What's Up Wednesday

 

It's been pretty busy around here lately.  The week was a total roller coaster of random stressful things. Some more minor than others. To start, Al tripped while turned out and gave himself a good cut on his leg. But it seemed like just a good scrape and he was sound when I rode him the same day. 

Said booboo

He can be a bit dramatic about bumps and bruises so I wasn't surprised when it was swollen (see above photo) the next day. What did surprise me was that he was hobbling lame on it that day. I was pretty confident the trouble was with that booboo though, so I cleaned it up really well and wrapped it up for the night. The next day, thankfully, he was good as new. I was waffling on whether or not to lesson on Friday though. I wasn't sure if I wanted him landing off jumps on that leg while it was bugging him. 

I wound up not having to make the decision myself though. Friday morning I woke up early to do my PT exercises before trying to ride the other horses before Al's lesson (that I still was on the fence about). I was up for a bit before Pia woke up, but when she did finally, she was having a real struggle. I thought this might be THE THING. She's 16 now, and I'm fully aware that THE THING is coming eventually. She couldn't stand up and her eyes were twitching in her head. Definitely not a good sign. I ran her up to the doggy ER right away. They brought her in pretty quickly, and awhile later they let me know that she was experiencing vertigo. Which was a huge relief because I was pretty convinced she was having a stroke. Turns out, she just had a bad ear infection. Which I feel terrible about, but that's pretty easy to fix, and it meant she came back home with me. That excursion took almost four hours, so at that point I had already texted to let them know I was skipping the lesson with Al. It was the right call as I didn't have the mental energy for that anyway that day. 

I did hack Al and Pammon later that same day, but Eros and Shiny wound up having the day off. Some days you just can't get everything done. I have no recollection of Saturday, so I'm assuming it was a normal day with no emergencies... Hopefully anyway! Ha! 

I did lesson with Al on Sunday though. He came out WILD but held his feelings together and was actually quite good. We didn't do too much jumping. The lesson was with the new instructor and she's really focused on position and somewhat on biomechanics. So we spent a lot of time flatting. Once we did get to jumping, it took awhile to get through warm up and the first course as there were six of us in the lesson. By the time I'd jumped the first course, I had been on Al for almost an hour and a half, so I said I needed to be done there. I felt like that was a long time for him to have me sitting on him, and I also had three more horses to ride. PLUS I had an old friend coming to the house for a braiding lesson at 3. 

We used Shiny for braiding practice and I think she actually enjoyed it. She stood so nicely the entire time! I'm pretty sure she's never been braided so that was a nice discovery. 

The most exciting thing that happened this week though? The Butet rep finally made it out to the barn! I had reached out to a different rep because the first I had contacted wasn't able to make a Monday work. The barn owner said I could only have a non CWD rep there on a Monday. When the first one stopped responding to my emails, I reached out to this other woman. And she responded immediately, and I had an appointment set up quickly. 

She brought I think six saddles to try. Three of them fit Al reasonably well so I could try some different flaps. I was pretty confident I knew which flap I needed, but based on my height the rep was convinced I wasn't right. I'm not particularly educated in saddle fitting, but I knew I was comfortable in what I had been using. And low and behold, once she saw me in the saddles she was like, well how about that! You DO need the forward flap! Unfortunately, she didn't have a saddle with her that was exactly what we needed, but she did have the right tree/panels for Al. That saddle doesn't have the flap I need, but it's pretty close. So she left that one for me to use in the meantime. She's going to see if she has any loaners coming back soon that would be closer to what we need. If she does, she'll swap out for me, and I can try that loaner and buy it, or place my custom order. And then I'll be paying off said saddle for forever. But Al will be happy and that's most important! I can already feel the difference in how he moves with the better fitting saddle. So it's worth the expense. At least, that's what I keep telling myself.

In other horse news, Eros has been great this week. I let him have a little free lunge yesterday and he let out some great big bucks which I'm glad he saved for when I wasn't on him... And he's been an angel ever since. He'll get his hocks done Friday (finally!) so he'll get this weekend off. I'm sure he'll enjoy that!

Pammon seems to be doing well too! We're cantering four laps of the indoor (or two laps outside) each direction, and I think he's feeling pretty good. The vet was out Friday for some other horses so he happened to be in the ring while I was working Pammon. Doc thought he was looking great, so that's reassuring! I've ridden him outside a handful of times and he's been really good. But he still gets lonely if there's a horse out there with him and then it leaves. I think he'll always be that way. He's generally find alone as long as he starts that way. He just doesn't like when friends leave. Stage 5 clinger that one.

Shiny is mildly stuck in a rut. She doesn't seem to really want to work, and I honestly think she's a little bored. She hasn't jumped in many months (since she was off back in the fall!) and I think she's just over the same old stuff everyday. I'm not sure if Doc has time for her on Friday, but I'm hoping he will. (I replied to their text about the appointment, but no one replied back. And then I keep forgetting to call. I'm the worst!) I don't think anything is terribly wrong physically. She still has some fill in that one leg, but I don't think it bothers her. It would be nice to have his thoughts on her though. We'll see!

I think that catches us all up! Did you all have a good week/weekend? Anything exciting on your end?