play with puppies and kittens and establish wonderful long-term relationships with your clients, and watch their pets grow up and age. These pets often come to recognize and like you. The bulk of your patients are just coming in for vaccines, skin issues or for the occassional vomiting and diarrhea. When you work ECC, you see the old, the chronic, and very sick animals, and work with distraught, angry and sometimes uncooperative clients. I can't tell you how much I hate walking into a room with the estimate from the doctor to tell a client how much it's going to cost to save their pet's life. Veterinary care is expensive, but then so is human health care if you don't have health insurance... Charles was once charged $1500 just for an EKG when he fainted in the OR during one of his nursing school rotations! People don't realize this. The medicines and the level of care are the same, just in smaller doses and proportions for smaller patients. If you have a puppy or a kitten, get it insured! It's about $15-$20/month average, and it pays for any health complications down the line-it is totally worth it! It will even cover chemotherapy-that's more than can be said for a lot of human health insurance policies!
The hours often suck, and there are days when I wouldn't mind having normal 8 hour 9a-5p shifts like most human beings. 13 hour shifts are brutal on your feet, legs and back sometimes, especially when you're restraining fractious patients or wrestling large dogs on an x-ray table. The pay definetely sucks most of the time-veterinarians and techs are GROSSLY underpaid for the amount of schooling, knowledge, and training we have to have. A human doctor only has to know one species-we have to know all species that can be kept as pets! Their diseases, treatments, husbandry, and the individual way each species must be handled in a hospital setting. Example: a sick bird can die just from the stress of being taken out of a cage; a rabbit can break its back if restrained incorrectly.
BUT I love what I do. I love noticing things the doctor missed, that make a difference in the patient's outcome. I love making friends with the cat that won't allow anyone else to touch it, or getting my face nuzzled by the dog whom I just drew blood from but who instantly forgave me; I love being able to place an IV catheter and having my patient not react at all because I did it smoothly and pain-free; I love reading my patient's body language and expressions to gauge how they feel, and using my knowledge of their vital signs to see if my guess was correct; I love the fact that I've saved a couple of animals simply because I noticed something was off from way across the other side of a room; I love when treatments work and the patients get better and go home cured; I love the rare moment when a client bothers to ask my name and thank me.
Now. Can someone please open up a veterinary hospital where the medicine is good, the doctors respect each other and their techs, the techs work together as a team, the schedule is predictable, and the pay is decent? Is that really too much to ask?

With one tiny patient

7. Electronic music - I used to HATE techno or anything in that realm-I was a soft rock & alternative kind of girl. The whole electronic music genre made me think of video game soundtracks. Until Charles. Mr. Ex-Raver Boy turned me onto a whole new world in terms of music, and I love it. The song that started it all was Above and Beyond's remix of Dido's Sand in My Shoes. Charles played it one morning when we were getting ready for work shortly after I moved in with him in Tampa, and I was gone, gone, gone. The music wrapped itself around me and poured itself into me. This song still does that to me, 8 years later. I asked Charles, "What is that?" Trance. This song is classified as trance. In my search for more trance, I discovered Junkie XL, Tiesto, Sander Kleinenberg, Armin Van Buren, Above and Beyond (of course), and more recently, Kaskade. Moving down to South FL, I became a big fan of house music. The punchy beats can be found on most local radio stations, especially during the evening. I've also been introduced to breakbeats and dubstep. The Ultra Music Festival, the event of all events here in South FL, changed the way I saw people in general. Have you ever hung out with a group of ravers? If you haven't, you should. They are the happiest, most loving people. The last electronic music festival Charles and I went to with our friend Pudge, this totally random guy came up to us, beaming to see us, just to say that he loved us and give us hugs. It was completely innocent, and contagious; he was grinning from ear to ear like a little kid. We hugged him back and told him we loved him too. He wasn't hugging everyone though-we watched him go, and he was picking certain people in the crowd whose energy and vibe he was drawn to. Really cool. These people function on a whole other level that is beautiful, care-free, and completely energy-influenced. Granted, it's a drug-induced state, but it is beautiful nonetheless-the drug brings out this part of people- this part exists in them. It is very, very different from hanging out around a bunch of drunks.

Now imagine a whoooole park full of people like this. Thousands and thousands of happy, goofy people, all dancing to music they love, talking to one another because they all have this music in common. No one fights, no one says nasty things about another person, everyone just coexists, happy, dancing, free. At moments like this, I truly believe that world peace is possible.

Above & Beyond concert back in May. This gives you an idea of what Ultra looks like-this is the same park where it's held at, except this is just the amphitheatre. Ultra will have dozens of stages featuring every kind of electronic music imaginable, filling up the entire park.

