Lucas is back to work

Well, back to some work. I took him out this morning and let him have a good run on the lunge line up in the outdoor ring. And then let him long trot some energy out. The farrier was confident that as long as we didn't work him on hard ground we should be OK, so he will only be worked in the outside ring and turned out in the sand pen for now.

My mom is off tomorrow to go back to school for her Masters degree in teaching, shes gone for most of the summer but will be back most weekends. Until then me and my dad are on our own for cooking! : Might be scary to see which of us gets sick of hot dogs and hamburgers quicker!

So hopefully I get a ride in either tomorrow night or Tuesday, the kids and C and D are off on the weekend to a local show so Ill be working the barn for the weekend. Wont be much work, I'll only have 7 horses in the barn, but it will mean no riding until they get back. Sometimes having parents that wont go to the barn is a p.i.t.a.

I just sewed on my first ever button!

I just sewed on my first ever button!!! I kept waiting for my mom to do it because I didnt think I could do it with my hands, but I did! Oh yeah and Lucas is doing good too, he got to go outside today for the first time since Wednesday. We did a little walk/trot on the lunge line just to get his legs moving, and he had a great roll outside, so back to some light work tomorrow and hopefully riding on Monday!

So far so good (and happy Canada day!)

Lucas's farrier came out this afternoon and fixed his feet. He was hoping that he would be able to clean up the foot and put a shoe back on, but decided it would be easier just to do his re-set a week early. He did have a bit of a nasty bruise where the clip had gotten stuck in but he was able to nail the shoe on without putting anything near the bruise. He didn't think that it would cause an abscess but to be on the lookout for one and to call him if it did become an issue.

Lu did trot off sound once he got his new shoes on. Well sound for him after having new shoes put on, I say its like him getting his 'sea' legs back. He weebles and wobbles while he gets used to the new feet for a day but then hes ok. Having a special needs horse can be interesting at times! Hes better in our barn, the old owners had to put him on bute for a couple of days to get him over it, and kept riding him. We've put him on a good hoof supplement and he gets a good day or two off afterwords and we avoid the drugs and unnecessary pain.

We did have a good laugh about Lucas and his behaviour. Our farrier was telling us about how when he first came to Canada, the trainer told him "don't get after this horse because he will make you regret it". Well Lucas jerked his foot away once too often and pushed the farrier at the same time, farrier got mad and got after him..... and in his words "I had to leave him and go back the next day to get the shoe back on him" Apparently Lucas wasn't going to let him anywhere near him again that day! You have to wonder what kind of nasty horse he was back in the day! Although even now he'll push the limits every once and a while, but nothing to the tune of what he pulled with the other owners and trainers.

Now I'm sitting at home watching re-runs of the Canada day celebration from Ottawa this morning. Have a great night everyone, and have a great 4th of July to our American friends.

crossing your fingers works sometimes!

Lucas is doing much better today. C and D took his wraps off this morning and left his foot open after they washed it out. I went out tonight and the more he walked (to the wash stall and back) the better he walked. C and D gave him a bit of bute last night but none today so I think it's not hurting nearly as much tonight. He let me clean out his left front foot with no complaints either.

I got the chance to flush it out on my own tonight and its not very deep at all, so keep crossing your fingers! D thinks that hes going to be fine, just needs his foot trimed up and a new shoe on (and he is a part time farrier when he's not broken). We dont have another show for a month or so, lots of time to heal from a minor accident, if it turns out to be more serious we'll deal with it when that happens...

Thanks for all the well wishes, they are helping me!

And Lucas gets hurt again...

Some how between 8 am when C and D turned him out and 10:30am when they got home, Lucas managed to particaly tear off his right front shoe (yup the same foot we had all of the problems with last winter). Only problem is that when he tore off the one side it managed to stay stuck propperly on the outside of his hoof. Thanks to the clip (he has clips on both front shoes)... but that was the issue with the other side, the clip didnt go back to its spot on the outside of the hoof, it dug into his hoof.

It's seems to only have dug into the edge of his hoof wall, right where the crack is that we've been trying to heal for about 6 months (its growing out but slowly) And only gone in about 1/8th of an inch. We've flushed it out several times and have a wrap over the hoof just to make sure that no more dirt gets in it, but it isnt very deap at all. D wasnt too concerned about the depth of it, but thought that the sooner we could get shoes back on him the better to avoid more cracking from the pressure of being suddenly barefoot

Lu is weight bearing and eating well, just tender footed, like he is any time he pulls a shoe off... cross your fingers that he can get over this without any further issues...

