If The Shoe Fits!

Well I suppose you could say we have not had much luck. after Faith came back from the hospital we had her feet done. Now Faith and feet just don't go so well. You see she needs to be trimmed in a way that puts her front feet more on an angle to take weight off of her heels. In a sense you are rolling the toe in. She also has pads on in between her shoes, they are wedged to give her even more of an angle. we first noticed this about a month from when we first got her. she was very off, camping out, and tripping. we had our vet come out and take x-rays of her feet and legs. At one point we were afraid it was navicular. navicular is when there navivular bone moves out of place causing it to be very uncomfortable for them. it is most common in quarter horses which is what her breeding is. luckily the radio graphs showed us that her hoof wall and bone were off angle, hence why we re angled her feet. It is so difficult to go to knew places because you must find new everything, you get vets and farriers that know how to work on your horse and it is hard to find it all again. When she was shod the farrier must have missed a detail because she was off, another way of saying uncomfortable. almost like a limp. she was off for about two days, and there was a race on the weekend and i was hoping to take her. on Friday we finally decided we had to do something. we thought of doing different types of shoeing but we were afraid of putting too many holes in her feet. we finally decided to get her some bute until we can make a decision. Bute is like Aspirin only for horses, its a pain killer. as we were on our way to get some we saw a farrier pull in. one we have heard good things about. we asked her to take a look at her feet. she found that the soul, the bottom of the foot, wasn't trimmed enough. it should be a very slight slope, hers was more flat and then a sudden drop, this was putting pressure on the pads and hurting her feet. if she had not had pads it may not have been a big deal. she trimmed the soul and like that my horse was once again sound. the next day i took her around the barrels. she did so good i felt she could take it up a notch, my horse has yet to fail me. i decided to take her to the race and exhibition her. well on Sunday morning we missed the exhibitions. this was fine by me, as long as she could be in the show atmosphere, but of course Pat, one of the guys at the ranch, got me to enter the race. it was a 5D race and i wasn't in it to win it, so what did i have to lose? i loped her to first so she could see what she was doing, she was going into it blind sighted because i did not exhibition her. she had a nice first barrel when she was going across to second she bobbled a little because she wasn't to go back to the chute, but once we got to our spot we had a nice second, on third i came into it too wide, i know i was scrambling for the reins so i must have pulled her off of it but we cam around it nicely. she had nice turns around the barrels, it was simply the approach. i was totally happy with it though. without any practice she was simply amazing, and still my horse has yet to fail me. threw everything, being ill, hospitals, feet, lack of practice, but the show must go on!

