Post #2 today

So, here I am with new pictures. I wanted to take some of me on Peg (and I did...), but I wanted the whole height and my sister didn't get that... Plus, I find myself way too fat... I'll have to loose some weight!

First, here's our newest addition... Nabisco. She is quite shy since we got her. She won't run from humans, but she hides in the bush all day and comes in the barn at night. Things didn't go as we planned, we were to leave the horses with Nabisco for company, but turns out the horses are afraid of the cow and the cow is afraid of the horses. We are currently looking for a new cow to keep this one company, if all fails, we will ask my boyfriend's cousin to lend us a cow for the winter. Nabisco is 7 years old (rather will be 7 in spring) and she is bred to a Charolais bull for a March - April calf. Unfortunately, I don't know much about cow... my boyfriend has already raised cattle and is the expert on the subject. I thought him everything he knows about horses and he is teaching me about cows. So we got this nice girl 2 weeks ago at a herd dispersal auction. They were all nice cows and they all went for a fairly high price (considering the market, these days, I would say really high prices!!). This said, I could've bought 2 or 3 horses for that price!! Here's Nabisco:See what I mean when I say she was hiding in the bush... this is the best body shot I could get of her! Needless to say that I was a bit intimidated by those horns, not having handled cattle too much in my life, I was completely ignorant of what she could do or the signs she was giving. Thankfully, she is a great cow and wouldn't charge a human or anything else for that matter... well unless she was really threatened. She actually layed down while I was approaching her.

Here is a recent picture of Dandy, PEg and Pearl... but I will save a few for other posts. This is Dandy on one of the last ride we had together. That's when I started to notice that she wasn't really feeling good. Dandy is also starting to learn to ground tie. She actually stood right there while I went in the barn, got the camera and came back out (the camera was just past the door, so that's not far), but she stood for three pictures and didn't move until I got her and lead her to the post. I have the other pictures, but I will not be uploading them today as this computer is a bit slower than what I am used to... She is nice and plump for the winter and her coat is just the fluffiest thing ever! This is not the best angle for ther head, since she is looking this way, it looks way bigger (She always had a big head, but not like that!)

Here's Peg and Pearl. They have all put on a bit of weight and their winter pyjamas are on! They were joining me hoping I had treats somewhere on me... no luck, but they all got scratches... they look FAT! I'd rather have them a bit on the fat side for winter and they are doing fantastic!

Peg is always her sweet self. She likes to put her nose as close to your face as she can.... for a horse this big, this isn't your average nose!! I live when she does this, her face is just so kissable! By the way, I am not kneeling for this photo! Peg mesures about 16.2 hh, for me, this is HUGE... I am 5'8'' and was used to being around 14 to 15.3 hh horses... this is a big leap for me! I proved that I was still able to get on her back Sunday for a little stroll around.

Pearl has proven that any horse can make it from a body score of about 1.5, ready to foal and feed a foal to this!!! Someone asked me if Pearl was in foal!! She is not, but after many years of foaling, she probably will always keep a bit of a hay belly, same for Peg, but it shows less since Peg is so big and long. Isn't Pearl a doll!?
So I hope you enjoy the pictures! I'll be back blogging soon!

Quick update!

I have taken pictures of the cow and also, new pics of Peg and Pearl. My sister and I took them on a ride yesterday after about 2 months without riding them (maybe more). They did great! I was very proud of them. I will post pictures tonight if I can upload them from my camera. I also need to delete all old lingering pictures on there since I have about 300 of them in the camera.

I have also took pictures of the cow, she is quite shy, but will not run off when you visit her... the only problem is that she likes to hide in a patch of bush in the pasture and she spends all day there... she will not come for grain so we have left a pale out for her the other day... we returned to an empty pale, so either she ate the oats or a deer took advantage of the free meal. She comes in at night, so she eats and drinks (I've monitored her every move!). I think she is just spooked that her herd is no longer there... She is also alone and that is not really natural... plus, the horses aren't much company, since both parties are scared of the next, cow is scared of horses and horses are scared of cow... No win situation... but we are planning on getting another cow to keep her company. My spouse's cousin has cattle so we will ask him for a cow to keep ours company.