Lucas' wipeout

Before I begin I have to remind everyone that I have 2 BO's, a husband and wife team. The man BO (we will start calling him "D") will be riding Lucas some, but his wife does most of the barn work, as well as most of the structured lesson teaching (shes the one that preps us at shows as her husband hates crowds, we'll call her "C")

Anyways, Lucas was outside late this afternoon and C went to bring him in last (as he was outside last, he gets an extra couple of minutes of outside time) On the way back into the barn he managed to find the only 2 square feet of ice on the entire pathway into the barn, and slipped and when down on his shoulder. Thankfully C was able to get away from him and did not get pulled down with him, as he fell onto his left side. Lucas got up quickly on his own and did have his thick heavy weight blanket on, and seems not to much worse for the fall.

D and C had walked him in the indoor for a bit, given bute and did some mild stretches to loosen up his leg by the time I showed up. We gave him a chance to eat his supper before I took him into the indoor to do a little more walking. He seems fine although Im sure he will be sore tomorrow, his back and hips felt fine I think his shoulder will be sore tomorrow but hopefully that's it. And tomorrow I have my IV and most likely wont be able to get to the barn :(

C and D will check on him later tonight as they have a new horse coming in at 9pm and they will take him for another walk in the Am when they feed and see how he feels and will go from there. Why does this crap always happen when I cant get to the barn the next day???

Grooming

Well I think Im going to give Lucas until the end of the month (January that is) It will give us time to really work on our showmanship/halter (during our hand walking) as well as getting me walking on a good consistent surface, which should help with my weight as well (so far so good, no extra joint pain over the past month). His leg is good, to me its just not the same as his other leg yet and Im more than willing to spend more time on the ground to get him feeling better. If Im working on my own fitness on the ground, really Lucas doesn't need to go back to work until March. I would be the only one holding us back at that point. The farrier will also be back out around the 20th so he can have a look at his feet as well then.


So on with the brushes!

I usually start with a proper rubber curry with 'sharp' teeth. The teeth wear down fairly quickly so in the spring/summer I usually get a new curry each month. And these are the little curry's, if you have a large hand like I do I need to stretch out the hand strap before its comfortable! In the winter or when the horse is extremely dirty I just use the regular circular motion to bring the dirt up off the skin to the end of the hair. However the trick is that whenever the horse is shedding (anytime other than Oct-mid Feb) you want to use the curry in the SAME direction in the hair in short hard strokes. This will pick up any loose hair and get it off the horse. Other than the few months of the winter you should be able to get several hand fulls of hair off the horse. Do this everywhere. Face, body, legs everything if you are gentle it won't hurt the horse.

Next is the hard bristled brush, which I use the same way as written in all of the horse books. I love natural bristled brushes but they are very expensive and hard to keep really clean so I use the cheap ones. I do have natural brushes that I use at the shows, which really bring out the shine!

Then I use the soft brush all over the horse, followed by a cloth (just a regular one) or a stable mitt. I usually oil Lucas feet 3-4 times a week with fiskes (http://fiskes.ca/index.html) I had slacked off during the fall, and it came back to haunt me.

I brush out his mane every couple of days, although it needs to be pulled now! And I take his tail out of the tail bag every weekend and brush it out. His tail has thickened up a whole bunch, but he doesn't have much of a tail at the tail bone as it is.

I always use nylon sheets and winter blankets with a nylon lining in them, I do have a polar fleece liner but I only use it when its very cold or we need another layer without steaping up a blanket weight.

Sick

Hi, just got my IV finished and got my moms new computer set up (shes going back to do her Masters in Education on Jan 15!) And now Im going back to bed. Im going to talk to the barn owners about what to do with Lucas... Im reading that circles are bad for horses rehabbing from suspensory, but Im not sure that were ready to go back to riding yet... any ideas? Still doing showmanship, and walking but should we ride?

Lucas is foolish, boots for back to work?

He was absolutely foolish today! He got turnout in the morning for several hours when the owners were doing stalls, and got brought in shortly before I got there. I got there and turned him out without his blanket on (so he could have a good roll) and he still ran around like a silly colt! Oh and no off movement of any sort, I even went in and trotted him after his antics to make sure. So were going to start walking/trotting him on the lungeline next weekend for 5 min or so to start working up his strength again.

The local tack store had a sale so I got Lucas more multi-vitamin and joint supplement, as well as a new saddle pad and new polo wraps. :)

Does anyone have any input towards boots or Polo's for when I put Lucas back into work? He has interfered with himself before so I always work him in bell boots, and either polo's or hard shelled open front jumping boots. So what do you guys think of these options

1) SMB boots (I usually only use these for trailering, would he start relying on the support too much?)

2) Polo wraps

3) Hard shelled, open front jumper boots

4) Exercise wraps (not my personal favorite but was suggested on one website)

Does anyone else have any ideas?

One more week!

We did the trot test today. And between all 4 of us (me the two barn owners and Lucas) we think hes on the final leg of his recovery. Hes been playing a bunch in the indoor, the swelling is gone in his leg and its only because we know what he is capeable of that we think he is still not quite fully done.

