What's Up Wednesday

 

Big week over here. I finally got my hair cut and colored which was about a year and half over due. I'm really bad about staying on top of this stuff... I have a wedding to attend soon though, and I needed to not look like some crazy old witch! But this is a horse blog and not a hair blog, so let's chat about what else happened this week to make it a big one. 

Friday, as you know from my embarrassing anecdote shared yesterday, the vet was out for Al's rescope and Shiny's evaluation. So let's get to that first. Poor Al was big mad because doc was a little late and Al was HANGRY. I hate having to fast him for these things. Like how do you explain to a horse why you're starving him? But he survived. Just barely according to him. The scope was a disappointing. For the most part his stomach is clear of ulcers, but there is one down where the intestines attach that hasn't resolved. And is in fact mostly unchanged from the last scope. This is pretty disappointing. Especially because he's been on the Esomeprazole AND the Sucralfate this entire time. There's literally nothing left to throw at it since we've already tried regular omeprazole, omeprazole/fenbendazol compound, AND Misoprostol. The plan for now is to wean him off the Esomeprazole and keep him on Sucralfate. I guess this is as good as he gets, and if we seem to have a flare up, we'll just revisit some form of Omeprazole. I guess? I'm not entirely sure. 

We also switched his NSAID so I am to follow up with doc this week about how things are going. Current working hypothesis is that this one residual ulcer likely isn't the driving force for his spooking behavior. It could be pain related from someplace else from our trials with NSAIDS seeming to help for a period of time. Doc said some horses have this weird ability to kind of override the effects of an NSAID after a period of time. Like they kind of get used to it and so it stops working. Hence the reason we switched him to something else. Trying to see if his behavior improves on the new one again, or not. I had not seen any change until today when he was mildly better than he's been, but still not what I'd call good. So I don't think we've figured anything out yet. Doc also mentioned another horse he treated that was similar to Al behaviorally. He said for that horse they decided to treat for Lyme even though the horse's titer wasn't technically showing positive. It did show exposure. Which is the same for Al. They chose to treat aggressively with Oxytetracycline which has to be given via IV catheter as it can make them sick straight from the needle. Thus it should be administered daily via Veterinarian. Not ideal for my situation financially. But it is something we may try because that other horse turned normal after treatment. Like no more funny business. None. I'd sell a kidney for that kind of result. Hell, I'd sell pretty much anything. My lameness vet though, the one I've been working through all of this with, is located too far away to have him come do the treatments unfortunately. I'd have to see if my local vet would be willing. I imagine he would be. 

Where I'm a little stuck right now is that my dad helps me with my vet bills and he was... displeased we'll say, with how much I've spent this summer. So I'm not sure he's willing to keep forking out money for this new treatment. And I don't have it at the moment. I really need to find another source of income and get myself a little more comfortable financially so I can help my horse on my own. I was raised to be able to take care of myself and my situation on my own, but somehow with the rising costs of literally everything I've failed a little bit in that mission. I'll figure it out though, and get back on track soon. 

Anyway, uncomfortable finance talks aside... Shiny's appointment went very well. She did flex positive on both hocks which is not shocking since it's been a little over a year since we did them last, but everything else looked great. Doc was really happy with her neck which used to be pretty problematic for her as well as her weight. So she's definitely on the right track. He noted some stocking up behind, but I am not worried about that as she tends to start doing that when her hocks are due. And it's cleared up now that they've been done. 

Since Shiny got her injections Friday afternoon, she had to miss her turnout Saturday morning. And it was so cute, when I put Al out, he went back to see her and she wasn't there, and he was VERY concerned. Let out a little whinny and ran back to where I was to let me know she'd gone missing. I told him it was okay, and that she was in her stall. I'm not sure he believed me, but Eros, who was out in the walkout behind his stall kind of showed Al everything was fine and he settled. He loves his sister even though she doesn't seem to love him back very much. 

I rode the boys Saturday, (Shiny had the weekend off) but everyone wound up being off Sunday. It rained all night (FINALLY!) and was supposed to stop by 10am. But it didn't. It rained until about three and at that point the ring was saturated. The horses had sad little turnouts in the covered walkouts.

