Bootcamp Departure

Echo left for Texas at approximately 6:30 yesterday morning and arrived to Texas before midnight. Sounds like she traveled like the rock star that she is and never really stressed. A will have her in isolation from the other horses for 14 days and then she will slowly be introduced into the herd of mares there.

It's early and I'm suppose to be asleep...

Please excuse my wrap job. Pretty damn good for a 6am job. Also none of my pillow wraps were the right size so I was using what I had since there there was no way around it that early in the day.

Here's the pictures I got from A of their rest breaks on the trip yesterday and one of her relaxing in her stall this afternoon in Texas.

Someone was worried about her nose getting to rubbed.

Operation Texas Bootcamp

Well...

Echo is heading to Texas for boot-camp  My lovely friend Amanda has agreed to take her for awhile while I'm concentrating on school and settling into Kentucky life better. 

Since she will have an open trailer next weekend. She is also taking Lovely Surprise to keep for herself :) I'm excited to be able to keep updates on Echo's filly.

It will be strange not having her around but I know she will be in great hands and getting to be worked with more consistently. 

I will keep the blog going with any and all updates I get from Texas and of course Dakota and I here at home.

Best picture I got yesterday of Echo's Mohawk.

Dakota Vet Visit

I planned on writing this post when I got home but the fact I only had 2 hours of sleep last night won and I crashed for 4 hours.

The vet - who I must take a moment to reiterate how amazing she is- came out this afternoon to look at Dakota. 

Took him out the end of the barn and I trotted him in a straight line. Then she had her assistant (a friend of mine as well) trot him so I could tell her if what she was seeing was better / average / worse than he normally appeared. He appeared much better in a straight line and I told her it was more obvious on a turn. 

I lunged him to the right first, on the gravel at a walk and he was ok- short strided, not head bobbing lame. Asked for a trot and you could immediately tell a difference. Switch directions and it got even worse.

Headed back to the barn to do a block on his front left affernal nerves. As she was sterilizing his leg she gave me a hard time for how clean he was and making her job too easy (he had gotten a bath in the morning). The block took affect (effect? Whatever I'm tired) a little faster than usual. His reaction to her testing his feeling was quite amusing. She didn't know if he was just being stoic or couldn't feel so she did same thing to right leg and he jerked, looking at he like 'ouch what the...' 

Lunge line time- starting to left this time. Walked him a minute or two and he leaped into the trot when I asked. Completely different horse. Little short stride in hind but improved there as well. Back to the barn to take Left hoof X-rays.

I had X-rays done in '09 to confirm the degree of rotation in his right hoof - and I flashed back to how naughty he was standing on the X-ray block. Finally after some distracting he cooperated and got the needed angles.

We reviews the X-rays and there was nothing noticeable. Good amount of sole, clean joints / no arthritis, no rotation, no discoloration to indicate anything in pastern or soft tissue. X-rays will be sent to radiology to confirm my vets beliefs. He had some filling just above his hoof / coronet band / coffin joint fluid. Next step will be to inject his coffin joint and see if his soundness improves. If not we will potentially ultrasound for soft tissue or do an MRI which isn't something I can afford at this point and not fully convinced it would be worth doing. Anything that requires an MRI to find I'm not going to be able to afford to fix and he will basically just officially be pasture retired - but we will cross that bridge if it comes.

Existing

Hello Blog World - it's been a few weeks, ok, many weeks... We're still alive and going, basically just existing. It took this long to get enough worthy updates to make a post, otherwise you would of been seeing a lot of 1 liner post about irrelevant things.

Me

School is going meh. I'll complete these first 8 week classes, but I'm not too confident in the grades I'll receive. I'm no longer working a second job since as of last week I'm full time again at Equibase. Hopefully being full time and a little more in hours and pay will make a difference. My friend Jenny is actually moving to Kentucky this month. She gave herself a deadline to be here and if she's not here, gave us permission to go snatch her. Still have my doubts until I see here standing in front of me.

Dakota

Mr. Dakota is lame. It's soft tissue and in the same leg he bowed a tendon in 3-4 years ago. Just below the knee and I'm guessing up into the knee where I can't feel. It's been going on a few weeks but 1) I haven't had time to have a vet out 2) I wanted to give liniment & poultice a valid chance. He was sound 99.99% of the time he was in Michigan and sound from his arrival until around August 1st. Basically he probably did something in a field and he's visibly sound at a walk so I didn't notice as fast as I should have. 

Vet is coming out Monday to take a look and I'll have the necessary diagnostics done to find out what he did. My hopes aren't too high. My gut is telling me it isn't a tendon and we could be dealing more with a ligament issue. 

Echo

My mareface has a Mohawk... a giant one. Her mane has not yet flipped over from me roaching it earlier this summer. Her mane is a good 5-6" tall and just keeps growing. Dakota's is barely 2-3" - I guess it is a good and bad thing Echo has such good hair growth - she just looks ridiculous instead of 'cute' like Dakota does with his.

I started her back on raspberry leaves aka the cheap version of Mare Magic. She's been a spooky mess leading her in and out of the barn - over the top. 

I've been doing nothing but ground work with her partly because she has forgotten to respect space and her manners have gone out the window. Lots of rope halter time and me 'beating on her' and her enjoying it instead of following a normal horse's reaction. She's the horse that will make me a non believer in the basics of natural horsemanship in the end. She does not respond to pressure. I try to get her to move away from pressure and she leans into it. Lots to work on!

Both horses are starting to get a little fuzzy with the shortening days. My mission this week is to buy Echo a turnout sheet / maybe a blanket so she has a full set for winter. Still debating on body clipping her. Fall vaccines and FEC coming up next week - fun fall times!

Sorry for all the writing and no pictures, I promise in the next one I'll have some photo updates.