Manicure Time

Last night was farrier night. I was a bit early as usual so I fed Axel his MSM while we waited. He was already in the crossties so he had his feet done first. He's been doing a new thing lately where you ask for his hind left and he picks up his hind right instead. I'm not sure if he's just trying to avoid putting more weight on his front right or what. He was not terribly pleased to have that front right knee bent and the farrier only bent it the bare minimum. He seemed pretty sore when he was done so I tied him in the arena while I tried to thaw out some paste bute. I'm ready to give up on the powder. I think I'll just get a dosing syringe from Fleet Farm and mix the powdered bute with water and dose him that way. He actually doses really easily, at least the last two times I've buted him.

So I got Cody and groomed both of them while we waited for Cody's turn to have his feet done. His front left has a bit of notch/chip in the toe. Not sure how he got a chip walking through 2 feet of snow but he managed. It's not too serious, hopefully it'll grow out. And other than hanging out while everyone else got their feet done that was about it for the trip to the barn. They've got a lot of snow out there and I guess Cody was running around playing in it a bit. But for the most part they all confine themselves to the round bale.

The plans for spring are to move Vinnie into the big pasture and Cody and Axel will go in the paddock until their pasture has a chance to revive itself. Assuming they stop the round bales near that time, it might be a good diet for fat Axel. We're working on getting an appointment in March for shots and coggins and I'll get Axel's knees xrayed and then figure out what the next step is. It might be easier/cheaper to go with something like Adequan instead of the daily supplements (which haven't started working yet as far as I can tell).

Cold Day for the Farrier

So we picked the coldest day so far to have the farrier out. He said if it was too cold he would have canceled so I guess it wasn't too cold. Axel was super mellow and only wanted to lift his right hind (which is weird since it's his left hind that hurts). Cody was a good boy as usual. I don't think either of the horses needed much trimming, just some filing and cleaning up. I really should get one of those rider's rasps and try it out.

It was a pretty uneventful trip to the barn. I helped bring in Vinnie for his manicure and stood around chatting. Cody is looking awesome now that he has a round bale and that was one of the many reasons they decided to put some out. He and Vinnie seem to be pretty good buddies while Axel still chases Vinnie around a little. Vinnie wants to eat at the feeder with Cody and Axel but he's not allowed to do that quite yet. There's a few "test bites" on the rafters in the shelter but other than that everything looks unchewed. And the round bale makes me feel better about the horses when it's below zero. They can keep warm stuffing their faces with grass.

One of these days I'll settle into the cold and get back to riding. Winter conditioning and winter therapeutic riding classes start the first week in January so I'll have to get used to the cold by then. At least the TR class I'm teaching is in a heated arena at the U.

Consistency?

I just really like this photo of Cody from this summer. I haven't been great with the camera lately, especially when there's so many people around at the barn. I'll have to make up for that this winter and maybe even bring my big camera out of hiding.

Yesterday was farrier day so I went out to the barn pretty early to fetch up the horses and be there when everyone arrived. Axel was a bit of a pill and jumped around when the farrier had his back left. And he tried to kick Diva several times when she passed by. Cody was pretty much as normal. He just wanted to see every direction at once.

I set up some cones in the arena to work on some trotting, kind of the NSEW exercise. It went sort of okay. Then we worked on some circles since the outside of the NSEW pattern makes a nice circle. We're having consistency issues. We go slow around a couple corners then speed up or almost canter around another corner. We have a hard time turning away from the gate and then the opposite corner of the gate he cuts in and speeds up (maybe cuz that's the first time he sees the gate again?). So there was a lot of "trot-easy-trot-easy" going on. We worked a bit on cantering with the same issues getting around that corner by the gate. J was watching and telling me to put my outside leg on. Our other issue is lack of bending and lack of understanding what I'm asking. I try and ask for a bend with my inside leg on the girth but he thinks that means speed up or canter. And trying to get him to move off that inside leg to keep the circle wide gets the same result. I'm not sure what we should work on in respect too all those issues. Do we work on maintaining a constant speed first and then add the bend? Or vice versa? I will have to think on that a bit.

We spent a few minutes working on turn on the forehand in the corner of the arena. The wall helps block forward movement but the turn on the haunches is another story. I tried to back into the corner to work on that but we weren't as successful. And our backing up issue is still there. I've changed to verbal-wiggle reins-more rein-smack on shoulder. I'm hoping if I keep that up consistently we'll get down to only needing verbal or the rein wiggle. The smack on the shoulder right now gets his attention and he'll back a few steps quite lively. We might have to spend a day only working on that, once he gets it I think we'll be fine.

Farrier Day

We had a WCR staff meeting right after the farrier so I was only able to stay for a few minutes and chat. Both boys had their feet done in what seemed like record time. J even said "they're done already?" But when they just get a trim it doesn't take very long. Axel has a semi concerning crack and everyone's feet are so dry lately. Cody had his toes completely chipped off. I think I might have to pick up one of those rider's rasps and see how that works to keep their feet nicer between trims. We chatted a bit about putting the horses on cattle and how J wants to get a couple calves to have at the barn.