Helpless in Texas

Well the week started out pretty well, but we didn’t have the best ending. On Thursday morning I put faith out in her round pen and did our normal routine. Everything was normal. By noon everything was usual as well. But around 4:30 when I went to go get Faith and put her up for the night. I noticed she was laying down which was pretty usual for her, but then I noticed that when she got up she was looking pretty under the weather, I wasn’t worried but concerned, so I checked her gums. Checking their gums is like seeing if dogs nose is wet and cold, a good over all wellness, you want their gums pink enough so if you put your thumb on them you could see a brief white mark, and wet. I immediately noticed her gums were dry which was not a good sign, and her gums were pale. I listened to her stomached to see if I could hair anything. I couldn’t which was another red flag, no noise means no movements. I started to think I was dealing with a colic. Colic is basically a really bad stomach ache. It is very painful for horses and can die from it. It is usually caused by maybe bad feed, a drastic feed change, or eating sand. But colic could really be caused by almost anything, sometimes you just never know how it happened. When you have a colicing horse the first thing you want to do is walking, just keep on walking. If you walk them around their systems start moving and pushed out whatever caused the colic. We gave her 10mL of Banameine threw the vain. Banameine is basically a pain killer, something to make them more comfortable. I walked her around for about and hour. But she kept wanting to lay down. You don’t want them to lay down because they aren’t moving things threw, and if they roll they could twist an intestine or flip it over to the other side. In other words its really bad. As time went on her symptoms got worse. She started curling her upper lip which is another way of saying she is uncomfortable, she was also camping out. Camping out is when they stretch out their legs to try to get comfortable. Eventually she stopped trying to lay down so we put her in her stall. We tried giving her a bran mash, its kind of like an oatmeal I guess. Its something to cleanse them and clean them out. She did eat it but would not eat hay and didn’t drink. But we figured she was stable enough to leave her for the night. We had the girls check on her threw the night and we checked her around 8:00pm. She wasn’t laying down but wasn’t really doing much of anything. Just standing there. She didn’t look herself and was obviously unhappy. The next morning we got a call from Paula, one of the girls who live on the ranch. She said she was trying to lay down and looking at her stomach. Looking at their stomach is like a way saying ouch that hurts. We rushed over and called a vet. As we were walking her around she would just drop to the ground. We would stand her up and kept walking. We had to take off her sheet while walking because if we stopped she would try to lay down. The vet arrived and gave her 8mL of Banameine. He checked her heart rate which was normal, this was a good sign that nothing in her was twisted or flipped. Then he had to pump mineral oil into her. Mineral oil is another trick to clean them out. He took a tube and put it up her nose down into her throat. He pumped about two gallons into her. He decided she was fine and left. We kept her walking and noticed after about hour she was still getting worse. She was constantly trying to lay down, curling her lip, capping out, looking at her stomach, swishing her tail, she was just one really unhappy horse. We then tried taking her on a trailer ride. Some people say this helps because for horse being on trailers and being bounced around can make them poop. So we went around the ranch and by the end of it she had pooped once, but it wasn’t enough. She kept getting worse. The fact that it had been 24 hours and she had not drunken anything and was still colicing was really starting to worry us. We jus kept walking and thought about calling a hospital. They said to give her another shot of Banameine and to call in 2 hours. We did so and she was still no better. I was sitting on a hay bail feeling helpless when I heard it. To me it was the most beautiful noise in the world. I had to second guess myself. It was a stomach gurgle. I put my ear to her stomach and listened. I could hear gurgles, grumbles, and squirrgles. A smile cam upon my face. It was another step in the right direction. But I knew she was far from better and still needed professional help. We loaded her up on the trailer but we had to be careful that she couldn’t lay down in the trailer. Luckily the Banameine was still in effect. We got her in the trailer and to the hospital. We offloaded her brought her inside. There were 5stalls in an L shape to the right. To the left were three slots. The vet tech pointed me to the second slot. The doctor did a rectal on her (put his hand up her but to feel around and see if there is anything to come out and feel and twists) he didn’t feel anything irregular. He took blood work and tested for acid reflects. To do that he put a tube up her nose again and see if anything came out the tube. Luckily nothing came out so anything being twisted or flipped was out of the question. The fact that the colic had gone on for a full day was a bit concerning so we thought it may be something different. The blood work came back telling us she was anemic (weak or skinny) they said this could be from the stress, but also that she had low protein. Now we started thinking she may have some ulcers. An ulcer can appear from stress, this would make sense since she had been placed into a new environment, new routine, really new everything. This could be why she was acting so uncomfortable. The fact that she hasn’t drank in a day made them nervous as well. They kept her over night and had her on fluids via IV and started her on an ulcer guard. We knew she was in good hands so called it a night. The next morning I got a call from the clinic, they said she was up, eating, drinking, pooping, and seemed a lot more comfortable. Since she recovered so quickly the took ulcers out of the question and decided it was a really bad colic. They said they wanted to keep an eye on her just in case and we could pick her up in the morning. I was so relieved. Having a horse who was like part of the family being so ill and unhappy was just heartbreaking. I was so scared and felt so helpless. Mainly because with colic you can only do so much but its up to the horse to do the rest. Hearing that she was ok was such a stress relief. The next morning we picked her up and was happy to see her bright beautiful normal face. Se was so happy to see us come threw the door. I could only imagine how scary it is to be in such a state and have to trust the people around you to take care of you who you don’t even know. Especially with horses trust is very big to them. Having her home and seeing her be her normal self just put a smile on my face.

