Okay, so it might not have been BEES!

Dr Bridges was out and saw the scabs on Edgar, she doesnt think it was bees because none of the bumps were anywhere that rain could not get to, such as under the belly or under his mane. She says it is a form of rainrot fungus.. ewwww! I've seen rainrot before and it didnt look like that, so I dont know what to think, she thinks he is lacking something in his diet and needs a supplement.. $$$$$ of course. I'll come back to WHY she was even out in the first place a little later. :(

This past weekend was the annual Winery Ride in Eastern WA. We went last year, which was in Benton City and that was the first time that Edgar Colicked on us. This year the ride was moved about an hour north to Zillah WA which was nice for us. The location was good, big open field as usual. Our horse club group of friends included Wendy & Jan, John & Barb Scherrer, and then Adam, Tracy, Josh & a friend of Tracy's. We were able to all park around eachother which was really great. We had an awesome potluck on Friday night, which turned out to be a much better dinner than the $25 catered one we paid for on Saturday night! Our catered dinner was cold, not very tastey at all AND the part that irritated me the most was that there was no drinks provided.. well if you drink coffee or tea, then there was something, but since I dont drink either, we were left having to drown down the dinner with our own saliva... I was pretty disappointed that they decided not to provide anything to drink..

The entertainment was okay.. when you were eating dinner and listening to him sing his karaoke (yes he had a computer with the lyrics) he sounded okay as the background music helped drown out the slightly off-key singing.. but once we left dinner and headed back down to camp, we could really hear his voice off in the distance and not so much of the background music.. OHH not so good! Was almost comical how "off" he really was, but I know those that went up and spent the evening dancing, didnt seem to care and had a really GREAT time!! So much so, that Wendy met a new "friend" who is a boy, who was sure to leave her with a few kisses to remember him by as she packed up and headed out Sunday.. He happens to be the owner of the vineyard that hosted the ride.. seemed like a nice guy and I hope it turns into something great for Wendy, she deserves it! :)

There were a couple other disappointments, one was the porta-potties.. the darn things were so crowded inside with the seat, mens urinal and hand washing station, that you had to sit sideways to reach the seat.. and not much room to do your business! And the stock water that was provided Friday night was taken away on Saturday night, so those that came unprepared had to walk a pretty good distance with their horses to get to water. I always bring my own water, with the troubles we've had with Edgar, I like to be prepared. The good thing with our horses is that they are not finicky water drinkers, if they are thirsty they will drink.. trouble is keeping Edgar healthy so he wants to drink!

Last year we had tried to rig up a highline pole, that was about 70% successful and 90% PITA! This year, Derek built us some trailer ties that stick out from our trailer, so it is like the boys are highlined to the trailer. It allows them room to move around, lay down safely and was a lot cheaper than the ones you can buy. They are pretty close to being a perfect little fix and will get lots of use in the future. :)

Now, on to the boys.. As soon as we pull the horses out of the trailer Friday afternoon, Red was amped up! He came out of the trailer snorting, head up and a bit prancy. He soon settled down, when he had food infront of him to eat. It was a 7+ hour ride for the horses, since we had to wait for our horse-poolers to show up in the morning and then had a few stops along the way. We had given Edgar a dose of UlcerGard prior to hauling him and that seemed successful as he was colic-free through the weekend. For the drive home, I opted not to give him another dose. The shoer had recommended that treatment to try, seemed to work well.

