Charles's First Snow Ride

Okay Universe: so when I was a kid living on a tropical island and I said, "I HATE THE HEAT! I WANNA LIVE IN ALASKA!" I was just a kid, okay? I had no clue what 20 degrees felt like, much less a windchill of -11 (which is what we had last night.)

My part of Maryland today.

Anchorage, AK today.

Very funny, Universe. Very funny.

The good thing about this arctic weather is that the snow that we had on Wednesday is still on the ground! And it's still fluffy!

On Thursday night I texted Charles, who was also working: "DO YOU WANT TO RIDE IN THE SNOW ON FRIDAY WITH ME???!!"

His answer: "Yes. As long as I don't have to wake up at the crack of dawn!" We both worked until 3:00 am. Normally I get out at 2:00 am but we had a very unstable patient arrive close to my scheduled time to leave, and I ended up staying to help out.

What is the perk of temps in the teens with wind chills in the negatives? That it makes 34 degrees feel positively balmy. Never thought I'd say "34 degrees" and "balmy" in the same sentence...

Charles pulled the girls from the front field and set them up with a flake of hay each so they could have a snack while we helped Kathy and Zoe fill water troughs and haynets. We then tacked up and set out.

Taking a photo of me getting a photo of him.

Lily was a little looky in the beginning but not bad at all. She "pointed" at things that concerned her; I acknowledged the with a glance and simply asked her to move on. She eventually stopped worrying about rocks and trees and just enjoyed herself on the trail.
We walked a ways then picked up an easy trot/gait (for Gracie) so that we could all warm up.

The late afternoon light was so beautiful.

I had told Charles about how the river gets ice on the banks when it gets really cold, so I took him through that route so he could see it.

I point at the tree that had fallen above the trail, "That's new."

The trails were in really good condition: they had been hiked but the snow was fluffy enough to give the horses a nice grip anyway so we ended up trotting a lot more than originally expected. We cantered in a few spots but I was still very careful about cantering: only on wider paths, preferably on slight inclines going uphill, and only where I could see the footing far ahead. The trail that runs parallel to the river had a couple of icy spots but it was like crushed ice. We walked that section anyway.

We took the Hidden Pond Trail back to the meadow trail. I was hoping we could do a longer canter there if the footing looked good...and it did! We just did an easy canter down one of the long sides of the meadow. We had the option of turning back towards the barn or going all the way around the meadow. Charles asked if we could canter one more time, and so we did...and he decided to catch it on video!

After that we called it a day and headed back towards the barn, as the sun had already disappeared behind the tree line. We had been out for a full hour and neither horse had broken a sweat. They each had their dinners and were turned back out for the night.

Charles had a ton of fun and is looking forward to repeating the adventure!

Zombie says, "Hi ten?!"

WW: Spring vs. Winter

Who will win?

Cherry blossoms blooming in front of our apartment

Sleet/snow/rain combo at the barn.
Mind you, the barn is less than 15 minutes from the apartment...


Weather Gods, make up your minds already!

Spring? Huh?

I woke up to this this morning:

I had to scrape a good 3" of snow off of my car. THREE INCHES. And as I was taking it off, more was piling on! It's the end of March! Good thing this area supposedly doesn't get a lot of snow...lol.  I think it's funny that we've had more snow in the month that is supposed to be spring, than during the rest of this winter put together.

In 3 days, it will have been exactly 6 months of cold weather for Charles and me. This is the longest either of us has experienced winter. The locals keep saying that it isn't usually this cold for this long in this area; that usually it really starts to drop around December.  It's been cold since the end of October. I think it was better when, being used to living in places where it is the same temperature year-round, I kept involuntarily thinking that this is just how it would be forever and ever. But we had a couple of days in the 50's where we didn't have to wear 5 layers to walk out the door, and now we want those days back!

Parking lot from work

Courtyard at work

On another note, does anyone know what happened to Fugly Horse of the Day? The link doesn't work anymore. I really liked the direction in which the new administrator had taken the blog, but her and the blog seem to have completely disappeared.

Update on the Goofball

I've been absent for almost a week here, but not much has happened.