Hes having a ball in the indoor now, and canters on his own for fun. That first step is still whe worst (and only at a trot) but he gets better the longer he trots. So when we get the snow that we are promised to get tomorrow we will start turning him out for a couple of hours outside. The snow will give him some cusion, and be high enough to keep coldness on that fetlock for a couple of hours.

Im extreamly happy that hes' feeling better already, and that hes so broke that having the past couple of months off wont hurt him a bit.

Does anyone know how to teach a horse to play with a yoga ball?

Lucas still hasnt figured it out. Or atleast he hasnt figured out how to work it on his own! He thinks that the plan is for him to watch me kick it around the indoor, and both of us can walk after it. Its a good tool for getting him used to weird stuff though! Ive bounced it like a basket ball and hes ok with it being kicked all around him so hes really come a long way in a year!

Hes also feeling much better. The barn owners said that he spent most of yesterday in the indoor and troted around some and looked great :) The slight cold swelling that he has while standing in his stall is now gone after once around the indoor (about 3/4 of the size of a decent dressage ring) His first step out of a stand still is still hesitant, but hes fine after that one... oh well were going to have a look in a couple of days and evaulate him... nothing to do in the meantime but wait and continue the treatment.

The Yoga Ball

Well I did it, I gave Lucas his Christmas present. He kinda knew it was coming, he kept nickering at me while I got it blown up. Hes so funny though. He wont kick it or push it, he stands there looking at it untill I kick it then he walks after it and waits again for me! Somedays I think he's training me!!!

Legs and feet feel good! All the heat is out of the right foot and the slight cool swelling on the right leg was gone after his "exercise". His left front where the thrush/abcess is is starting to firm up and is no longer soggy, and smells much better. Fingers crossed that were on the upswing! Me and the BO are going to trot him again on Sunday to see how he feels, and evaulate his healing/progress.

Another good day

Lucas is feeling much better. Took him out for a walk and a stretch tonight and practiced some showmanship basics, for about 15 minutes then turned him loose and made him trot a few steps in each direction. This is when our groundwork and body positioning comes into play. I got him to trot one long side each direction, with his right side to the middle he was fairly sound, only slight head bobbing, no noticeable short striding on either leg. Going to the left he was bobbing his head more but only a slight shorting of stride on the left front. I also found a decent hole in his left front frog. I noticed that there was a flap of skin there yesterday but today there was a hole. I was able to clean it our and flush it with iodine. It might not be the exact issue but it wasn't helping him. The right hoof is still slightly warmer as well.

Our 'showmanship' work consisted of setting up about 10 cones around the ring and walking around them, by them, sometimes stopping next to them. Not nessacarly doing 'something' at every cone, but often enough that he was tuning into me in anticipation that we just might do something at the next cone. I like to have him in a 'ready' state of mind, so that hes not zoning out and going thought the motions, which he does if he thinks he knows the pattern. I'm trying to keep his mind active so that we wont have a repeat of Friday night!

Hes feeling better.

Well I was so disgusted with Lucas last night I couldnt even blog about it. It took three of us with 2 buckets of hot water and about 1/2 an hour of fighting to soak each foot for 5 minutes. He was so foolish, even snorting and the steam coming out of the bucket. (and it wasnt hot, it was just cold in the barn) He reared several times while we were trying to get him to stand in the bucket. Once we got a foot in he was fine but it was getting the foot in, and taking the foot out that was aparently horrible! I ened up having to put a lip chain on him so he didnt hurt us or himself. Once we got that done I still needed to scrub his frog out wich wasnt fun either. He stood in the cross ties but he was dancing around. Again more corrections so that he would stand so I could work on his foot. By this point any strength I had in my hands and arms was gone! Normaly Lucas doesnt push my hands/arms because he knows that it is a very bad thing but he was doing it last night.

Then as im trying to hold the poltice in place and vet wrap his hoof he half rears and pulls his foot out of my hand. Well I lost it. There was no excuse for his bad behavour, ive wraped his feet many times and his feet are not bad enough that he cant stand on one or the other for as long as it would take for me to pick them out. So I yelled at him and hit him in the side with my elbow and jerked on his face a bit (I still had the stud chain over his nose) And then he stoped and was just fine for me to finish up with. I tied him up for 15 min while I finished up then let him go and eat.

Its times like these that I wonder where his brain goes sometimes. There was nothing bad or painfull with what we were doing but he got it stuck in his head that it was. And untill i corrected him severly he was stuck in that mindframe. I hate to say it but its like you have to beat him out of it. If your nice to him he just stays 'stuck'.


I took off the poltice this morning and turned him out in the indoor, where he squelled like a little pony before trotting off a couple of steps, he then stoped to roll. So he was getting to stay out in the indoor for the rest of the afternoon, with lots of pylons and balls for him to push around with his nose. I think that he was feeling better today. And maybe he was so bad yesterday just because hes board out of his tree...