So this is the news... I will try and post tonight with pictures!

News

Ok, don't hate me because I haven't been posting lately. I have hardly been in the house at all and I have taken a few days off at work. Dandy has been sick. She has an upper respiratory infection and I've been working on clearing it out with antibiotic shots every 12 hours for 5 days. It was quite a task, the days are much shorter now and we barely get 11 hours of light, so the shots I gave Dandy were given mostly during dark hours. I completed the treatment yesterday and Dandy and I were glad too! She is such a sport, she was making her way to meet me in the pasture even if she knew I was going to stick her with a needle. She seems to have taken a turn for the better, her eyes have cleared up (they were quite cloudy), her runny nose is almost dry, her fever is gone, she did not cough, except for yesterday (were she was REALLY playing around with the foal), she coughed 3 times in a row and stopped.

I will keep her quiet for another week or two and will be reevaluating her in 7 to 10 days. Too bad because I was giving riding lessons to my mom every weekend with Dandy... it was coming along good and my mom was up to start trotting when Dandy became sick. My mom has suffered a severe breast cancer and is now on her 3rd year of remission, she is doing well but she will have to take medication for the rest of her life. The medication she was taking was giving her ackes in her legs and knees and she had to skip a few courses because of it. Her medication was changed last week and I think we will be able to start again as soon as Dandy is back to her old self. I am in no rush, these courses are just for fun. I got the idea because my mom used to ride Dandy every now and then, but this fall, we were going to go for a ride in the bush to see the leaves, I had brought Pearl for me to ride and we were all set to go. When mom sat on Dandy, she got nervous and cancelled our ride. She hadn't ridden in about 8 months, maybe more. I was very disapointed, Dandy is not one to get anxious if a nervous rider is sitting on her back, so I tryed to convince my mom that it would be ok, but she got scared and got off. The next weekend, I had made a plan for lessons and we were on our first lesson. She only had to learn to brush, saddle and bridle Dandy, then mount correctly and sit on Dandy until she got relaxed (not Dandy, my mom!). It worked great! Dandy stood patiently until everything was over.

We got to week 3 and then Dandy got sick... I'm thinking of doing our next course as a recap of everything that we've seen so far, just to get her back in the groove. She did take Dandy for a walk with her halter, I was very proud of her!

Anyways, I've had a busy weekend, between the sick horse, the other horses, a friend's birthday party, Xmas shopping and the auction sale, I didn't get much sleep, not to mention that I got big allergy reactions to something unknown 3 mornings out of 5, that prevented sleep for a few hours!

The Auction Sale was a herd dispersal auction (cattle). We bought one cow, we are planning to build a little herd of cattle. She is a Blonde D'Aquitaine cow (pure breed) and she is bred to a Charolais bull for a spring calf. She is very gentle and easy-going, she still has horns, but we are planning to remove them next weekend. Right now, she is in isolation in the barn. She is vaccinated and vet checked, but just to be sure. The horses will have time to get used to her smell. We would've gotten some more but they weren't going cheap... matter of fact, we paid more for the cow than any of our horses! I would've rather been at a horse auction and buy one of them instead of cattle, but that's the way it is!

I'm sorry I didn't post sooner, I was SO busy... I nearly don't have time to do my personal things, like pay bills and eat!! Work is just the same, I am beyond busy and it really hits home... I can't rest and will probably die of exhaustion (kidding!)!! Can't wait to get a little break, I've been getting up at 5:30 in the morning EVERY day (weekends especially included!) for the past month, maybe more (I know for the past month for sure)... I don't go to bed too late (about 10 or 11:00 pm) but I think fatigue is starting to accumulate.

I hope you all had a great weekend!

Short post

Just to say Hi! to my readers! Seems we are going to have a nice weekend here. Hopefully, I can get a little riding done.

Dandy has come up with a cough, I've been giving her medication and she seems better, except when I ride her. I'm not even on her back and she coughs... I am starting to wonder if it is not her bit that does that. Her bit is a full copper mouth and I am wondering if it might be making her drool too much and that is what makes her cough.