Lily continued to be on stall rest all last week, at the same time as Jezebel, which actually made the whole ordeal a little more fun: Sally and I hand-grazed the girls together (they're besties), we let them loose in the indoor or the outdoor together to walk around, and just hung around the barn for extended lengths of time for no real reason other than to be around the horses. :)

Lily's right front remained tight, even after her and Jez, while turned out in the outdoor, got all of the studly boys in the field next to the arena all riled up and chaos ensued.

Sally took this awesome photo of my mare having a ball in the outdoor before getting to work stirring up trouble

The field next to the outdoor is where all of the geldings that like to mount mares end up-it's a paddock away from all the mares-one of them has been known to attempt this stunt over fences!!

Lily had presented her butt to precisely this gelding, and I walked over and shooed the girls away. Both of them trotted off with tails flagged, and seeing the ladies showing off so prettily, all 4 boys started tearing around their field like a small herd of wild stallions. This, of course, got the girls hyped up further, who started GALLOPING on their "lame" legs around the arena (" " because they showed no signs of lameness then...), which of course got ALL of the other horses in the neighboring fields worked up in a chain reaction, and before we knew it, there were 40 horses on the farm all tearing around their respective paddocks and fields. Holy Mother of God... Sally and I were, of course, in the middle of this trying to get the two mares to calm down so we could catch them, but they were having none of it. (Oh and did I mention that the outdoor and the neighboring fields are in full view of BQ's windows? Hahaha...) Sally was WHOAing Jez and offering a treat in an extended hand as Jezebel ran by, and her mare hesitated several times when seeing the treat, but my goofball doesn't care about treats and all she wanted to do was run...so since Lily is the ring leader of this duo and she was galloping, Jez continued to gallop. Lily was about to give me a heart attack.

It was probably 5 minutes but it seemed like 20 before we were able to get them to stop. Jez finally gave in to the treat hound in herself and came to Sally, which forced Lily to halt. I had to kinda sorta chase her in circles around Jezebel before she actually allowed me to catch her. Sally and I stood there panting, looking at one another in horror, and decided we would probably not be doing this again in the near future...

Thankfully, neither one of the mares suffered ill effects from behaving like idiots. I put Lily's ice boot on and left it on until the ice melted, just for good measure.

Our trimmer-farrier came out on Friday to trim Jez and check on Lily. By then Lily was pretty much sound, but would seem somewhat off if I trotted her on concrete in a circle. Our trimmer-farrier said that it seemed to be more of a compensatory thing with Lily where she is basically tighter on one side than the other due to her conformation. She gave me an exercise to do with Lily on the lunge, where I work her on a small circle, turn her head in, and have her sidestep with her hinds only. Kind of like a shoulder-in on a circle. We started doing this over the weekend in the evenings after work. The weather has been awful, so they stayed inside. Today both Lily and Jez are to be turned out together in a semi-private turnout (Sally and I lobbied for this, and both BQ and the Powers that Be granted our wish...it was a weird coincidence how it worked out, but more on that in another post.)

Last night I worked Lily in the indoor, and decided to do a regular lunge workout with her.  I had her trot a lot, on the lunge and at liberty, and we did the trimmer's exercise at walk and trot, then we did more regular lunge work. I stopped when I realized Lily was sweating, and not just a little-her neck, shoulders, withers, girth area, chin and cheeks were wet. This seemed really odd. It was 36 degrees. She has to be working HARD and under saddle to sweat at that temperature. We literally only worked for 30 minutes, and it was nothing unusual. The trimmer's exercise we did for a grand total of maybe 10 minutes, including breaks in between on a larger circle-I didn't want her to strain anything. I felt myself start to freak out-maybe she's in pain? Maybe she really is lame in both hinds and I'm not seeing it. Maybe it's just that her coat has gotten a little longer with the lingering cold (it has). I don't know. She had complained about some things and didn't seem as playful as she usually is when I set her free in the indoor after being cooped up. She had trotted out nicely, flipping her front feet out happily and seeming to skim over the ground. I thought maybe she was stepping ever so slightly short on her left hind when on a circle but then she was also trotting a little more sluggishly in this direction-she has always preferred really moving out to the right. Always, since the very first day I lunged her at the barn in FL. She is not resting the left hind any more than usual, I think, and when she trotted away from me in a straight line, I saw no hitch in her step when seen from the rear.

I put her cooler on, and decided to walk her out until the sweat had dried on her. She was being really lovey tonight though. I stopped to talk to Jill, BQ's assistant who rents the little apartment above the barn, and Lily kept nuzzling my face and my legs.