When I first drove up I noticed Cody wasn't wearing his fly mask. There were a couple lumps in the pasture upon further inspection turned out to be his mask. In two pieces. He completely ripped the nose piece off. I think I can fix it but now that it's getting to be fall I think he'll be okay for the rest of the year in the sun burn category. Clearly he doesn't want to wear the mask any more.

Farrier Day

Just got back from the barn. The farrier was out to trim everyone up. The flies make for trimming feet a little more tricky but everyone managed to stand pretty well. When that was all said and done I went to ride Axel in the arena while A worked with Vinnie. It's always a good lesson for Axel to be in the arena when someone else is working since he tends to not like other horses much. He managed to shake his bridle off, luckily I didn't have to reward him by dismounting, A put the bridle back on for me and we trotted off. Of course that just made him mad and he threw out a few bucks in response. When I got a few nice things out of him I dismounted and lunged him for a bit. I'm hoping if I can get him increasingly comfortable on the lunge he'll start feeling better under saddle. He threw a few good bucks and fancy moves on the lunge but leveled out and worked well so we called it a night.

Manicure Day

It was farrier day at the barn so I skipped out of work early to get there in time. The barn owner already had Axel in a stall (standing quietly I might add, yay Axel). Cody was having his usual fit in the pasture. The farrier was just about done with Danny so I brought Cody in to get trimmed. He, of course, stood like a champ for the trim, he always does. Cody always gets these purple/pink/red spots on his hooves so I asked about them. Come to find out they are bruises but the farrier said he and his farrier cohorts haven't figured out exactly the cause. Originally they thought they were coming from the coronary band and moving down but evidence suggests that's not the case. So the best they can figure in their discussions is that the bruises come from the sole of the foot and travel out the wall. Interesting stuff. I really like this farrier, he asks what kind of work the horse does and how often and looks at the hooves to decide how to trim. I put Cody in a stall so Axel could get trimmed. It's a good time to practice being in a stall, which they both seem to handle well if there's other horses nearby. Alone in the barn might be a different story but alone in the pasture is difficult already.

Axel behaved fairly well, he gets a little antsy but nothing horrible. I turned him out while Cody had a minor fit. It was too nice out to go home and the barn was now empty so Cody and I worked on some groundwork for a while. He wasn't paying total attention being lunged, he got better with the turns, okay at the bending, and he wasn't thrilled with backing up. I had his attention at this point so I grabbed a lunge whip and tried a bit more lunging and more turns. I wanted to put away the whip so I dropped the lead and told him to "stand." And from there we worked on ground tying for quite a while. He was getting the picture and staying put or correcting himself with just a verbal cue. After some back and forth I was able to get about half the arena length away from him to put away the whip while he stood and watched. He actually stayed almost entirely concentrated on me with only a few glances out the door at the other horses. I let him off the hook, as it were, and went to grab the short lead rope and an apple. Following my unwritten rules I led Cody (at liberty) to the far end of the arena to give him his treat and clip on the leadrope. He got a little pushy after his apple, he really wanted to get back out the pasture and knew the apple must mean the end of our work. So we backed up from the far end of the arena to the gate. There was a little work involved in that but we made it and cody came back down to earth to listen to me. We backed out the barn door as usual and grazed for a while in the yard.

I did a little groundwork with Axel just in the pasture and it was almost as if he remembered some of our previous work, believe it or not! We did our turns pretty okay considering he was really more interested in grazing. That was about all we worked on, I checked for ticks and called it a night. I'm starting to think Axel might be gaining some weight. I hope he's not eating Cody's food, Cody needs to gain weight not Axel!

Manicure Day

Once again I brushed and brushed and brushed and there's still hair and mud everywhere. One of these days it'll be gone. Went out to the barn early to get the boys cleaned up before the farrier arrived. Both horses behaved themselves for their trim. He tapered Axel's front feet a bit so he doesn't flare out too much. He thought Cody's angles looked good. I could stand to get him x-rayed again though to make sure there's no change or laminitis.

When they were both done I decided to work with Axel for a while. He stood tied in the arena while I puttered around and he was very polite about it. Even with all the other horses in the aisle getting trimmed. He lunged the trot and canter pretty well also. Reluctant to pick up the canter but he had both leads. I got on and we walked for a bit and trotted. In my attempts to get him to collect a bit, wiggling the outside rein, he kept offering a canter. Well in reality I think it was actually just pissing him off and it wasn't a canter but a buck. So we tried a few canters. Went okay but slow to the right. And it was disjointed to the left. The barn owner mentioned it looked pretty rough. And boy was it. Even his trot was jerky and hard to ride. As much as I can figure it's a combination of having deeper footing so he has to pick up his feet more, he's moving out a little more than usual, and he had quite a bit of time off. I couldn't sit his trot to save my life. I was really riding poorly in the grand scheme of things. I'm pretty sure I have a bruise on my knee from smacking it on the saddle. I'm pretty sure that doesn't happen if a person rides properly. Oh well. We got out and moved around a bit and with the exception of a few little bucks things went okay. I'm not sure if Cody called while we were riding and Danny was being trimmed but when I brought Axel back out he was facing away from the gate not looking very concerned.