If I were to try a new bit, what would you recommend, straight mouth or snaffle? I'm thinking a plain "O" ring snaffle just to see how she does. I might try her bosal this weekend to see if the bit is the problem... if there is no bit in her mouth, we'll see clearly if that is the cause of the problem. She has been on a snaffle bit with copper mouth and about 3 inch shanks for about one year, I've started to notice the cough about 10 months ago... (???). Before, she was in a D-ring snaffle with copper rollers and she didn't like it at all. I don't know what to think... I'll try for some pictures too! ;)

Have a great weekend!

Progress

Over the summer, we've made great progress with the horses (rescues and Dandy). I thank my sister everytime I can for helping me with Pearl. You see... Pearl is A LOT of horse. She is by far the most spirited horse I have ever been around, she is 18 years old and as sound as any 3 year old out there and I have trained anything from weanlings to 6 year old wild horse... Having been thrown quite a bit while trying to train the wild mare (I didn't skip steps, she was perfect on the ground and could lunge with tack, she was... in theory, ready), I had lost most of my confidence on new horses. My experience riding Pearl didn't help... and Pearl knew I was intimidated.

Nowadays, for me to be able to comfortably ride a horse, I have to have previously ridden the horse or watched someone ride the horse for a good amount of time, proving that the horse is safe... and even then, I will not trot them if I don't feel comfortable. I think this is the right thing to do, but I think that I am over-worried sometimes. I will probably get on any horse, but I will not feel relaxed.

Falling from Dandy was a big step too. Dandy was my brick wall, she could support me, take me through anything... I tought her everything she knew and it only took half a second to completely destroy what we had built. Not because she wanted to hurt me, she was truly surprised that I had fallen (I could usually ride anything she dished out). She stopped as soon as I left the saddle and she waited patiently for me to get up (that was hard, the wind was completely knocked out of me and my ankle was hurting really bad), get back on her from the off side and ride without stirrups back to the barn. When I approached her, she lowered her head as if to say "I'm sorry, I know you're hurt". I was completely aware that my fall was entirely my fault, I wasn't paying attention to my horse.

It took me about 2.5 months to build my confidence. I would've never done it alone either, my sister, again, was there to cheer me on! My sister and I are twins and we have a very strong bond. She wouldn't let me give up. I wasn't sure of myself and I would hold back Dandy when the others would be racing by... thankfully, I have a great horse and she wouldn't buck or try to go faster than what was asked. One afternoon, my sister and I were on a ride. It was a beautiful day, sunny but not too warm. We had just made it out of a rough trail. She was on Pearl and I was on Dandy. She asked if I was ready to let Dandy run... I got a bit nervous inside, but took control over my emotions, Dandy wasn't much affected by nervousness. So I decided to go for it... my sister was trying to break Pearl from her pace. Pearl never trotted and only cantered about 4 times to this day. I told her to start it off and that I would follow, We were in a nice open area and had plenty of room to keep this safe. Off she went! Pearl was pacing and boy, was she ever going! I urged Dandy into a canter, her smooth rocking horse canter and saw that I couldn't keep up... My competitive side quickly took over and I pushed Dandy into a run, I had never ran Dandy before. She cought up to Pearl by the end of the run... Pearl had broken her pace and was full-out running. When I stopped Dandy (about 10 seconds later), I had a big smile on my face. That was fun!

We took the horses back to the barn and my sister pointed a few things that I should do to help me be more confident in the saddle.

Since Dandy is so young, I don't usually run her, we only canter slowly only about 5-10 seconds during our rides (once per ride or less). She is now almost 4 years old, I figured she could learn to go a bit faster, I never turn her in our canters. She does amazingly. Dandy was backed at about 2.5 years old. I put in some ground training in the first few months and backed her a little later while still workig on her ground manners. In the first year, our rides only lasted about 10 minutes (our first ride was 5 minutes), then I slowly elongated the time to 15, 20, 30 minutes. When she turned 3, she went from 30 minutes to 1 hour and by the end of the summer, she went on two or three 2 hour trail rides (NO canters!). In her 4th year (after January 2010), I will be working a bit more with her. Right now, I am riding western and want to start on barrels, maybe at the end of the summer, when she is 4.5 years old. Then, I would like to introduce english riding (which I have done for half of my riding life). I would like to train a bit in hunter or cross-country. I DO NOT want to compete in those events, only try them out for fun. Dandy has been free jumped this summer and she presents great scope over jumps.

