Seeing improvment?

On Sunday I gave Gwyn her first dose of Adequan and then it was just so bloody hot (and my Mom was here) that I didn't do much with Gwyn, but I felt better by telling myself that I was giving Gwyn some time off after her chiro adjustment and letting the adequan start its work.

Last night I went out to lunge. I've got the creeping crud but the weather has been SO NICE that I made myself go. It'll be hot again soon. As per usual, despite feeling like I could fall over and sleep once I was actually out and grooming and lunging I perked up quite a bit. I just grabbed my surcingle (need a new one) and my side reins (also falling apart) and switched out the sidepull for a baucher on my biothane bridle. 

Is that a more balanced canter I spy?!

Almost immediately I noticed a difference. Gwyn was offering the canter very willingly and was much steadier and more balanced than she's been. There was clear separation and push in her hind feet placement and no bunny hopping until she sassed me and got too rushed and off balance. I was so paranoid watching the quality of her gaits.

I also had two trot poles but I need to finesse the distance. They were set up and then my 5 year old decided that rearranging my arena was totally an activity she should do while I was otherwise occupied. Oh kids.

I didn't want to overwork her on the 20m circle so we did a little bit and then I took off the surcingle and side reins, reattached the regular reins and hopped on bareback to walk her and cool her out. I worked more on the lateral work, side pass, haunches in, shoulder in and she was great. I'm really loving how I can swing her body around right now. That dressage lesson was just wall breaking with whatever obstacle was in my head in how to achieve it.

"I smell your boot"

Good mare

 After riding I hosed her off and fly sprayed her just in time for Eric to come out with Hazel. He wanted to finish moving the hay out of the trailer so that's what we did (because the weather was super conducive to moving bales of hay)

"Okay tiny human, this is how to walk into the trailer"

So hard to see because the bushes and fence are in the way, but we caught sight of a Doe and two fawns! 

 Once all the hay was gone, Saffron slowly made her way into the trailer to snatch up the leftovers. The last time she was on this trailer was when I brought her home and I just sat and watched her. I really want her to be able to load calmly and have good associations with the trailer so this was excellent! The one thing I read that I feel is really important about donkeys is that they remember. They've got an iron trap of a mind and if you've got a repeat bad association you're pretty much screwed with them ever thinking otherwise about a situation.

I also didn't want to leave them alone with the fence open like this. They are escape artists, these two!

Have a silly video of Saffron hanging out with me and Saffron. 

A visit to the equine hospital

Napping poneh

So today was the lameness evaluation at Blue Water Equine Hospital. It's about a half hour away and has some nice facilities (though they need to replace their border fence....)  We started with some basic trot outs, then I lunged her so the vet could see the canter. Then she went through and did some flexion tests with more trot outs after each. After the last flexion though, the vet tech went to lunge Gwyn at a trot and the Goober reared her ugly head, ducked and yanked the lunge line and took off.  Her tail was flagged, and she basically said "Fuck all y'all, I am done being vetted in, it's time for the endurance ride"

The hospital staff took off after her in their vehicles while I felt helpless and a half mile away she finally deigned to be caught and then they walked back.

Zoomed out, the vet is walking her back.

Walking through the fallow field.

 Apparently they had perimeter fencing but it got blown down in one of our windstorms.

Pretending to be sweet.

 The vet saw mild lameness and it wasn't consistent with the right hind like trainer Alison had seen. Vet also saw some soreness up front but nothing that couldn't be explained by doing trot outs on gravel. She also said that her hooves were nice and solid (despite the chipping stuff).

Her feet are terrible. The farrier wanted to leave them longer this time and I don't think it was a good idea.

We moved on to x rays. They did her left front, left hock and right hock.

Are you ready for the results?

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Are you sure?





The damn mare has textbook perfect joints. No remodeling, no signs of arthritis. Her bones look beautiful, her joints have lovely spaces in them for synovial fluid. Nothing, nada. Zilch. Vet was laughing and said these are the best joints she's seen lately.

Vet recommended I give her some Adequan more as a preventative than a full on treatment. Then we did do a chiropractic session. Her SI joint was ALL out of sorts, which would also cause some of the issues we've been having. She's got a muscular butt but it seems her back and core need more work. Vet wants us to come back in 6 weeks for another chiro session but basically gave the go ahead to have me tell the trainer we can be pushed and that it's more behavioral and lack of proper muscling. I have been reading up on Sacroiliac Disease and I'm concerned that's more what we're looking at. Bonus, I don't need to buy any new BOT stuff because I have a rump rug I can use to target her SI already.

