Sunny Saturday

Axel is the same, didn't expect anything more. Groomed him and gave him his MSM and put him back outside. Perhaps tomorrow I'll give him some bute and have him move around a bit. He has been laying down, his right side was dirty again so he doesn't hurt so much that he won't lay down. And if he's going down on that knee that could explain the increased swelling. Poor boy, I hope we can get this under control soon. As he decided to humor me and drop I checked out his boy parts and they are pretty dirty. A lot dirtier than I think he should be after being cleaned by the vet a month ago. A mentioned that Axel wasn't dropped when the vet was cleaned and he was just mopping out the inside of his sheath. So now I'm wondering if there is a bean or something. If it was warmer I could maybe see what I can find.

So I brought Cody into the barn and A brought in Vinnie. We did a little bit of ground work in the arena and he was paying pretty good attention considering Vinnie was also doing some work. He was less than thrilled when Vinnie left and it took us quite some time to stand still at the mounting block. At one point we even did a bit of side passing/leg yielding. When he finally stood still I hopped on bareback. Riding a horse bareback in the winter = heated seats. He had a tough time concentrating but we worked on some circles in the corners of the arena and I worked on more subtler cues. A brought Danny in for a bit and moved him around a little before taking him back outside. When I got off Cody and removed his bridle he jumped around and ran to the gate. He really wanted to go out. I finished cleaning up the arena before I took Cody back outside. Since I'm a wimp and don't trot or canter bareback he was only a bit damp from nerves so I didn't have to cool him out. The sun was really warm and everyone was soaking it up outside and a big hawk was waiting on the fence post.

ETA: Doing a little research on MSM and DMSO, here's a few links with some interesting information -
http://www.vitaflex.com/res_msmdmso2a.php
http://www.dmso.org/articles/information/muir.htm

Cody get his hair dried

So here's a photo of Axel's knees from tonight. Pretty much exactly the same as the previous photos. With a bit of additional winter hair of course.

He was still pretty gimpy today and trying to walk across the ice rink to the barn didn't help of course. He loves his MSM though and I think he's much happier getting his treats now that they don't taste bad. He walked around the arena a bit but he didn't want to roll so we went back outside.

Cody was waiting his turn when I brought Axel out. He was a bit more snowy so I groomed him up pretty good. He had some nice platform snow shoes on his front feet so I bet he was glad to have them picked out. I free lunged him for a while at the trot and canter, not too much so he didn't get sweaty. We worked on some ground work after that. I think I need a refersher course on some of the ground work stuff I feel like we're stuck and not quite getting to where we want to be with moving parts of Cody's body and eventually lateral movements. He still wants to always look at the gate when we're in there.

When we were done playing in the arena I put Cody back in the aisle to see how he'd react to the hair dryer. He was actually still a little wet from the snow so I figured it was a good time to try. He wasn't too sure of the whole deal. He behaved really well but he was pretty concerned with what was going on. I managed to dry a spot on his withers but the hair dryer on low seemed really cool. When I tried it at home the high setting seemed really hot but now low seems too low. Who knows, it did dry him off in that spot pretty well. I'll keep working with him on that so when we really need it he isn't surprised.