One at a time because I'm not replacing any more of those very expensive boards... I was tempted to let Al and Eros out next to each other to see how'd they be. But not so tempted that I was in the mood for destruction and/or stitches. So I decided to save that excitement for another day. I would love to turn them out together some day. But I dunno... Al doesn't read social cues and Eros can be a little bit of a bully. Which I know you don't believe (I wouldn't either if I hadn't seen it!) but I caught him rearing rather angrily at his paddock neighbors at the winter barn. Shiny has made it quite clear that she will not turnout with ANY horse as they are all stupid and she would like to kick them all to smithereens. Yes Queen. You do you.

I did use my Sunday time wisely though! Remember all the tack I needed to clean and oil. DID IT! ALL of it! Well. Not like every piece of tack I own. That would take more than an afternoon. But all the tack in the tack room was cleaned and oiled. (Except the glitter bridles because they aren't leather. They did get wiped down though.)

All of these AND all the saddles! <<Pats self on back>>

My preferred tack cleaning products

I also did earn a little money this weekend with a couple of braiding jobs. I had one horse Saturday night and one Monday night. There aren't too many shows left around these parts that will require braids, so this might be it for me for the season. We shall see though. You never know!

I've been a little rushed in my rides this week because Tuesday I had to drop my car off for an oil change and today I had to get done before they closed to pick it up. Since it's cool though, the horses didn't require rinsing after, so that sped things up just enough to still have time for 30 minute rides. Which is more or less what we usually do anyway. 

Shiny is feeling pretty good after her injections. I was kind of expecting her to be sassy with the drop in temps combined with her three day vacation. But alas, she's as quiet as always. Which isn't really a complaint. But a teeny bit of self propulsion wouldn't be a negative. Just saying. Everyone popped over a few jumps today. I set my phone on the fence to record, but when riding Shiny I unintentionally zoomed in from my watch and only managed two screen grabs. Everything else wound up below the camera's site. Oops.

We didn't do much today anyway since it's her first jump school back and also we were in a hurry. Just a few to knock the dust off. Hopefully we can do more later in the week.

Eros was SO good today for his jumpy day too. Not only did I jump a line with him, but we accidentally ADDED in the line because he landed so nice and soft. I'll take it! 

I think he might be almost ready to jump an actual course instead of a bunch of single jumps. I've been a little cautious because the neighbor has been especially spooky lately. Eros isn't like Al, but he does have feelings about things sometimes. I'm here alone, so sometimes I choose the path less deathy. Some call that being wimpy, but I really think it's just smart. 

I put on my big girl panties for Al's ride today and tried a few jumps too. I wasn't super brave. I only did the ones in safe spaces. I thought maybe I could add on as we went along, but he was proving to not really settle into the work. So I stuck with what we were doing only. I have to dig REALLY deep into my confidence bucket to jump him around right now, and I don't want to do anything to make that any harder. We started with a raised cavalleti which he did not want to hold his canter to. But eventually he did. Then we did the little cavalletti bounce a few times until he knocked the out over. Moved on to the little oxer.

He always likes that one. And then I pulled up my big girl pants and aimed him at the combination. The first time through he was a little backed off and the out was VERY long.

RRREEEEAAAACCCHHHH

But he got it done! Good think there's scope in there. The second time was a little better, and then the third time was quite nice. 

He's so cute. I just wish I could get the brain fixed. Anyway, we just did that three times, then caught the little oxer once more and that was that.

There's a part of me that really believes if I can just ride the horse through all the shenanigans we'll be just fine. But I think there's also a part of me that isn't sure I can get through them all. I just have to keep trying I guess. I know I said I was ready to make a hard decision, but the emotions I had about that suggests maybe I'm not actually quite ready yet. Maybe it's time I let go of what I wanted to do with him and just try to figure out what I CAN do with him. I dunno. I'm sure I'll change my mind a thousand more times. But for now, here we are. Doing our best. And you know what? That's good enough for now.