Back on the cross ties in front of her stall, I noticed her standing like a "V"-camped under. It does freak me out every time she does this. The trimmer isn't doing her for another 3 weeks or so, so I decided to trim her myself. For the first time, I used the coarse side of the rasp, and got to work backing up her feet. As I finished each foot, I put it down and stepped back to watch her shift into position. Her posture relaxed, her back softened, and she put her feet out in a normal stance. Okay. I went around and took a little more off of each hoof. I was surprised when she turned around and nuzzled me after each front foot. She seemed happy. I had backed her hooves more than ever before, but they needed it. Maybe that's all I'm seeing... I put Durasole on all 4 feet, and put her away in her stall for the night.

Today, she goes out in the semi-private turnout with Jez...fingers crossed they behave!

Play-by-Play

I rode Jezebel yesterday, and we worked on the zooming and the new pop-my-shoulder evasion that she had been doing.

Jez was COVERED in mud when I got her from the field. The snow from the day before had all melted, turning the field into one giant mud pit. It was horrible, and Jez had mud encrusted all the way up her legs, over her ears, and ground into the roots of her mane. She looked like she had dreadlocks! Since my own mare does this on a 99.9% of the time basis, for the first time I had a real vision of what her mane would REALLY look like most of the time if I'd let it grow out! It took a while to get all the mud off Jez, and I was still finding chunks in her mane while riding her!

One of the trainers was working her horses at liberty in the indoor, so I chose to ride in the mucky outdoor. It was very, very wet, but not slippery, as the footing is sand. However, I decided not to canter, mostly because the footing was so bad, but mostly because I wanted to work with Jezebel on not zooming. She'll have a nice relaxed trot, and then all of a sudden she'll take the bit between her teeth and ZOOM! (This is very much a baby horse thing-Lily used to do the same thing in the beginning.) Then you have to bring her back and do circles to get her nice and soft again. Which is when she'll now overbend and pop her shoulder... So we worked on this-just trotting at one speed, no zooming, and keeping the circles nice and round. And lots of halt-walk-trot-halt transitions too. We also sorted out some initial minor brattiness with the gate - she wanted to go TO the gate. After circling evenly in front of it, and then half-halting or bringing her to a halt from the trot as we rode past the gate, she stopped wanting to go to it as fast as possible. Soon we were trotting by the gate at a nice, controlled pace with no attempts at drifting towards it. Her other small issue was wanting to be close to whomever was standing by the fence-Charles was standing by the fence taking pictures, and she kept wanting to drift over to him every time we rode by, thinking she'd get to stop. I did stop her once, but then we worked on not doing it again, and she got it once I started using my WHOLE body to turn her. lol Then she'd go without a fuss. She did great and before I knew it, we had been riding around for 45 minutes, and I chose to stop before the session got too long. Jez is just fun to ride-you really do have to watch the clock while working with her! I do love all of her baby OTTB antics; she's a really good girl overall. I dismounted at the back of the arena and walked her to the gate. I'm going to keep doing this, so she stops associating the front of the arena (and the gate!) with ceasing work.

A very relaxed warm-up walk

We were doing a nice soft, slow trot here.

ZOOM!

She was looking at a cone next to the jump, but she looks so pretty in this photo.

LOVE this one!

For those of you who'd like to learn more about Jezebel, her story and about Sally herself, this is Jez's blog.

I hosed the little mare's legs to get all of that mud off and in the process, clean her cut on her left hind. It looks like it's healing well. 

I turned Jezebel back out, and thankfully, since it was after 4:00 pm, she just stayed by the gate and kept her legs clean! I walked on to get Lily, who of course was at the back of the lower part of the field. The field was AWFUL...there is no grass any more, so it was just one 15 acre expanse of slimy, wet, squelching clay mud. Thankfully I had brought an extra pair of socks and dry shoes for later, but.... UGGGHH!!! I tell you-I miss the Florida swamp sand!

Lily was very calm, and for once, she wasn't plastered in clay! I tacked her up, and after taking another look at the outdoor, decided to just ride in the now empty indoor. She was being extra wiggly, especially about going straight down the far long side of the indoor. We argued about it, and then I just started asking her to go down that side in either haunches-in or shoulder-in. 

