Friday, September 28, 2012

Other Updates

While at the ladies ride, a friend was inquiring on Edgar and how he was doing, indicating she wished the timing had worked out for her to have him since she will soon be in the market for a new trail horse.  It got me thinking and wondering if Jen/Timbre still wanted to keep him.  I knew they were headed towards divorce and since Timbre did not ride and that is who Edgar was supposed to be for, maybe she would consider giving him back to me.  Well I sent Jen a text and sure enough she was worried about the upcoming winter and how to feed 3 horses and after a week of consideration, gave him back.

I drove out to pick him up on Labor Day and was I glad I did.. he looked terrible!  :(  He was a solid 200 pounds under weight..  he looked like the run-down version of black beauty; but I kept my mouth shut and thanked her for giving him back and took him home.  It was amazing, after 1 week of food in him, he was already 100x's better looking and now its been 3 weeks and he is looking pretty darn good.  He needs the muscle tond for sure built up, but I am much happier.  My friend Tricia is not sure when/if she will ever be ready to take him so for now he is with us and we just are not sure what to do with him.  He's not ready to be placed with anyone else quite yet...  After that disaster of knowing he got so thin and suffered, we are a bit more leary now about doing that again!  I dont really want to own 3 horses as we dont need 3 horses, the mess the feed the bills.....  so it's a dilema and we are not ready to face facts and come to a decision so for now, he is with us getting fat and happy again and sometime down the road we'll have to consider the options. 

The neighbor Suzi was coming over and working with him, she seems interested in riding him and working him, her mom tells me she was upset over the summer not having our horses home for her to come play with, but I dont know if I see the drive in Suzi to come over and do whats necessary to get Edgar back into condition.  I'd love it if she did,  I want to teach her how to do things, but I dont know if I see a real interest there in learning...  maybe she is just really really shy still and uneasy at my place.. not sure.

Derek's job is doing alright, the company just had an ownership change last week so things are up in the air and who knows where this will lead him..  So far the only thing he has lost is the 401k benefits but they may get reinstated at a lower employer contribution rate.  My job never changes, same bore just another day.

Oh the goat, Mo!   We took him in for his 6 week checkup, he got the cast off and the x-ray was done..  one of the bones set perfectly, the other slipped and is not fusing properly back together.. it is fusing.. side by side!  His back leg will be an inch or so shorter than his other 3 legs as the bone has started to callus and form new bone, too late to fix it!  He still has to stay confined another 4 weeks, give the bones time to form a solid new bone.  He is doing really good and seems happy even though he still doesnt get to move around at all.

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Willie or Willie not work out!!

Well I took Willie to our annual CHC Ladies Ride back in August, his first real camping trip, 5 days on his own as I did not have a girlfriend that could come along to ride Oakley.  Which I have to admit was kinda nice just because it saved me the extra work of bringing more stuff and dealing with 2 horses.  Willie was awesome on his highline!  He was next to Bobbie's mare and they got along very well, although Willie never did figure out how to lay down so by day 5, he was tired!!  Many times Bobbie & I watched him darn near buckle and fall over as he stood sleeping.  lol

We got in 3 rides over the weekend and I was very proud of him.  His back was only a tiny bit sore after the 3rd ride too, so I was happy to see that.  We rode last in the pack on our group rides and the gal right in front of me was on a VERY antsy horse.. her horse would not walk a straight line, he was over-amped and was dancing, prancing, trotting sideways.. doing anything but cooperating for his rider.  I was worried Willie would feed off the vibes, but he was steady-eddy and remained calm cool and collected, not one bit phased by any of the antics of the horses in front of him.  I was tickled pink!!!  :)

My drive home, not so happy with him as I realized he was pissed to be leaving his new girlfriend so he put quite a few new dents in my trailer.. He was bucking and kicking in the trailer...  When I got to my parents place (cant remember why I had to stop there on my way home), but anyways, he had the balls to buck/kick right infront of my eyes as I had the trailer door open, so he got his ass spanked while he stood tied in the trailer!  I am realizing he still is not great at standing tied if other horses are out of sight.. he will buck or kick whatever is around him.. definately needs more lessons on that as that is not acceptable!

I did bring Willie back home after the ladies ride to fatten him up, he still has not gained the weight I want him to, after loosing it all in training.  I've been feeding him beet pulp, senior grain and rice bran; it finally is working and he's gained some weight!  He's still a bit ribby, but he looks good.  After the ladies ride, I let him sit for a couple weeks and decided to use him to flag the trails for our club prize ride.  I was worried I had made a mistake as he was feeling fresh on all this new grain, plus he is still a VERY GREEN horse!!  What the hell was I thinking using him to carry hundred of long flowing flags on him...  The young stubborn side of my brain said "Oh it will be just fine"..

As I introduced the ribbons to Willie that morning, his initial reaction was to go straight up in the air, all 4 feet off the ground.. OH SHIT!  What was I in for.... After that initial blow up he seemed to be fine and I put the flags on the saddle horn, got on, and hoped for the best!  And I got about as close to great as I could expect out of him.  He was clearly irritated by the flags touching his legs, he is SOO darn thin-skinned that he feels everything and he didnt like the flags touching him but as long as I kept him moving, he accepted it pretty good.  He was not flaring his nostrils or spooky, he just went with it.. thank god!! 