She also recommended front shoes as Gwyn's soles were not as thick as she'd like to see (based on xray). And was mildly intrigued/concerned that Gwyn has a yellowish tinge to her skin/mucous membranes. Now that she points it out I can see it but I think it's her normal.  There's a spot on her belly she wants me to keep an eye on, one that I've been slathering in swat but it might be a sarcoid and need to be removed.

So now I need to up my ground poles game and find a good place for walking hills. This might be a good excuse to go back to Ortonville Rec Area for some ambling trail rides! LOL. It's what the doctor ordered...

So anyway, that was a hit to the pocket book to find not much, but I'm glad I have baseline images so we can see if any changes do occur.

Also, let it be known that I tried to spoil my critters and let them eat down the ditch grass in our backyard which is hard to mow because it's a seasonal stream and instead they snubbed me and escaped and went for MORE gallivanting up to the neighbor's house and that was adrenaline pumping as I raced to get the ATV to retrieve them. They came back on their own. I have no idea where they escaped as my cobbled together fence was intact.

I suspect they went under. Damned animals. I wish I could completely fence off the property.

My Ghost is somewhat solved!

So the next day after I'd made the post about my barn ghost, Saffron escaped. I was in the bathroom and heard Gwyn whinny.

Sidebar:
One of the perks of having your animals on your own property is you get to know their habits and behaviors. You KNOW when something is out of the normal range. Gwyn whinnying only happened at ONE time, when she hears our sliding doors screeeeeech open at dinner time or if Saffron is not with her.

Saffron was not with her. I look outside from the bathroom window in time to see Saffron merrily trotting her way up the neighbor's driveway to go find some grass. I grab the baby, toss warm clothes on her and go grab my carrier so we can go catch a donkey, while Kaylee frantically tries to get her warm stuff on so she can come with me. Thankfully Eric got home as we were heading out of the house and I tossed him (not literally!) the baby and went running to grab a halter and leadrope from the barn as well as some treats for bribing.

Much musing was had. We set up the Nest Cam to face the barn, thinking we had an intruder, but now we were wondering, was there a spot where they could escape. I thought it was the gap by the water tank and stuck in a couple of poles to make it more difficult. I also turned the electric on the fence back on.

The next morning, we're getting ready to leave and the donkey is out AGAIN.  I rush to again get the kids ready to go outside so I can catch her and hope that it won't make me late for work.

That day, while at work, I get a text from the neighbor and from Eric, who is monitoring the nest cam from his phone.

Neighbor: Your donkey is in our yard.
Eric: I saw how she got out. Donkey has escaped. I'm going home to get her back in.

The neighbors I originally suspected of my windy day ghost texted me right away when something went awry, so I'm betting it was not them who caused the strange goings on. They helped get Saffron back in and that was right when Eric got home and she promptly went to her little spot to try and get out AGAIN.  He tossed some sticks in the way and put together a temporary lower fence line.

That super smart donkey found the ONE spot where the slope of the land made the lowest strand of electrobraid decently far up off the ground.  She walks up to it, gets on her knees and scootches underneath it. Her super thick winter coat probably shields her from the zap.

You can watch it for yourself:

Now, this still doesn't solve my 'who locked Saffron in' and 'how did Gwyn get out' conundrums, but it's a start. My working theory is one of our OTHER neighbors saw Saffron escaped, got her back in and locked her up (using the pine pellets as a grain lure not realizing they weren't grain).

Or Gwyn just fucking jumped because we have plenty of previous experience of her doing that because she can.

Gwyn says, "WHY DOES SHE GET TO BE OUT!?"

My original suspected escape route, later proven to be wrong.

Kaylee helps lure Saffron.

Have a cookie!

Actual escape point with anti-donkey additions

My ghost had to have undone BOTH of these carabiner clips and then latched the bottom stall door.

The ghost also unbuckled my macguyvered old kid stirrup leathers.

And if a horse was let out, they reclipped the gate.

Anti donkey measures. Gwyn is too wide for this space.

The door is broken and won't stay latched with even a slight breeze unless I do this. This was undone on ghost day.

Anti Donkey measures

The black t-post is a temporary one until we put more stakes on the current fence posts. That bottom line is what we added. The top three are original.