She was not thrilled about that. You can see in the video above where she starts to drift backwards in protest! Eventually, towards the end of our session, she went straight.

It wasn't the most productive workout ever, especially because in the beginning I was letting Lily get away with murder, thinking that I must be doing something wrong. When Charles is at the barn, I will stop and look at the videos as he's taking them, just to see how we're doing. This is the only way I can really see how I'm riding. Remember that I don't really know dressage-I come from a jumper background, and in Puerto Rico, dressage was fairly unknown at the time. I mean, it was known, but almost no one did it. It didn't really hit the island as an equestrian sport until after I left. Unlike most kids, I actually wanted dressage lessons, and my really good trainer from my late teens incorporated dressage into our flatwork, but we were doing the functional stuff-getting the horse to move out and use himself correctly- not the fancy-dancy laterally stuff. I didn't even realize what we had been doing was dressage until almost 10 years later! 

I started jumping lessons when I was 13, and formally stopped jumping when I was 31. I've been riding dressage officially, in my head (lol) for the last 2 years and half, but have only had about a year of proper dressage lessons about every 2 weeks, and that's it. The rest I've put together through YouTube, reading, The Clinic last year (yes, with caps-it was an epic clinic in my further development as a rider), and watching other riders, and from what Lily allows me to to do. We'd probably be MUCH further along if I could afford lessons consistently with a really good trainer. Or even if we had larger arena mirrors...I know how it's supposed to look, and have an idea of how it's supposed to feel, but don't really know the proper way to get there. Watching the videos yesterday was when I realized that I was being way too forgiving with Lily-we were literally cutting corners in the arena, and she was evading bending by becoming very rigid through her body.  Case in point:

I wasn't very happy when I saw this one. We were doing lateral-ey stuff. In the beginning, we start out at a very slow sitting trot where she gets on the forehand and I pick her up, and as she comes around the corner of the arena, she almost gets a little bit of lift in her trot and starts to track up, as she collects PROPERLY, yet she goes no faster when she does it. That's probably the one part of the video I like best, and it lasts about 6 seconds! We then move into an iffy haunches-in away from the camera, and were then supposed to trot a couple of strides in a straight line (which never happen) before moving off into a large half circle. We then come back across the arena in a leg yield, where her hind end first trails, then gets ahead of her front legs...*lol* We're going too slow-I should have asked her to pick up the pace. I was then trying to get a circle in shoulder in, but she barely gets it-you know when it happens when her hind legs cross. She knows how to do this a LOT better than that! I could feel that she wasn't trying. Then we leg yield away towards the other wall of the arena, and I should have either stopped at the quarter line or gone all the way to the wall-I let her get away with cutting the corner too soon. We come back towards the camera, then do a shoulder-in into what was supposed to be a circle, but I give up in frustration and start to post again. I almost didn't post this video. 

So we worked on fixing it, and by the end we were moving along better. An improvement here:

Her trot was a little more energetic *in general*, using herself better *in general*, though when I asked her to pick herself up, at times she'd still say, "Oh, ok-I'll walk." And I'm like, "No, I said TROT." I used to carry a dressage whip when she got into this mindset. I might have to do that again-she had gotten a lot better about this. All I have to do is carry it-she'll stay at a trot. We do some zig-zag leg yields going away from the camera, which are not very good, but I'm really happy with our long leg yield across the diagonal of the arena to the quarter line. I need to make her go STRAIGHT for a couple of strides after ending our lateral work, though-you can totally see where she blows through my aids and cuts into the circle early at the very end!

I'm looking at getting a Wintec Pro dressage or Wintec Isabell, and am watching a few on eBay. These saddles fit Lily well when she was leaner. I'm worried the Alta Escuela is not fitting well right now due to Lily's weight loss-it actually feels downhill when we're riding, which is how the wide tree felt the very first time I tried it on her with Sarah's saddle back in FL-it was too wide at the time. It's making posting really hard, because my hips will bump against the pommel, which I know jars Lily. The dressage saddle will give me something to ride her in that fits while waiting for her to fill out again. Plus we can actually consider showing in the dressage saddle...a couple of the riders at the barn show dressage, and there are some local schooling shows close by. It would be easy to tag along for that kind of thing. I just like having goals to train towards; I don't really care about winning...though yes, I did get pissed off when that klutzy rider on the fat dun pony with the Western jog and hexagonal circles back at the Parkland show was awarded higher scores! (Yeah, that was 2 years ago and I'm still holding a grudge...lol And if you have any questions about my circles, watch this video.)

