I Guess It's Summer

I missed the farrier appointment yesterday because of the holiday but B held the boys for me. Sounds like they acted decently enough. I made it out tonight to see them after a week away. Axel was in a decent mood so I groomed him and then we went for a walk down the road. Even after the trim Axel is still dragging on the front so we'll just have to keep working and see if it improves. We went about a half mile total. Near the end of the walk he started tripping a bit and slowing down. I thought maybe he had a rock in his hoof but I didn't find anything. Granted it was in the 90s and a billion percent humidity so perhaps all of that contributes. Anyway we'll keep going slow and steady and hope for the best. And he has a new lump which for now I am going to ignore and pretend it's nothing. It's probably nothing? Definitely nothing? It's on his front right pastern. Looks like there is usually a lump there but comparing photos, it looks bigger now. It's hard but doesn't seem to bother him. Darn horse.

So I brought sweaty Cody in from the pasture to groom him and get him fly sprayed. Doing anything more than that required too much sweating on my part. I did find a few of his itchy spots. If you know Cody you'll understand why this next part is so cool, I was able to clean his "bits and pieces" for the first time. He was hanging it out when I came back in the aisle with a baby wipe and he didn't yank it back in when I started to clean it. And he didn't kick at me. He might have actually been calm about it. We may not be riding a lot but we seem to be getting somewhere in our horse and owner relationship. I'm not sure if the farrier trimmed Cody's left front a little shorter than normal to get rid of the crack he has or what. It looked pretty short and the crack was nearly gone but he seemed pretty tender footed. We'll see how it shapes up in a few days when it's had a chance to grow a bit. Luckily it's too darned hot to even think about riding lately but there's always tomorrow.

Bugs?

I do not know what's up with Axel or Cody for that matter. Axel has the lumps on his face again only this time it's not behind his jaw or under his chin, it's just lumps on his cheeks. Which I don't see how that could be the swollen salivary gland diagnosis we had last time. It looks more like bug bites or bee stings. And judging from the fact that the last two times I've come back from the barn I've found a new itchy bite on my side. So I fly sprayed him, I just hope it stuck before it rained.

Cody had been hiding in the shelter when I arrived but walked over to the fence to visit with friends before I got out there to get him. So he could walk fine. But when I got up to him he was doing what I can only describe as "a potty dance." With his back end. You know the dance little kids do when they have to use the rest room? Cody had his back legs crossed and kept switching them back and forth like he was dancing. He kept stepping on his own feet in the process. I saw no bugs or cuts or anything and when he finally let me lead him to the barn he walked just fine. The best I can figure is that he was trying to scrape the mud off his back feet? Who knows. I cleaned him up and did a tiny bit of ground work in the arena and then hand walked him down the road. Conditions were not great, it was windy and threatening rain but we made it. We made it all the way to the culvert with no freak outs. He stopped twice but that was it. Cars even passed and he didn't use that as an excuse to run home. Granted I was on the ground and he behaves a lot better that way but it's a start. He got a lot of fruit ring treats and some grass when we got to the culvert. We walked much faster home but on a loose lead line and I didn't have to run to keep up. So I put that in the win category.

Of course good things always seem to be accompanied by bad, I just heard that Jeff's niece's other horse died this week. She lost her first horse a month or two ago and now her only other horse has apparently had a heart attack. So sad. RIP Silver and Buckeye.