Silver1
1st Jul 2005, 10:33 PM
Well Mear’s official return to work happened today though not quite how I would have liked it to happen. The past couple of weeks we’ve been just working on ground driving at the walk, lots of circles and pattern work. She’s been doing really well at it, and I had planned to ask her for a little walk/trot on the lunge first, to see how sound she was. Worrying if asking her to do three different things we normally work on in different sessions would be too much for her after her lameness.
Well I get there, take her out and start grooming her. Since we’ve never had any problems before, grooming and picking out her hooves are usually the least of my worries. Got her all brushed down, commented to her on how fat she was, and apparently she took offence. When I picked up her back hoof to pick it out, she kicked me with it! Of course she got a big yell and slapped on the hip for it, but the biddable angel apparently decided to have a personality change for the day and pinned her ears at me instead of saying something along the lines of: “Sorry! It was an accident!” in Horse language.
Well that did it, and we went through the whole grooming over again, reestablishing what we should, and should not do in grooming, especially hoof-picking. We covered everything. When to move, when not to move, picking up the feet, not yanking them away, and letting me put the hoof down for her.
Next I took her into the arena and free-lunged her, at a walk and trot. She didn’t have a hint of unsoundness about her, except in the beginning she was a bit short in her trot and almost forging. I think during this she figured out she’d made a mistake and was trying to make up for it there. She followed all voice commands dutifully, and had no trouble allowing me to pick up and put down all her feet.
So we moved on to ground driving, where she did just as good as normal. Its hard to tell whether we’re improving or not. We still can’t make a straight line, turning is still difficult, but this time I think though we had no major breakthroughs, there were smaller improvements. She moved in the general direction of where I wanted to go and while we can’t walk directly up to a cone and stop in front of it, we can head in the correct direction with no sudden swerves to the right or left.
Finally I unhooked her and lunged her again, as something from the way she’d been acting all through the lessons gave me a clue as to what the underlying problem was. I gave her the cue we have for playing while free-lungeing, and insisted she take it. She was really dogged about just trotting around for a little bit but when I finally pushed her into it, it was like a snapped rubber band. She bucked, reared, galloped around and had a fine old time before moving into the relaxed, extended trot that has been missing for so long.
I took her back to the grooming area a changed horse, or rather, changed back to the same Mear I had before. She even let me put fly spray on with out trying to duck her head away.
Well I get there, take her out and start grooming her. Since we’ve never had any problems before, grooming and picking out her hooves are usually the least of my worries. Got her all brushed down, commented to her on how fat she was, and apparently she took offence. When I picked up her back hoof to pick it out, she kicked me with it! Of course she got a big yell and slapped on the hip for it, but the biddable angel apparently decided to have a personality change for the day and pinned her ears at me instead of saying something along the lines of: “Sorry! It was an accident!” in Horse language.
Well that did it, and we went through the whole grooming over again, reestablishing what we should, and should not do in grooming, especially hoof-picking. We covered everything. When to move, when not to move, picking up the feet, not yanking them away, and letting me put the hoof down for her.
Next I took her into the arena and free-lunged her, at a walk and trot. She didn’t have a hint of unsoundness about her, except in the beginning she was a bit short in her trot and almost forging. I think during this she figured out she’d made a mistake and was trying to make up for it there. She followed all voice commands dutifully, and had no trouble allowing me to pick up and put down all her feet.
So we moved on to ground driving, where she did just as good as normal. Its hard to tell whether we’re improving or not. We still can’t make a straight line, turning is still difficult, but this time I think though we had no major breakthroughs, there were smaller improvements. She moved in the general direction of where I wanted to go and while we can’t walk directly up to a cone and stop in front of it, we can head in the correct direction with no sudden swerves to the right or left.
Finally I unhooked her and lunged her again, as something from the way she’d been acting all through the lessons gave me a clue as to what the underlying problem was. I gave her the cue we have for playing while free-lungeing, and insisted she take it. She was really dogged about just trotting around for a little bit but when I finally pushed her into it, it was like a snapped rubber band. She bucked, reared, galloped around and had a fine old time before moving into the relaxed, extended trot that has been missing for so long.
I took her back to the grooming area a changed horse, or rather, changed back to the same Mear I had before. She even let me put fly spray on with out trying to duck her head away.