Peg will not be trained in jumping since she is arthritic, but we might introduce Pearl to low level just for fun!

Pearl's first ride

About a month after the loss, Pearl had gained significant weight and was in a good shape to be saddled. We had no clue how she would react. I didn't really know Pearl that much, but I knew that she trusted me enough to approach her foal only a month after we had first met.

On the day that I decided to try out Pearl, we had new boarders, 4 horses (2 fillies and 2 geldings)... I started to saddle Pearl and she wouldn't behave, not standing still, going from one side to the other. She wouldn't accept the saddle blankets, let alone the saddle. I thought the new horses were stressing her out a bit. I put the saddle on and she kicked, once or twice. You have to understand that Pearl is 18 years old... she is in exceptionnal shape considering her past racing career. She was a sulky race horse and that was the only thing she knew. She pinned her ears at me more than once and tryed to bite me. I corrected her only once. She had great ground manners otherwise, she would always stand and could lead, load, lift her feet like a dream! I was getting a bit worried... having trained wild horses to saddle and having been thrown more than my fair share... you bet I was worried!

Thankfully, my sister would be riding Peg (Pearl's dear friend) to keep her good company. Pearl took the bit easily, she just didn't know what a saddle was. So came the big leap... I lead Pearl outside, tightened her cinch and.... I was going to say up I went... but it didn't really happen like that! Pearl wasn't having any of it and kept moving, lunging forward and mini-rearing to try and spook me. I had my boyfriend hold on to Pearl while I got on her back. Pearl is not the tallest horse I've been on... she's pushing 14.2 or 14.3 hh!!! I got on her back and was in complete lack of control no matter what. She was walking everywhere, didn't want to stop and was in a bit of a panic. I had someone come to restrain Pearl while I calmed down a bit. She got used to my weight being on her back and seemed to be calmer.

So off we went for a small ride. Her eyes were big, she didn't want to leave her friend's side. We managed to go a little ways on the property but Pearl would mini-rear at everything she suspected was a monster or didn't like. If I would put my leg on her, she would rear... pull to one side, she would rear if she didn't want to go. I made her work a bit more before heading back to the barn. I totally disliked my ride on Pearl, I felt like a was sitting on a ticking timebomb! Pearl was sweating, she hadn't been working in a while (I don't know for how long)... she was way nervous. I couldn't wait to get off of her!

She was a doll for unsaddling and grooming... I had a feeling taht Pearl had never seen a saddle before. I had a lot of work to do! Fortunately, my sister took on the task of training Pearl. She would come and ride with me and Dandy... in a few weeks, Pearl was doing great, we were all surprised and happy about her progress, the only problem was that Pearl was terrified of cows, we wouldn't need to use her on cows anyways. She is now a good trail horse and she is used lightly about once or twice a week in the summer and fall... she has not worked in about a month, but I still handle her. She probably won't be working during winter. Since she was so thin, we have not worked on her conditionning yet, but come spring, we might get that going for her. We don't need her to be in top shape but a bit more muscle and a good condition would be desirable.

Turns out Pearl is super sensitive. She does not like change in her tack, blankets, bit, etc. She is very sensitive to loud voices, harsh touch and being left without attention on the crossties if another horse needs special attention or a riding buddy needs help! She is sensitive to pressure, so riding her is a breeze... except if something irritates her... then your in for a ride. She is not a beginner horse, never will be. She is 18 and acts like a 2 year old, she is also as sound and has great legs (better than most 2 year olds!!).

I took a shine to Pearl as soon as I saw her. She is grey, which is super rare in Standardbreds and she has the sweetest face ever... unfortunately, Pearl does not like her face handled and does not enjoy kisses, but I'm working on it.

