Chiropractor Visit

Well since I sold my old car I was able to afford to have the chiropractor out to adjust both Cody and Axel this time. Cody needed a follow up visit from his spring adjustment. I of course got to the barn 5 minutes after 3. Dr. Westman said he'd be up to the ranch sometime around 3 or 4. Well I guess he was there at 3. So I was late. It was kind of a bummer because I had wanted a bit of time to groom everyone so they didn't look like total neglect cases. Oh well, it's that time of year I guess. I grabbed Cody and brought him into the barn. I was really surprised, he was pretty calm about the whole thing. He usually gets pretty worked up when he has to stand alone without his buddies. He stood really well for his adjustment and might have even enjoyed it. There was a lot of licking and chewing going on. In the end he had one rib on each side out (an improvement from the 4 that were out in the spring), his croup was out, and his withers were pretty bad still (his adjustments are on the left there if you can read them).

Axel hadn't been adjusted before and he's so stoic it's really hard to tell when he's in pain. But he's been so slow lately that I thought maybe he is in pain and at least this can't hurt. He in fact was out: a couple ribs, his withers were pretty out, and his poll. He didn't show much pain upon palpitation but he was out enough that I might see some changes in him the next time I ride him. The Dr. did find out that Axel has an issue with his left front knee. He's got a lump and it's really stiff, possibly the beginning of arthritis. So I put some senior flex in his dinner for the night and we'll see about getting him on that supplement for a while. I had asked to put him on that a while ago but I don't think that had happened. I'm hoping he maybe just tripped and smacked his knee but I think it's been an ongoing issue. Poor Axel. He enjoyed the adjustment well enough, he didn't really appreciate having his poll adjusted but the rest he was fine with (Axel's adjustments are on the right).

Tricia was able to make it over with Oly for his adjustment. I had sort of wondered if he'd even need anything done since he's been pretty good lately. Hasn't tried to kill Tricia in a long time. But he was out in a quite a few places on his back and ribs, enough that the Chiropractor suggested she give him a few extra days before he goes back to work.

So we'll probably do a bit more ground driving and such for Axel while he's still putting on a bit more weight and hopefully building back some muscle before I start riding him again. And lots more ground work for Cody is in our future, especially after how well he got in the trailer the other night after their little adventure. Gotta keep up that good work.

Rest in Peace, Beau

The Great Escape

1. We switched our riding day to Tuesday this week since Steph was going to be out of town.
2. Tricia wasn't going to come but later decided it was too nice out to pass up and planned to come over with Oly in the trailer.
3. I turned down a meeting with some IT people at the WCR office.

Because of these three things we were able to rescue 5 very naughty horses.

I show up at the barn and Tricia comes along right behind me with Oly in the trailer. There's no horses in the front pasture so I head to the back hill to call for them. I can't whistle loud enough so I just yell "horses!" that usually gets them to at least look my way. I see Beau peek out from behind some trees and start heading up my way. I let him into the barn and figure everyone else won't be too far behind. No luck.

We decide that Tricia is going to ride Oly and I will drive Axel down the road to the bean field. I'll work Cody in the round pen when we return. I grab a halter and head down the hill to find the horses, yelling most the way just in case they decide to help me out so I don't have to walk all the way down the hill. No horses. I check the bottom of the hill where they spend most of their time grazing. No horses. Okay, maybe they went up the other way when I was coming down the hill. I call Tricia's cell to see if she's seen the herd but she doesn't have her phone on her. So I walk down near the creek to the bridge. There's no grazing over there but sometimes they hang out in the sand. No horses.

What I do find is a broken gate. The gate to the bridge is snapped. The bridge leads to the trails on the back hill and beyond the trails are fields and farms and roads. There is some really good grass at the top of the hill so my thought is that once they got to that point they probably stopped to graze. I couldn't get a hold of Tricia on her cell so I run up the hill nearly causing me a heart attack in the process (apparently I need to do a bit more aerobic work). She has Oly tacked up and ready to go. I tell her the news as Steph drove up. We gathered some lead ropes and halters and sent Tricia and Oly ahead of us thinking Oly would call and the horses would come looking. I guess Oly knew better because he didn't call.

When we got to the top of the hill Tricia set out across the first field to the farm house to ask if they had seen any horses. Steph and I walked down the trail in the woods to see if they were out there at all. Tricia called my cell and told me that the people at the farm house knew where the horses were so we were going to meet her back at Tom's and drive over and get them.

As the crow flies, they ended up a mile away. We had to drive 4 miles to get there though. They had ended up on the other end of one of the fields and someone spotted them and rounded them up. A guy with a bunch of horses at a farm up the road was going to try and trailer them back to us but they couldn't get Kiko in the trailer (apparently they got everyone else in the trailer though). So instead of fighting her they just put them all in a pen until we got to them.