This was my favorite video, taken during our initial walk warm-up:

I'm grinning like an idiot. All I was doing was shifting my weight to one side and the other, absolutely nothing else, and that's what she did! My mare is awesome. :)

Some canter work (as you can see, this is what Charles finds most interesting of my riding, so he always films a lot of it...*lol* He basically caught ALL of our canter work on video...) This is Lily's "forward" canter..it's hysterical how fast if feels, because her strides are short and quick, but how slow it looks...because her strides are slow and quick! It's so lateral, and it's always been like this. But this is one of the reasons why I've expected lower marks in competitive dressage:

Please excuse the blurriness at the beginning of this clip. We were having some camera issues with focusing in dim light, but if you wait a sec it clears up.

Canter-halt!

And some stills:

Lily looks very cute in this one (it's funny how wide her neck has gotten...even if she didn't have the roached mane, it would still look wide), but I was talking to Heather, who had stopped by to chat. And since you can see it up close, we were using the mullen mouth pelham. I switched out my rope reins for a pair of rubberized web reins with stops. It was odd; I always feel like I'm so much more in her face with regular reins, but I wanted to give it a whirl after riding Jez in regular reins.

Stuff to improve on!

WW: Snow storm

I posted these on my Facebook wall today. We had about 6" of snow!

It was coming down hard and fast. My first time seeing horizontal snow!

 The barn was closed today due to the snow-BQ sent out an e-mail that they'd re-open as soon as they could plow. The snow has already started to melt, so I don't think that'll be a problem tomorrow.

Weird Mare Day

It was cold today, colder than the forecast was saying it was (high 40's my ass), overcast and windy. There was an inordinate amount of people on the streets when I left the house at noon to go to the local Petco to buy my cats' organic grain-free food (yup, we don't eat organic, but the cats do...) and it seemed like everyone was in a bad mood, including the cashier at the store. It kind of reminded me of South FL...

At the barn, everyone was miserable too. Everyone is tired of the cold. Personally, I think that if it's going to be cold and dreary, it should be snowing. EVERYONE here hates the snow. I love it. It covers all the brown dry dead vegetation in sparkly clean whiteness and makes it all look absolutely beautiful...

It did not snow today. I had been hemming and hawing about whether I should ride or not, debating about having a snaffle bit session with Lily or trying out more doma vaquera-ish stuff (yes, the video inspired me), but in the end, my tired self won and I arrived at the barn having decided that I would take Lily for a long walk in the woods. I figured we could go to the field where Charles took photos of us a while back and maybe lunge her on the hill to do some conditioning. Plus it's a FIELD. Might as well start getting her used to it-maybe we can ride out there more.

Lily tried to run away from me again in the field, but then gave up and stood waiting while I went up to her. She was SUPER fidgety in the cross ties, not letting me groom the mud off her face, stepping away from me every time I approached her with the brush, and trying to turn her neck around to look behind her at the horses in the arena (believe me, if I cross tie her to face the arena, she will find a reason to turn her neck the opposite way! We've done this before). These are little things, but they drive me crazy because of what they mean: she is in a flighty herd-bound mood. I was really glad I'd decided to not ride her-she would have been a handful.

I took her on the trail with her rope halter and the lunge line, and she was all prancey and snorty as we walked down the path, turning her head around to look at the old house in the woods that she's seen 10,000 times, and in the process getting into my personal space. We did a lot of side-passing, stopping and backing in this part, and she also got elbowed in the neck a couple of times. This is SO unlike her.

We made it to the bridge, which we crossed uneventfully, and jogged together up the road that leads to the field. I had Lily carefully walk down the initial steep slope of the track, and once we were on flat land, we ran-me sprinting, and her doing a really nice extended trot next to me.

I then chose a spot on the flatter portion of the slope where I lunged her w/t/c. She was a good girl, distracted but listening, and was also very sane about the whole thing, actually breaking to the next slowest gait when coming down the hill. I allowed this to protect her legs. We haven't done formal hill work in a long time.

Walking, distracted.