8. Cell phones - it's weird that those of us in our 30's and over can still remember a time without cell phones. How on earth did we cope? Someday Charles and I will have iPhones. For now, I have my LG Lotus, which takes somewhat decent pics and has a proper text keyboard. Lord, how did we exist without texting????...

9. My feline patients - they just make my day. Not because they're sick-that's a bummer- but because I can help them feel better. At my previous job, the other techs gave up-I was always assigned any and all hospitalized cats. I'll fawn over them, tell them how pretty they are (even the old and crunchy ones-they're still pretty) and do my best to get them to purr at some time during their hospitalization. My reward? They will let me do almost anything to them without stressing out. The no stressing out part is key in their healing process. Now every once in a while you get a cat that feels sooo crappy that touching them just makes them feel worse. Especially liver disease and pancreatitis cats-any kind of stimulation, be it good or bad, turns their stomach. Just carrying them can really make them feel yucky. So you get an individual that you can tell wants to be nice, but every time you handle them they will hiss, growl or even vomit. It really sucks because most treatments involve touching the patient in some way, so for awhile the stuff you have to do to them to make them feel better, actually make them feel momentarily worse. These guys I will talk to, make sure they are comfortable, and basically leave alone as much as possible until their treatments kick in and they start to feel better.
Cats really do sense when you like them, though. I swear they respond when you tell them how beautiful they are. I'v heard feline behaviorists say the same thing.
I've had feline patients I've never seen before zero in on me from across an exam room, sit up and deliberately make eye contact. Once during morning rounds, a very fractious kitty that had given the overnight staff a hard time, started meowing looking right up at me as I was standing in front of his cage listening to my coworkers. They were saying how absolutely naughty this kitty had been all night. I sat on the floor when he meowed at me, opened the cage door, and he jumped into my lap, purring and rubbing his head against my hands. To say the overnight techs' jaws dropped is an understatement.
Another time, we had this enormous Maine Coon mix named Blackjack who was a gorgeous chocolate color with a white undercoat. Very unusual color. He was very opinionated and none of the techs wanted to handle him because halfway through a treatment he would turn on them. "Okay, that's ENOUGH!" he'd say. I reeeally liked him-his attitude just cracked me up, and the feeling became mutual after the first time I did treatments on him myself. He let me do everything, as long as I was quick and gentle about it, and petted him a lot before and after! By the end of the day, he would howl for me if I walked out of his line of vision!
So yeah-love my kitty cat patients. :)

10. Cold weather - we get none of this down here in South FL, but hopefully someday we live in a place where we do. Unlike your average Puertorrican, I have experienced snow. When I was 5 years old, we lived in San Antonio, TX, and we had a record-breaking cold winter: it snowed! For the first time in I don't know how long. It had not snowed again in that part of TX until 3 years ago-that's how rare of an event that was. But we had a good foot or more of snow on the ground for about 2 weeks-it was there for Christmas! I still remember. The snow came up to my knees, and towards the end when it started to get warm, the top would melt and re-freeze, forming an ice crust over the top of the snow that made it hard to walk through. I loved it anyway. The next winter we didn't get snow, but we did get frost, which was a regular occurence over there. The road to school wound through green fields that sparkled like glitter in the morning light with the frost. I begged Mom to stop the car-I wanted to see it close-up, to touch it. The grass crunched under my shoes, and I picked up a blade of grass. The frost was stuck to it like crystals. It was beautiful. I remember like it was yesterday.
I wouldn't see snow again until the summer I turned 18, while hiking in the mountains in Yellowstone with my dad. That was pretty awesome.
I love cold weather. In Tampa we at least occassionally had frost in the wintertime-one very chilly morning I woke up at 4:30am, before the sun came up, just to run outside to see the frost. I loved seeing the vapor of my breath in the air, and riding all bundled up at sunrise before work, cantering around the jump field at Brass Ring Equestrian Center and seeing the horse's breath in the air.  One evening Charles and I stepped outside to go for a jog at dusk. A cold front had just swept in. We didn't make it around the corner in our exercise clothes-we were too cold! We turned around and ran back home to make hot chocolate instead.
Down here we're lucky if it drops below 60 degrees at night. 3 years ago, the northeast was hit by the coldest winter in the last 20 years, and we received the tail end of it down here. I was working overnights at the hospital, and one of my coworkers was scheduled to finish her shift at 5:00 am. She went outside, then came running back inside: there was a thick layer of frost on her windshield and she didn't know what to do! Really cool. We all rushed outside to see it-I have the photos of my car covered in frost, all sparkly and glittery.
I look forward to those colder days every year. I start obsessing over the weather forecast towards the end of October, anxiously awaiting cooler temperatures. It's kind of pathetic that what we consider cooler here is what a lot of other people consider warm in other parts of this country.
I hope that some day soon we live in a place where it at least gets chilly in the winter. 4 real seasons would be even better. Cold weather definetely makes me happy: bundling up to go outside, deciding how many layers to wear to go riding or exercise, hiding under a warm comforter at night, making chili for dinner (I make a mean chili!) and hot chocolate for dessert.
Yup, can't wait.

