What's Up Wednesday

 

Thanks for all of your thoughts on what a program means yesterday! Clearly, there can be many iterations, and it may vary from horse to horse and rider to rider.... And even pro to amateur. No one is wrong and no one is right. And that, my friends, is why horsing is hard. 

It was an interesting week/weekend around here. We're back to our regular schedule, and the horses are more or less on board.

Eros stopped his walk to spy on his sister walking in from turnout.
That's her in the door window with the blue blanket on.

Shiny had her lesson Thursday and while she was mostly quiet, the more we jumped, the more excited she got. By the end there was a bit of bucking and celebration, so I let her have a free lunge on Friday. She definitely needed it! Saturday she did her second lesson of the week and although a bit too quiet, there were no theatrics. Good pony! Sunday she enjoyed the laziest Sunday Funday ever, in which we rode bareback and mostly just meandered around at the walk and gossiped with our friends. Some days, you just need to do that. She's been great so far this week too. A little on the quiet side, but that kind of is just who she is as a pony. I'm always here for too quiet anyway.

Eros is still telling people he's retired. He is not. He is, however, very much enjoying his life of leisure. He goes out for a few hours in the morning. Comes in for lunch and a nap. Does his 30 minute hand walk, and then gets iced and groomed. It's a very rough life, but someone has to live it! Might as well be Eros. 

And then there's Al. The first few rides back were pretty similar to as I had left him. Tense, anxious, not interested in following direction. But, I've always been a problem solver. I was more of a math/science person in school. So I applied some of those skills I learned way back then. I know from experience that not all horses are created equal. So I formulated a hypothesis and came up with a plan to test it. (My high school science teachers would be so proud!) 

My working hypothesis is that Al does not thrive under too much pressure. He prefers some hand holding and a little time to think things through. I do not believe that Al is the smartest animal I've ever had, and so he needs time to percolate on things. When Al feels anxious, adding more pressure just makes him more anxious and he loses his trust in his rider. Or at least, this is what I'm thinking at the moment. 

To test this hypothesis, I spent our first few rides applying nearly zero pressure. He was expected to walk, trot, and canter on the half of the ring where he is most comfortable. It was not required that he travel in a working frame, nor that he travel at a forward working speed. He just had to give me the bear minimum answer and keep moving in a forward trajectory. I also had no real time expectations. We walked until he was confident. Then we trotted until he was confident. Then we changed direction. Wash, rinse, repeat. Then we cantered in much the same manner. Once each way. Back for a little more trot, and then he was done. Some days we had to walk a lot longer than others. 

Was it good, hard, productive work? Depends on your definition I suppose. It was not hard for me. But I think it was for Al. Mentally more so than physically of course. Productive? Yes and no. It was productive in that I achieved a more relaxed, listening horse. Was he working on his fitness? No, not really. But truthfully, while we're working through his emotions and in the dead of winter, I really don't care if he's in tip top fitness. It's probably best right now if he's NOT all that fit.

I had varying degrees of success, but the horse got a little better each day. I planned his rides around the ring being quiet to the best of my ability. Barn owner was home this weekend, so the schedule was not as normal. We started our ride Sunday with a fairly quiet arena. But soon a young horse came in who was feeling just a little sassy. Al was wanting to feed off this, so rather than pressure him into behaving, I let him go back to the walk and just try to relax until that other horse finished his ride. Then we went back to work. And he was just fine. Did it end up taking me almost an hour to get our ride done? Yes. But was it low stress and successful? Also yes! 

So for the time being, I'm feeling positive about my current hypothesis. Our vet texted me Friday with Al's Lyme results. He was positive for both Lyme and anaplasmosis though I haven't really noticed any typical anaplasmosis symptoms. Fortunately, doc was scheduled to come out for another horse on Saturday, so he brought us doxycycline and also gave Al another hormone shot. The one we are trialing gets done every two weeks so he was due for his second. As for the Lyme, he had a very low positive last time we tested, but since the titer looks for immune response, a very low positive isn't always worth treating. This time however, his levels were higher and so we are trying the doxy. He also got his foot fixed on Monday by our favorite farrier. Nice to have that piece of horn off his frog I'm sure!

Monday he had a day off since the barn is closed to boarders. Yesterday we were back to work, and I had a very relaxed and happy Al. And today? EVEN better! He ventured further down the ring, closer to the depths of Hell (as he calls the far end...) and even touched the scary boxes that I couldn't get anywhere near last week. Now. Is this new behavior due to anything I've been doing? Hard to say. Probably not. My guess is the meds have kicked in and maybe he's feeling a little blah since the doxy can be hard on them. He is a on a probiotic though to help with that. I'm hoping VERY hard that the Lyme is the root of all of this angst we've been dealing with. I'm not sure if that's going to pan out for us... But one can hope. Tomorrow we are having our first lesson in awhile. The plan is to continue on with our low pressure hypothesis. We'll stay away from the dragon's lair and he'll get to do some jumpies, and hopefully it will be a great re-entry to my iteration of a program. 

I was told this weekend that my horse has never been in any sort of program and amateur rides are vastly different from pro rides. And that he obviously has had months of bad riding. (Yes, really. I was told this. Fortunately my summer trainer doesn't subscribe to this thought process.) So I have to say, feeling like I've made some strides in getting my horse "fixed" with only me on him has helped me feel a little less defeated. I'm not going to pretend I can train a problem horse, or that I'm doing this on my own. No one does anything with horses on their own. My vet and farrier are playing a huge role (clearly) in getting this horse comfortable and able to focus on his job and not what's bothering him physically. But I am going to say with confidence that I can listen to my horse, and try to do what's best for his needs. Despite my terrible riding and being an uneducated nobody amateur. Sometimes not getting the help you asked for is actually a blessing, because you can look a little harder and see what's actually happening. Might Al revert back to being anxious and spooky tomorrow? Sure. Could happen. But I'm going to keep reformulating that hypothesis and throwing solutions at it until something sticks. Because being a horseman means listening to your horse and bringing out the best in him/her. For us talentless fearful amateurs it might take a little longer to get there. But we WILL get there. Even if we have to do it mostly on our own.

To counteract all of my emotions this weekend (believe me, there were a lot of emotions) I went to a post-holiday cookie swap that my sister-in-law hosted. It was actually so much better than a normal holiday time cookie swap because most of the Christmas and Chanukah treats have been eaten by now. Plus, the holiday stress is over, so what better time to congregate with friends and swap cookies? Plus we had a snowstorm hitting the next day. A bucket full of cookies certainly makes a snow day more appealing. I made glazed sugar cookies:

They were mittens, snowmen, and snowflakes. Though the glaze perhaps does no accentuate the shapes so well... Whatever. They were still delicious!

The snowstorm was mostly a bust. We were predicted to get up to 8 inches, but I think we maybe got 2? Maybe. Fine by me. I'm not a snow person. 

So anyway, that's it from here. How are you all doing so far this winter?