Slow trot. It's funny how the tension in her doesn't translate at all into photos! She looks positively bored in this one. She was not!

More forward trot

I worked her for 10 minutes, then we walked back to the track and made our way over to the creek crossing. It was a little less muddy than the previous time we had come this way, when Charles had ended up taking Lily by the reins and leading her towards the stream.

Lily became very nervous as we got closer, trembling visibly. She is getting better about the sound of rushing water, but this part of the creek is wider and deeper, so the sound is louder. All I wanted was to get as close to the water's edge as possible. I had an idea of trying to send her across, but the mud was quite squishy and I was wearing muck shoes, not boots, so while I didn't think we'd be able to achieve my goal, I at least wanted her to walk through the mud and realize that streams don't eat horses. At least, not small streams... Lily would come up next to me as we inched closer to the water, then try to cut across my path to my left as if we were lunging. This made me really irritated-the footing was slippery and deep, there wasn't enough room for this kind of stunt, and I was trying really hard to not step in the water in the tire tracks, so I made her back her little butt right back across to my right. I finally made it as far as I could without sinking ankle-deep into the mud, and not expecting much, gave Lily lunge line. She completely surprised me by stepping cautiously forward, without hesitating and with no urging, until she was right at the water's edge, where she stood all by herself, a good 20 feet in front of me, and stared at the other shore. I called her back before she made the decision to turn around, and gave her lots of praise!

We returned to the field, where I lunged Lily another 10 minutes in a flatter portion. One of my feet got tangled in the long flattened grass as I was walking while lunging, and I fell to my knees, which scared Lily. She tried to take off as I said, "WHOA!" and she actually responded-she stopped, and then came to me all by herself. What a good girl!

We resumed lunging and finished our 10 minutes with no further mishaps, though she continued to look off towards the woods and the top of the hill.

I was trying to get a photo of how well she was using herself as she went uphill at  the canter, but the phone's camera's timing was off. Lily was really reaching up under herself going up. 

Afterwards, we made our way back on the track, but I decided to take a detour to see if we could find a narrower, less muddy way to cross the creek. We walked into the treeline and followed the stream. I was walking very carefully here, as you could tell by the appearance of the grass that the river had overflown at one point and run through here. I was expecting bogs and pockets under the footing, and was keeping a close eye on Lily's feet as she walked next to me. If her hooves were to sink past her coronet bands, we were bailing on this little mission. She paid no mind to anything, not even being particularly careful herself, as she kept trying to crane her head around to look behind us, almost smacking me in the head a couple of times. I had to push her away from me more than once. She was driving me crazy! She never does stuff like this.

I did find a spot where we both could have crossed, but the bank leading to it was super iffy looking. There was a drop in the terrain into this bank, and the bank itself looked like grass covered in mud from the stream.  I had Lily stand and I stepped carefully down first. There was a little bit of give in the footing, but it seemed dry and secure, so I stopped and  turned to watch Lily. Knowing that this was my cue for her to come, she lowered her head to look at the footing, then reached forward with a leg and followed. I watched her hooves as she walked around me, but as she came over to my left, stepping lightly and quickly, I saw the fraction of a second when her legs started to sink. I leaped back onto secure footing, and Lily jumped also, to land right next to me. I checked her legs-she had sunk fetlock-deep before we had turned around. I had a feeling she would have sunk farther if we'd hesitated. Yeah-not trying that one again.

That was a close call...

Staring off at the hill, right after a little mini-adventure. I still don't know why she was so wired and distracted.

I managed to catch her as she gave a big blow/snort in this one!

We walked back to the barn. She gave my right arm a workout as I kept having to stop and make her back up, but we made it in one piece. I hosed Lily's legs off and confirmed that everything was fine under the layer of mud she'd acquired.

Back at the barn, Cat, a big laid-back warmblood mare, had spooked in the outdoor arena during a lesson, and Melody, the most chill mare in the barn, was pacing and fidgeting to the point where everyone thought she was colicking. She was not-she was just worked up, but no one could figure out why. Her owner tried riding her in the indoor and she also spooked, which was something she had never done before. Tina took Daisy, her 30-year old retired mare, out of the field to a patch of grass over by one of the gelding paddocks to groom her and hand-graze her, and Daisy was also spooking for no reason.