Getting over the heartbreak

After we lost the foal, things just weren't the same around the barn. Personally, if I hadn't had horses to care about over there, I wouldn't have set foot near it for the rest of my life (at least that's how it felt at the time). Every time I went over, first of all I would casually look for the foal (like I always did when getting to the barn) and then I'd be taken by great sadness remembering that I wouldn't see him in the pasture. During the summer, you are most likely to find us in the barn than in our own house. We often sat in the barn to just chat and keep the horses company, love on them and spoil them.

After the foal passed, we were completely in mourning. We couldn't talk without making someone cry. My boyfriend took it especially hard. We felt like we had failed the little foal. I was so attached to him... I just couldn't bare the thought, still have a bit of a problem with it today.

I lost the first foal that was ever born under my care because of the neglect that Pearl had to endure while she was in foal. I don't regret taking her in at all, I just feel that it was a little too late for the foal. Pearl recovered quickly from her loss, I gave her a month to put on the rest of the weight before I would saddle her.

I don't think I've had a great summer. Between June and the end of July, I had sprained my ankle falling from Dandy... my first fall off of my first horse, which greatly shook my confidence. We had lost the foal, which only spun me into a mini depression... in my eyes, we'd tryed too hard to fail in the end. And right after that, Dandy abcessed in her left front.
I had ridden her the day before and had noticed a slight limp from that leg (a REALLY slight limp), I returned to the barn and the leg was warm to the touch. I figured I would give her some time off and things should resolve... it was muddy around the pasture and she had probably pulled something. I found her the next day lying on the ground, I thought she was just resting but when she got to her feet, she was limping quite hard, nearly not even using the leg. I brought her in and looked closer, there was puss oozing from the coronet band. I panicked! I thought she had foundered... I didn't really know why she would founder, she was used to eating grass, had been on it since May and we were in July... Since we had lots of rain, I thought this might have made the sugar levels in the grass higher but that is not the case (after reading about it)... maybe the constant rain had caused parts of the pasture to become so muddy that it caused founder by the suction exherted on the hoof, but I found no such mud in the pasture. I decided to do a little more research. I found that abcesses can be dormant in the hoof for years, they burst when the hoof wall becomes weak and can be very painful...

There's my answer! Dandy's lack of hoofcare probably caused her to have abcesses in her feet for a long time before I even got her. They burst out because the wall and coronet were weakened by the excessive rain. This was a big abcess, it drained for about 1.5 weeks with regular hosings, cleaning out, wrapping and doctoring. I wrapped her leg with poultice when I felt heat. The abcesses not only came out at the coronet but there was also a hole a quarter-inch in diameter just above the coronet. I kept cleaning it out to prevent infection... it has nearly completely healed now, 5 months later, there is only a bit of hair lef to grow. The crease at the coronet band is now grown 3/4 of the way down the hoof... I am suspicious that I will have to deal with other bouts of abcesses in the future... I suspect there are some in her right front, we'll just have to wait and see. There is no way to prevent abcesses except regular and appropriate hoof care, if they are already there, you will not know until they burst (or right before). Dandy had no heat coming from her hooves, it seems like this just happened in a matter of days, which is not the case. I am still keeping a good eye on her right foot.

She took her treatment in stride the whole time... the only part she didn't like was the cleaning out of the wound but she was still a trooper. She wasn't too fussy on being inside either, everything she could reach was sent to the ground. After being sure she hadn't foundered, I let her out again to exercise with her friends. At that point, she had only been inside for 3 days. Exercise is important to help drain the abcess, but it's important to turn them out in a clean pasture, no mud or dirt that could get on the wound, if there is, then you should wrap it, make sure to unwrap twice a day to clean and refresh the bandages. Usually, letting air to the wound is a good idea, it helps the healing process.

So, between the rain (which prevented us from cutting and baling our hay) and the horses... I couldn't really enjoy my summer... we did go on good trail rides and I had a lot of fun... but I don't know if it's enough to forget all of our misfortunes.