I actually struggled more with trying to get him in the brush to hang the flags.  It was a 5-hour ride, by the end he was a bit irritated but we had no major spooking, no rearing nor bucking, so it was 100% successful.  I have realized that I am always riding him at the back of the pack so when a horse is behind us, he now gets nervous about that..  so I need to change it up when I ride from now on and make him ride in the middle or front as I dont mind being in the back, but he needs to learn to ride from any position calmly.

So here I have a horse that has been doing exceptionally well with all that I have thrown at him...  we've not been riding as much as we should but I've been so happy with him.  Then Monday night comes along.. I was itching to ride, so I put a Cashel Soft Saddle on him (a friend lent it to me).. basically it is a bareback pad with stirrups, except that when I was riding in it, I didnt feel the stirrups were safe so I did not use them.  I was in the mood to ride bareback, so I fed him his dinner, let him eat all his grain and half his hay, then got on!  Oh I should also mention I put a bit in his mouth too, wanted to try something new.  The sidepull I've been using works great, BUT because of his thin skin, it rubs a raw mark on his nose every time I ride in it, so thought maybe a bit would be better. 

Well apparently this bit was too much bit for him and he was SUPER sensitive, my hands had to be very very light.  As soon as I got on him, I knew there was a 90% likelyhood that I was going to hit the ground.. I could feel it in him as he did NOT want to cooperate.  I was just in the gravel area and couldnt get him to move away from the barn without him wanting to rear or buck so I got off, took him out to the make-shift roundpen and ran his ass off..  he was so full of evergy, I hardly did anything but stand and cluck at him and he just ran...  So when he was good and tired and sweaty, I got back on.. oh much better!  Look who wants to cooperate now.. He was feeling pretty good actually, I rode him out to the round pen but once in there, he said "screw you" and found a reason to spook, spin and jump out from under me.. I was expecting it so I was able to grab his neck on my way down and landed on my feet, but because he was still in spin mode away from me, and I didnt land square on my feet, my ankle landed hard (and poorly) and I buckled and went down.. I heard and/or felt a crunch in my ankle and knew I was down hard.. My body was fine..  but my ankle was in pain.  I called Derek to come help me up and by that evening, I was swollen and in a lot of pain.

I didnt sleep well, it was throbbing and then next morning I could barely walk.  After looking online I am sure I have a partial tear in one of the ligaments in my ankle as it was very tender to touch.  3 days later I can walk on it pretty good but it's still tender and I dont have much mobility and there is still swelling.  My bad though, I knew it was not a good idea but I wanted to ride bareback dammit!  Willie is FAR too sensitive of a horse to handle bareback and FAR too green to ride in his pasture without drama!  So Willie or Willie not work out...  I'm fairly certain Willie will work out in the end, we just have a long road ahead of us and I need to not baby him but accept the limitations of his experience. 

Yeah, we accomplished our goal.. :)

Yep, about damn time I was back on here!  Lots of updates, need to get out the calendar so I can jog my own memory on what the heck has been going on..

I think I'll start with the exciting news..  Cooper
Yes that is the 4th ribbon we had set out to earn this year!!  Which means he got his 4th pass, earning his Started Title..  Whooohooo....  We were over in Chewelah WA for the hunt test, it was a long drive but a nice area to go to.  We had a really great weekend, took all 3 dogs with us so that Cooper would stay relaxed and not get stressed.  Getting this 4th ribbon did not mean we got an easy pass, as usual Cooper tested my patience and was trying to make a fool of me in the middle of his test.  The good thing we did see is that it appears he is probably 80% over his bird issues as far as not wanting to pick them up, now he's just being a bit naughty because he gets to the bird and realizes there are far more interesting things out in the big field for him to sniff out, so he goes on "Walk-a-bouts" while in the middle of his tests!  G-Damn dog!!  lol

But the judges were patient, as was I..  I did not use ANY negative vibes and kept my talking to a minimum and actually the way I got him to pick up the bird finally was a new method I had to come up with on the spot and that was to show him I was leaving without him and turn my back to him and walk away..  That FINALLY prompted him to pick up the birds and come back to me!!  And of course swimming was his strong suit and he handled those retrieves perfectly..

Our hard work paid off, it's been a long journey this summer with him.  We feel he needs to see LOTS more fresh live birds, more dead birds from fresh hunting scenarious and a lot more field work of him just getting over the novelty of being loose out in a big field with so many smells!! 

~  Today (9/27) is Cooper's 2nd Birthday  ~

After our pass, at the ribbon ceremony on Saturday evening, we knew we were going to get wet.  Tradition is that your dog gets wet for you in the hunt tests; therefore, you will now get wet for your dog when the title is earned.  Derek wanted to take the honors because Cooper is his dog and he trains him, but I was not about to give up my seat because I felt I earned that dousing as well by training Cooper and running him in these tests..  I was not willing to let him take the honors on his own..
I earned that seat next to him on the bench!
It was only about 50 degress outside at this point, you can see the moon was out, so this was not a warm part of the day.. just hours earlier it had been 90!  As I sat in anticipation awaiting a VERY cold dumping, I was not expecting that when the water finally reached my body, it was WARM!!  I could feel on my right arm very cold water and I quickly realized that my HRC friends were looking out for me..  lol   I rather enjoyed my dousing of water, while Derek on the other hand got the full honors of the traditional dousing by getting the COLD water dump!  :)  It was hilarious!!!