It was definitely a weird mare day. I felt better knowing it was not just my mare that was acting out of sorts. Lily has her days, but she usually settles eventually-I don't remember ever seeing her this wired for so long. I was glad I didn't ride. Back in the field with her buddies, I had expected her to gallop back out to them, but she simply walked away from me to join her friends.

Weird. And it was not a full moon today.

Pictures Are Worth 1,000 Words

We had a really busy weekend at work and by Monday my back was bothering me quite a bit. On Sunday it seemed like every large, unruly dog and his brother had eaten something they shouldn't, and all of them needed x-rays. Every single one of them was naughty on the x-ray table, and even though I know how to lift with proper technique (abs and legs), sometimes it is inevitable to use your back when you have an 80 lb wiggling and kicking patient that you're trying to pin down on a table that is wider than your upper body is long, while reaching over with a foot to hit the pedal that will take the view. If you work in veterinary medicine, you will know that that pedal will always, 100% of the time, manage to be out of reach of your foot no matter where you are standing!

A brief description of how radiographs are taken in veterinary medicine, since most of you will not know:
We use a human radiology table. Same size and dimension. Most veterinary hospitals nowadays are equipped with digital x-ray capabilities, which is a godsend. This means that a computer with a special digital radiology program is attached to the machine. I've done the old-school method of having to manually process the films, and it is a pain in the ass, especially when after 20 minutes of developing, you realize you need to re-take the view, either because the animal moved or the contrast is poor! With digital, you place the patient on the table and there is a special plate underneath the table top that captures the image. You have a pedal that you can hit with your foot (or put on the table and press with your hand) that will take the shot. This pedal is often tricky-you have to press it first to get the rotor of the machine whirring (this sound with the accompanying vibration will make the patient jump almost 95% of the time!) and then you really step down to take the shot, at which time the machine will beep and you know it was taken. Then you look over at your computer screen, which is always set right next to the x-ray machine, and you will see your radiograph.

Bottle cap in a dog's intestines. From the Animal Emergency Clinic of Rockford website. Aren't digital radiographs beautiful? 

That's the easy part. The difficult part is manipulating the patient into cooperation so they can hold still long enough for you to take that view. For abdominal and chest radiographs (the most common views), the patient is first placed in lateral recumbency (lying on their side, right side down), and stretched out comfortably to allow the best possible view of their organs (you don't crank on their legs. Ouch! Plus old dogs tend to have arthritic elbows and hips). If we're taking chest rads, the doctors often want a left lateral view as well, so we have to carefully flip the patient to the other side to get it. Then the best part (NOT!) is the VD shot (ventral/dorsal) which refers to a shot taken through the ventrum (underside) of the patient. This involves placing the patient belly-up on a V-trough (a V-shaped tray made of foam and covered in soft plastic, very much like a school gym mat, that allows for easy cleaning), and held with front legs extended over their heads, and hind legs extended back. This is often terrifying for patients-per their body language, it's like you are forcing them into submission. We are very gentle with them, and we take it slow, and we don't hyper-extend their limbs, and most of the time we can get them to settle by talking baby talk to them and petting their heads or their chests until the second we have to take the shot. This is the part, however, where techs often get hurt with strained backs and popped discs while trying to flip a huge struggling dog onto his back, and it is also the view most likely to cause the patient, whether cat or dog, to try to bite. Sunday was one of these days-every single patient struggled, and I'm fairly short (5'4") and light (125-130 lbs) so an 80 lb intact boxer is certainly going to have an advantage (testosterone gives boys superpowers, I swear!).

Techs restraining a Corgi in lateral recumbency for an abdominal view. Note the correct use of protective equipment. This makes it extra-cumbersome to restrain patients, but it is a must! Photo from the Spanish Trail Pet Clinic website.

Overall, however, I'm always surprised at how much patients DO cooperate, as all I ever think about when I walk into that radiology room is an alien abduction. I can't imagine myself cooperating at ALL if I were placed on a whirring, vibrating table by creatures who don't speak my language, and then made to lie with all of my most vulnerable parts exposed. I would be a VERY BAD patient!

"Now hold still while we shine this-here radioactive light on you so we can observe your innards better!"
Uh, yeah - F that!

Oh, and orthopedic shots? Those are a whole other ball game, and they sometimes involve some crazy contorting of the patient just so you can get a leg straight in the view. For these, heavy sedation is often used, unless it is a very cooperative or very sick patient.