Saturday morning, Edgar was calm as usual. Red seemed calm as usual as well.. that is until I got on! Then it became a whole other story.. I could feel all this energy inside him, I really felt like I was on a ticking time bomb.. He reared up slightly when Edgar walked away from him, he was prancing, he was flighty and I only put about 5% leg into him before he would over-react. He was a plain 'ole SHIT who was afraid of his own shadow! Poor John, his horse was acting up as well when his horse's companion walked away, his horse reared up, his back legs gave out and he was almost sitting, about went over backwards, John bailed before any serious injury happened. John was okay, thank goodness, but when his horse went down, Red went sideways and spun around. Almost all of the horses were amped and being stupid at this point, people's nerves were twinging and we all just wanted to get moving. We finally did and I spent 80% of the ride, wondering when I was going to get dumped. It honestly was that bad with Red... I was really disappointed he was such a turd! He was jumping/spooking when I coughed, or when I raised my hand, for the entire ride. When we stopped at the first winery, I had to keep him walking cirlces around Edgar. Since many horses (not just those in our group) were full of extra energy and prancy, he was reacting to that a lot.. see he is the type of horse that if another horse even looks at him wrong, he jumps away from them, he's been like that since I got him. So when a horse prances by him or turns their butt towards him, he about jumps out of his skin and when you have over 300 horses going all different directions, some calm, many not.. well he just didnt know how to process it all and he was unable to relax for the entire ride.

I had to keep constant pressure on the bit to keep him walking calmly, I had to ride next to Edgar the entire time because he got really upset if Edgar was too far away from him. Normally I would not allow him to be so attached, I would force him to walk away from Edgar, but since his back was humped up for most of the ride and there was chaos everywhere, I decided it was safer to just give him something stable and solid to use as guidance. The bad part of this ride was that there was a lot of work going on in the apple fields that we were riding through, many workers out doing their thing, tractors and big trucks constantly going past us.. well he was NOT a fan of those tractors. More than once he freaked out and spun circles when a tractor came up by us. At one point, we were riding on the outside of the apple orchard in an isleway between the road and the trees, with about 20' drop down to the road.. a tractor came down an isle and he freaked, spun around to run the other direction and realized there was a cliff there, thank GOD he stopped, I saw my life flash. The tractor stopped, then the workers were moving the ladders right there was well, so he was way over stimulated and I thought it might be my day to come off the big red horse! But we managed to stay on the entire 5.5 hour ride. I was a lot frustrated overall, but it was probably the biggest ride he has ever been on, it was a long haul AND he's been cooped up in the sacrifice area at home, so the combo of all three things made for a crappy riding weekend..

Derek on the otherhand again, was on the steady rock solid Edgar and was able to enjoy his ride. The only part he did not enjoy was my very short nerves that day, I will admit I snapped a few times at him, not intentionally. His nerves were short as well and it was a challenge at times to not just resort to being mad at eachother, but we ended the ride positive and still talking to one another, so that was an accomplishment! lol

To add to the stress of the weekend, we decided to bring the children with us as well! Glutten for punishment.. But it was not that bad. Ellie actually was far more behaved than Russell, he has become such a bastard.. he doesnt listen for shit! Now that I am doing things the "right" way with Ellie, really makes us realize how much crap we let Russell get away with and what a spoiled monster we created!!! There were a lot of dogs there, we took the dogs for a walk on Friday night up to registration, she was doing a lot of barking! She did NOT like all the other dogs, they just pissed her off.. She did more barking on Friday than she has done the entire 3 months we have had her.. seriously. :) She slept fairly well with me in the bed, it was her first time ever not sleeping in the crate, Fri night we were up 2 or 3 times with her and Sat night she only got up once.. that was pretty darn good. While we rode, we put them in the horse trailer and as far as I could tell, I dont think she spent that time barking.

Fri night she was introduced to Moe, Adam's Aussie. She wanted nothing to do with Moe, she barked and snapped at him many times. Saturday night she hung out with us after dinner and was slightly interested in him, only snapped a couple times as he reached his paw out to scoot her little butt over to him.... he's a bit of a horny old man! :) By Sunday morning, she was ready to play with Moe. Unfortunately there was no safe off-leash area to turn them loose.. too many horses and moving trucks.

Whew, I'm still not done with this story! We loaded up Sunday and headed home. After the not-so-great weekend, we decided we would not come back the following year. We enjoyed camping, and spending time with friends for sure.. but I'd rather spend my money on going somewhere else that is not so chaotic.. much better riding that way.