We made two trips with Tricia's trailer to pick them all up. Kalani, Cody, and Kiko in the first trip. Both Kalani and Cody loaded really well. Kiko was a bit more of a fight but she got in. Then Axel and Corey on the last trip and they both load just fine. So we didn't get to work the horses we had planned but everyone got a few trailer loading lessons anyway. We saw some trailers at this farm, and they were big slant load goose neck trailers. My question is how in the world did they get Axel out if they had him loaded. He doesn't back out of a trailer well. I want to know their secret! Tom ended up taking us out for dinner after that in thanks for running around to find everyone.

Whew, quite the night.

Sunny Sunday

So I show up at the ranch this morning and Beau is in the barn which is not unusual. However, he's standing on the pallets on the wrong side of the fence. He must have been there for a while eating hay. When I came he was more than happy to move to the other side of the fence when I opened it for him. Actually he was ready to go outside, grab a drink of water, and head down to the pasture where the rest of the horses where.

I grabbed Cody's rope halter and went down to fetch him out of the pasture. He wasn't terribly thrilled to come up to the barn with me so we did a couple circles until he was ready to follow me up. When we got to the top of the hill he called back to the herd, luckily everyone was far too busy grazing to respond so we were able to work alone. Cody really picked up on the circling and the direction changes from Wednesday. He was pretty worked up and would only canter at first and then finally trot but walk was not in our vocabulary today. Despite his "frenzy" he kept an ear on me most of the time. We practiced standing outside of my "personal space" but he's still having issues with creeping forward. Particularly, he's creeping towards the herd. I worked on scratching his face a lot and when he'd creep forward he'd have to move out again on the circle. He got pretty sweaty again but it was 63F out so it stands to reason. Luckily it was early enough that I could just turn him out when I was done and not worry about him getting chilled.

When I figured we had enough circling I decided I wasn't going to just let him run down to the herd. I was going to walk him down to the herd and let him go as a reward. We had to do a few more circles on the way down the hill because he wasn't totally paying attention. When we got close to the herd I asked for a few more circles before taking his halter off. And surprise surprise, he just stands there looking at me. I walk towards the herd, he follows. I walk up to Kiko, he follows. I walk past Kiko, he follows. Finally when I put the halter on Axel he figures it out and stops following me around. Goofy horse.

After chasing Axel around the paddock a few times, I put the surcingle on him and ground drove him around the pasture for a while. We did some basic big circles, some sort of lopsided figure eights, and then to avoid boredom we wove (weaved?) the trees. Then we did get some long lining for a few circles. We just stuck to the walk, I was without a carriage whip so getting a trot would have been a lot of work.

The farrier is due out this coming Thursday. And the chiropractor is supposed to call back on Monday to schedule an appointment for Cody and Axel. I think I'm going to keep doing the ground work with both horses until after their chiropractor visit. Cody needs the ground work for respect so maybe one day we can get him in the trailer happily. Axel needs to work on using his hind end and needs to build up a little more top line as he's lost quite a bit of muscle lately. We've increased both of their grain and it looks like it might be working, hard to tell with the fuzzy winter coats.

A Ground Work Lesson

Tricia was without a truck and trailer and by the time everyone got to the barn it was going to be dark pretty quick. Steph decided to not work Kiko or Kalani and just lend a hand with Cody and Axel. We decided it was time for more ground work (it's always time for more ground work but with only being out there once a week it's hard to squeeze it in). Tricia started with Cody since I deemed him the most difficult. I began with ground driving Axel with Steph coaching us. Axel did really well and moved out pretty good for once. We still have some issues with turning and not getting totally confused but we do pretty good. At the very least Axel will learn to move forward without me kicking the crap out of him all the time. We even attempted a little trot which probably looked a bit more like water skiing.

Steph took over with Axel and worked on long lining (like a combination of ground driving and lunging) at the trot. I went and worked with Cody and Tricia. Basically with Cody we're working on a few things:

1. Moving forward without questioning (respect)


2. Being content away from the herd


3. Letting us work with his nose (he's been rearing when we try to worm or do much of anything to his face)

Tricia already had Cody working pretty well on the lunge. She showed me how to get him to circle on command and then switch directions when I asked. He started to understand the direction change pretty well. The point is that he should nearly jump to the next direction when told to and not have to have the handler force him to move. When I'd ask him to stop I'd "reward" him by scratching his nose. In the end Cody had worked up quite the sweat so we put him in the barn with a cooler on while we finished up with Axel.