So if your vet recommends sedation for your pet during radiographs, or you're going to a clinic where every patient is sedated for radiographs (some hospitals do this) please don't argue about the cost. You are doing the hospital staff a favor, but most of all, you are helping your pet in a scenario that can be very stressful!

Thus, on Monday my back was sore from having to twist with patients-my middle back on the left side, wrapping around to the left side of my rib cage. My scarred hip, of course, was super-tight too, so it was all related. I was exhausted as well, but I figured I'd see how the two girls were doing, as I was scheduled to ride Jezebel again.

I went to get Jezebel in the field. The whole herd was at the very back of the field, so it was a long, long hike to get to her. She waited for me to come to her, and came willingly, so we made our way down to the chute.

The chute was very, very slimy and deep-my feet were sinking ankle deep in sucking mud. I was trying to pick the best way through so that neither Jezebel nor I would  get hurt or twist an ankle, or God forbid wrench my back further, and slipping and sliding in the process, when I heard a big snort and a horse came up behind Jezebel. I looked back and stopped, assuming that this was the start of a stampede. But no, it was a single gelding whom I'd never really paid attention to before, who had decided that right NOW he had to come attempt to mount Jezebel! I had heard about one gelding in particular doing this, but I never would have dreamed he'd attempt it while a person was trying to lead a mare away! I had no idea how Jezebel was going to react, and afraid of getting trampled or kicked between the two horses, I tried to shoo him away. He was not leaving Jezebel alone, and kept circling around us like a shark and trying to come up behind her. I was terrified of getting hurt or the mare getting hurt, between the mud and the gelding and trying to not slip and fall. I ended up having to hit him several times with Jezebel's lead rope and yelling at him to get him to go away; I was in a panic. It took me over 15 minutes just to get through the chute during this struggle. He finally gave up and trotted away. I haven't been that scared around a horse in a long, long time. 

Once in the barn, I put Jezebel on the cross ties and proceeded to groom her. While brushing the mud off her legs, I noticed a bleeding cut on the inside of her left hind fetlock. It was fresh-the trickle of blood from the cut had just dried but was still bright red. I put her in the wash stall and hosed off all 4 legs, noticing that she lifted the left hind when the water touched it. Back on the cross ties with clean legs, I checked it again. It was skin deep, going through all the layers of skin, but very small, about 1/2" in diameter. She didn't flinch when I touched it, and there was no swelling yet, but I noticed her resting the foot. I texted Sally to let her know what had happened, and we decided I'd try getting on and playing it by ear. 

Jezebel was sound at the walk, but felt off at the trot, and did not try to zoom around. She actually seemed reluctant to break into a trot, for once. Concerned, I hopped off and put her on the lunge. There was a slight bob to the right, but it was so slight that I was second-guessing myself. I wasn't sure what to do, so I called Sally. She was around the corner. Once she arrived, I lunged Jezebel again, and she saw what I was talking about, which made me feel better-I'm not crazy & imagining lamenesses. We agreed to give Jez the day off. She was in RAGING heat, too-she would stop and squirt if she so much as smelled a boy!

I fetched Lily from the field and tacked her up. She was pretty wound up when I got on, enough so that I decided to get off and lunge her for a bit. Charles had shown up around then, and he took all of these photos. 

She was really distracted right off the bat

Circling in shoulder-in

Shoulder-in down the long side of the arena

Trotting on a loose rein, trying to get her to lengthen, as her trot was really short and choppy.

I gave up, dismounted, and lunged her for about 10 minutes to let her  release all of that excess energy.

Then we played around with groundwork. The previous night we had been practicing yielding at the trot, and Lily had just started to get the idea. We attempted it some more here.  

Here she was doing more of a shoulder-in, and I was trying to re-align her body while keeping the contact light. 

I think it's cool how in almost every photo our legs match! 

Nailing the yield at the trot 

And again. 

And again! 

And one more time! 

Success!  Walking towards the camera, and  our legs still match!

Back in the saddle-a much calmer mare!

I decided to just have fun. So since Lily was feeling peppy, we cantered a lot and had a blast, despite my sore back.

Not sure why I was sticking my tongue out in this one. Can't do that while riding!

Video!

Love the light in this photo 

Cooling out.

And that was our Monday. :)