We pulled the boys out of the trailer and put them away, Edgar immediately acted as though he wanted to roll.. I just assumed it was because he needed a good fresh roll, which is pretty typical after a weekend of not being able to. We went in the house, unpacked the camper, watched a little TV and 2 hours later went outside to feed the horses. Edgar jogged around the corner, buckled his legs and acted as though he was going to lay down.. now I realized this was NOT just him wanting to roll.. SONOFABITCH! Edgar was clearly colicking. I grabbed the banamine, gave him a dose and then we walked him for 45 minutes as he kept attempting to lay down. It was a pretty aggressive attempt, he would start to speed up, his body would cramp and twinge, his legs would buckle, he would walk like he was loosing function of himself, we'd keep him up then he'd continue to walk calmly for maybe another minute and start all over.

After 90 minutes of no-relief from the banamine, I called the vet. She was over an hour away, so we just continued to walk him. As we waited for the vet and walked him, he seemed to be getting better, he would lay down and not attempt to roll so we let him lay there. But then his cramps started to get bad again and he was almost violently attemping to lay down and would immediately go into a roll.. so we struggled but were able to keep him up and walking. The vet had phoned and asked if it would be easier to just meet at her clinic, I told her it was not at all safe to haul him the way he was acting. When she finally arrived, he was back to having smaller cramps and laying down calmly. She gave him a shot to help alleviate the cramping, took his vitals which were normal with only slightly elevated blood pressure. 30 minutes after the shot, he was still cramping so she tubed him and filled him up with water, electrolytes and some other stuff. He fought that pretty good, gave himself a bloody nose but by the time she was finished tubing him and watching him another 30 minutes, he was on the road to recovery.. By the time she left, his cramping appeared to have stopped and he was finally slightly interested in his grain. We watched him for another 30 minutes, then I allowed him to graze on the grass for an hour, watched him for another 20 minutes and then went in the house.. 2 hours w/o any cramps, yeah! At midnight I went back out to the barn, he was tired and not quite himself, but I gave him another round of banamine and felt secure in heading off to bed.

Woke up and called the vet, he was still not quite 100% but seemed out of the woods still, so he got one last round of banamine, his grain (which he wasnt too interested in) and then a tub full of really soaked hay. Monday evening he again snubbed up the grain and went straight to his hay (although he didnt initially eat his grain, he was eating it all up by the time the next feeding came around). This morning, he nickered finally at me, ate his grain first and had normal poop piles.. I think he is 100% now.

What a pisser this is! I was pretty upset that he had colicked this badly again. After a lot of internet searching yesterday, a lot of communication with the vet and others online about the situation, there are 4 things I am going to do different. 1) I am going to give him a dose of Tape Worm wormer incase he has them. He is given a wormer every 2 months, but tape worms require an additional dosing with a different type of wormer. 2) I am going to start him on either a daily general supplement and/or an ulcer supplement. The vet says ulcers would NOT cause him to cramp so badly, but I am not convinced that he doesnt have ulcers that may have contributed to the 2 smaller onsets of colic he showed over the summer. 3) I am going to continue to give the dose of UlcerGard paste prior to long hauls. 4) I am going to start hauling him with hay. It is VERY possible the major bouts of colic are because he was hauled such long distances w/o any feed. That is a big disruption in their digestive system. He is used to either grazing all day or having almost free choice hay, so to put him in a trailer for 6-8 hours w/o hay, could be the problem. I had previously thought hay could cause horses to choke while hauling, but the vet, my shoers and other reputable haulers, all provide hay.. so I guess that my idea of "better to be safe than sorry" may actually be "my safe has now become my sorry"! :(

So that is the weekend in one big nutshell. :) I am hopeful for Edgar, I have to stay positive because we MUST find a way to keep him healthy, he is the perfect fit for Derek and I dont want to have to sell him.

On a positive note, Ellie last night finally showed great progress with her obedience pals. She did not growl or snip at all!! and within a minute, she became submissive and rolled on her back when the other 2 dogs approached her.. a GREAT sign!!! Then all 3 girls were allowed to run loose around the room and she was so cute as she thought about playing, but was unsure.. she occassionally came to me and I had to walk away from her and encourage her to go play. This is all so great, but now that she realizes they are her friends, she is much more distracted in class which gives her more opportunity to learn to "leave it".. all in all, she is doing great and I love the time her and I spend together.