Axel was doing pretty good with the long lining but at this point it was really dark so it was hard to see what he was doing. Apparently he did really well to the right but we were watching the left side and that's his stiff side. After cooling out Cody (who did not want to calm down in the barn away from his buddies), we fed and all the usual stuff.

Still riding in the bean field

So last night we booked out to the barn to do some riding. It's getting dark faster and faster so we can't waste any time. Jeff came along to shoot some video instead of his bow this time. Tricia brought Oly over again. He's getting a whole lot of good practice trailering with and without a buddy and standing quietly waiting. He's a lucky horse. Cody needs that practice for sure. So eventually I'll have some more video to post. Hopefully good enough video that won't get eaten by YouTube. We worked on some circles and figure 8s. Axel has forgotten how to turn. He has a real issue when there's other horses around doing other things, he stops listening to me and chips in all the corners to try and get near the other horse. Or try and menace Oly by pinning his ears at him. But we probably have some video of Axel trotting a little, bending a little, pretending to frame up a little, and even cantering a little. He was feeling pretty cranky though, lots of little kicks and tossing his head. Probably several factors contributing to that; he might be sore from Sunday, he might be sore and need the chiropractor (someone buy my car so I can afford the chiro visit), he might be sore from trying to frame up for the first time in several months. He was pretty willing to canter, I wonder if he's finally figured out he isn't totally unbalanced or if it just hurts less to canter. I'm looking forward to seeing the video. Jeff also got some video of Kiko cantering and then bucking. Should be very entertaining.

When we got back we fed and de-wormed everyone. Cody is kind of a pill when it comes to de-worming, or doing anything that involves going at his face. I can never put anything like sun screen on his nose, he tries to rear up a little as he did last night. Not sure why that bothers him so much. So that all reminds me to update my horse records for all their shots and stuff. And it reminds me to stop rambling so much and make real posts!

The long awaited video from Jeff. I was just going to post some clips (which I may still do) but Jeff made us a little music video instead. Sorry it was really dark out now that Daylight Saving Time is over. And Axel isn't really the overgrown pony he looks like in this video.

Awesome Trail Ride

Lexi decided we needed to go on another trail ride before winter so Sunday we packed up with the intention of just going down the road to the MN Valley Trail for a nice easy ride. On my way up to the barn I passed the trail and noticed a big orange sign that said "Trail Closed." Tricia was already at the barn so we decided we'd figure out some other place to go. Our assumption was that the trail was closed because of hunting and perhaps other trails would also be closed. We could go up north to Crow Hassen or just stick around the area and go to Carver. We knew Carver was open so that was what we opted for. It turned out to be a really nice ride. There's only 9 miles of trails but they are wide, grassy, easy trails with plenty of hills and good stretches for cantering (or galloping as the case may be). It was a gorgeous day and we made the best of it knowing before long it'd be snowing and we'd be huddled in the round pen trying not to freeze while we worked.

Axel kept up a little better but he's still pretty slow. By the end of the trail ride we figured at the very lease that western saddle is not helping matters. He's lost enough weight that it's not fitting him well and it's resting on his withers, not good. Poor Axel is so stoic he just doesn't protest his pain. It wasn't long into the ride before we all settled into a mindset that we were there just to have some fun and let the horses enjoy themselves. We ran up most of the hills and had some runs on some nice flat wide areas. Lexi frequently cantered ahead with Cinder and then walked back to meet us since Axel was so slow. We did come to the conclusion that bicycle trails and horse trails should not go together. I think I'd prefer 4 wheeler trails and horse trails to the existing situation. Bikes are silent and scary. You don't hear them coming until they are right on you and by then the horse is midair having a coronary. Even Axel, the stablest of stable horses, had a nice spaz when a bike snuck up on us. I'm not sure if that's what woke us up or what but after that our next gallop was the fastest we had done all day. Which of course ended by Oly and Axel moving 3 feet to the left in mid air when a scary clump of grass appeared. I managed to stay on, thank goodness!

After we stopped for lunch we went back out for one more short loop with intentions to take some video of us cantering around. The video of Lexi and I isn't the greatest (okay none of the videos are the greatest), by the time we got to the camera Axel had given up on the canter. YouTube kind of compresses the heck out of these videos so the quality isn't so great either.

We made it back to the barn before dark for once. I had to coax everyone up from the pasture to be fed. Which apparently was their first supper as Tom fed when he got home too. Heh oh well, trying to get Axel and Cody to bulk up a bit anyways, they're getting kind of ribby. And I even oiled my saddle so it doesn't squeak as much. So I'm on a roll, I cleaned and oiled my bridles the other week as well.