Forward

We had another ride today, this time without lunging prior. Lily was moving fabulously, very forward. Even during our walk warmup she was forward-usually she'll suck back away from the contact when I initially pick up the reins to organize her, but today she just reached for the bit and moved on, back swinging. I had her do some weird crazy loops and circles around the arena, changing bend and from one direction to the other...it felt as smooth as ice skating. She even gave me a few steps of true walk half-pass! We've been playing around with this for awhile now, but the bend was never quite right before-her front end would be mostly straight, vs the leg yield where she is bent opposite the direction we are moving. Today we got it-she bent to face the direction we were going! We'd then finish each move with a real walk pirouette (BEAUTIFUL!) then flowed into a larger circle to change direction. Lily never paused, never complained, never hesitated-my cues were accurate, without the need to contort myself, and thus 100% clear. Since the powerlines incident I've been riding her in the pelham with double reins, but I've been very, very careful about using the "snaffle" reins for all of the cues, and just touching the shank reins if I want her to bring her nose down a bit. She has not tossed her head a single time with this method. I think it also helps that I'm not using the curb chain hook to attach the chain under her jaw-the chain that came with this bit was just long enough for Lily's jaw, but though I could get 2 fingers between her mandible and the chain, she would toss her head until the chain came off if she disagreed or my cues were too strong. Diana's kimberwicke came with one of these instead of curb chain hooks:

I can fix a lot of things and wield many power tools when I don't have a guy handy to do it for me (direct consequence of being a civil engineer's granddaughter!), but I have no idea what the names are for a lot of hardware, this thing included.

I found a giant one (about 2" long!) in Mark's tool and hardware collection, and I ghetto-rigged Lily's curb chain with it. Now it won't come off if she tosses her head, but it also gives her more room between her chin and the chain - a whole extra finger's worth of room. I think this has helped. *knock on wood!*

We did a few shoulder-ins at the trot, then straight lines with changes of direction across the diagonal and little 10 meter circles at C and A. I tried to repeat the haunches-in at the canter from yesterday, but even at the canter she was too forward to be able to organize her enough for this movement. She did give me canter shoulder-ins when asked, however, but then, on the right lead as we came around the corner of the arena by Bali's turnout, she hollowed her back, elevated her head, and I felt her back legs churn for a second-this is what she used to do when she was thinking about bolting. So I lowered my hands, she lowered her head, and I asked her to trot. We didn't canter again.

We zoomed around in her medium trot, and then I sat her trot to regroup for more lateral work. Her trot shoulder-ins were wonderful, as she wanted to GO, so even when crossing her legs she wasn't slowing down into a toe-dragging jog. I wish someone could've gotten video to see what it looked like! We also did some baby leg yields at the trot, which were a little wonky-she'd lead first with her front end, then over-correct when I tried to push her butt over, so she'd end up leading with her hind legs! One day we will get those trot leg yields...I'm still stunned by how much damage was done during those lessons where Judy insisted we do trot leg yields...without perfecting them at a walk first...and only in one direction. We did learn some cool exercises in those lessons, which I have posted about here extensively, but those leg yields almost ruined Lily for all lateral movements for awhile. I had to re-teach her.

After that, she wanted to extend, as she always does after collected/lateral work, so I let her. She gave me a ground-eating trot, with long snappy strides while staying light in the bridle. For awhile there she had been getting heavy on the bit when doing medium trot, but definetely not today-she arched her neck and powered forward, ears relaxed and happy. She never tried to get quick and choppy, she simply maintained, and I posted along to her beat, staying quiet so nothing in her carriage or rhythm would change. After that, we walked out on a loose rein-no more work; that was a grand finale for me. This was some of the best trot she's given me in a long time, if not ever.

She received a bath afterwards, and I pulled out the medicine boot. I had ordered one of these from Smartpak and it finally arrived. I dumped some epsom salts and warm water in the boot, and strapped it onto her foot. She was so confused by it, because she couldn't step out of it like she'd been doing with the rubber tub! I caught her looking back at her foot and the boot a couple of times. But it worked! I left her soaking for 30 minutes while Diana and I fed the horses and finished setting up our feed, and then applied the topical cream and cotton to the crevice in her frog and ichthammoled her abscess. She was completely and 100% tolerant of the whole procedure.

Can't wait to be able to turn her out and let her have access to her walkout and paddock as usual!

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