Tack, Tack, and more Tack!!!!!

This week has been pretty quiet, just a lot of moving around. On Monday Amy was assigned a new horse, so she then had four horses to ride. well I only had two, but then one of the girls wanted to ride Elli. He was originally supposed to be her project but she got pretty busy for a bit. She wanted to try to get back into the groove with him. Now i only had one. So i took over Frosty for Amy. So now she has three and I have two so while she rides her last horse Ill do little chores around the barn. Maybe cleaning tack, organizing the tack hooks, raking, etc. We have also added to our little collection of horses. A man who was at the ranch for a couple weeks had two really nice horses that he brought with him to sell. One of them sold. He let Amy ride the other one, she fell instantly in love. Her name is Kit. She is a high energy, but yet controllable horse. she is very tentative and responsive. She knows her job. She is a finished barrel horse that has been trying to sell. But the majority of people who look to buy at the ranch are kids. They don't feel as safe because she acts a little hot, but she wont do anything to you. Shes simply antsy. Well her owner had to go home for a couple weeks and left Kit here in Amy's hands. So now I have MY horse to ride and Amy has hers. We both something to call ours. But horses haven't been the only thing we've been moving around. This week Martha wanted us to use different headstalls. We would also usually use a tie-down (kind of like a halter only it is clipped to the cinch to try to keep the horses head down.) now we use running martingale. it is clipped to the cinch only it has two pieces that come out with rings at the end. you put the reins threw the rings. It is to help the horses break at the poll (tuck their head in)The bit we now use is called an O-ring, it also is used to help horses break at the poll. You want a horse to break at the poll because it helps them use they back and hind end. If you think about it you want your horse to move as if you picked up your horse by the withers (The bone connecting the back and neck.) his head tucks in and his hind end would come under neath him making his legs move loosely and fluently. So the more you can try to accomplish this the better you will ride the better your horse will move. I had to use a really old Martingale that actually snapped in half on me while i was riding Mario. i had to get off and use another one that was a home made one made of string and double end snaps. It took me quite a while to figure out all the knots and adjusting it etc. but after maybe 20minutes i got it figured out and i was bale to continue with my ride on Mario. So i've learned to always over look especially older tack and to keep track of what your are using and if it coincides with where you and your horse are at training and competing wise.

Fort Worth Texas

On Sunday we all took a trip to Fort Worth Texas to watch Martha race. She was racing in the WNFR(World National Finals Rodeo). It was so cool to watch the finals. She had ran that night to qualify to run the next day. We walked into the shoot with her. She walked her horse around a lot so he could get used to his surroundings because he was a little spooky.the coliseum seamed to go on forever. Up on the ceiling was flags. American and Texas flags hung. We found our seats and waited for the race to begin. It started with the grand entry. The grand entry starts with a drill team of horses. They all hold flags and stand for the National Anthem. Then the race began. There were broncs, calf roping, steer wrestling, Team roping, saddle bronc, bull riding, and barrel racing. Martha ran and placed 7th out of 175 riders. she qualified to ride the next day. She didn't come home so I'm assuming she qualified for today. Today we started the colts on the barrels. Fred(now known as Ellie) did well trotting around the barrels but when we tried to lope to them he did fin going to first, but couldn't pick up his correct lead going to second. It is important that horses pick up the correct lead going to barrels so they can balance better. If he is on the incorrect lead then he will not be able to make a good turn. We were unable to pick up the correct lead so I asked Terrie if he could ride him tomorrow to see if he can get him to pick it up. After we ride we go into the office and help the girls in anyway we can. Sometimes we need to stuff envelopes for clinics, move and organized files, working on the website, etc. everything has been a little busy because we now have two new colts. We have them for three days to see if we like them. If not we send them back to where they came from. One is a little all hyper and very rude on the ground. She walks all over you and doesn't care to much about you. The other is head shy, meaning she doesn't like it if someone touches her head or above her ears and is a little shy in general. We will probably end up sending them back because they are not what we are looking for. They are good project horses for individuals but not for an actual sale barn. Not everyone made the football team.