Lesson & Koda

Soo.
I rode Teddy in my lesson. We did gridwork combined with some fun rollbacks!
Teddy turned into, "Teddy, the Barrel-Racing Wonder!" Hahaha. He was on fire! :) I love that. Whenever I ride Teddy, he absolutely comes alive. I don't want to brag or anything, but for the moment... of the people at SHRA right now... I think I've been Teddy's best rider. I don't know about previous riders that I've never seen ride him, of course, but yeahh.

And then I rode Koda.
Walk, trot, canter.
He got on his butt for a good two solid strides each direction in the canter. He was a lot calmer, too. And he's forward in the trot. And he's starting to be forward automatically at the walk. Yaaaay! :D I'm hoping we can start private lessons up again soon, and I'm hoping Kim will be impressed since he's been off for SO LONG. Ugghh.
But my baby's back now. ^_^ So I am happy.

SOUNDNESS! YAAAY!

Oookay.
So.

I've been riding school horses [Diesel, Jack, Rio - too cute!, Teddy, Ed, Barney, Truck] for the longest time now. And I still will, because Koda still has the bruise. However...

HE IS PERFECTLY SOUND IN THE INDOOR! Where there is about 6 inches of sand so its nice and soft... but he is STILL SOUND!

w00t!
whee!
oh, happy day. :)

Hahaha. I rode him Monday & Wednesday. MOM rode him Wednesday morning after I did. I know! hahaa. Just out of the blue, "Can I ride him after you're done?"
She walked around on her own, steering him and everything! And she even trotted. By herself. It was rather accidental the first time, but oh well. haha.
I told her we sould take a mother/daughter private lesson sometime, but she said no. I told her Vicky and Emily used to do it, but she still said no. :( Oh well. I think she rode yesterday because she wants to ride when we go to Hawaii. Something like that. Get a little experience, maybe. Dakota took care of her though. Dunno if the trail horsies - no matter how good they are at their job - will do as good of a job. *shrug*
We'll find out.

Less Swelling! + Mystery Project Horse

I GAVE KODA HIS PENICILLIN SHOT MYSELF THIS MORNING!
ITS A MIRACLE!
I just didn't think about it, and slammed it in there. haha. Okay, I didn't use as much force as that makes it sound. And I didn't even get a blood vessel! I nicked one on the way out [Kim always does] but I counted to 30 and he was still alive and standing, so I jumped for joy! =]

I also wrapped his leg again in towels that were soaked in epsom salt dissolved in warm water. They stayed on for an hour while I wrapped Barney's front right leg [it was tender last night with a small bump on the upper back part of the cannon bone], cleaned his stall, and refilled his buckets.

I'm going back later this afternoon [4-ish] to give him another shot and soak his leg one more time. When I left the wound itself had closed up some, and the heat and swelling were both down! Yessssh! =]



Oh, and today Kim is going to get a new off the track "project" for me. Kinda scared and excited at the same time...

Puncture Wound [WHY?!?!?!]

I turned Dakota out in the big arena Monday night so he wouldn't have to wear his crib collar. Tuesday morning, he was limping when I brought him in. Turns out, he has a puncture wound on his front right leg. Grrrreeeeaaaat. In Doug's words, "he just doesn't want me to ride him, does he?" Nope. Afraid not.

So, I've been hosing his leg for long periods of time to try and alleviate the MAJOR heat in his leg. Major, major heat. He also has lots of pus and whatnot in his leg, because when I press on it with my thumb and then take my thumb away... the thumbprint stays. Which means its serious.

Also, twice now [thanks to Doug's expertise] we've wrapped it in towels soaked in hot water mixed with Epsom Salt. That stuff works on everything! And we've given him one penicillin shot. Actually, Kim did. Tonight I'm going to have to suck it up and do it myself. *shudder* I've only ever given one shot, and that was giving Teddy his vaccines almost two years ago. But if the vaccines got in his bloodstream, I don't think they would kill him. Penicillin would KILL Dakota if it got into his bloodstream.... ACK! This is why Dad usually gives the shots. Plus, it takes considerably more force to give horses shots than it does to give humans or dogs shots.

Though, I've been riding Rio in lessons so I can jump. HE IS AWESOME! I was the first one to ever take him out back [AND jump] Saturday. Awesome. He was, and the experience was! =]
I was the first one to ever jump him in the stadium. He's a willing, BRAVE jumper. He only ran out on the tires, and I think that was just because we were following Rocky, who is evil. And hates the tires. Even when he launches over jumps, I can easily keep my balance. Awesome.


And now Kim says she has a "project horse" for me to work with while Koda is off. Again.
I was going to start jumping him Tuesday, which is when I found the puncture wound. Arrrgh.


Please, Lord, let something good come out of this!!!

3 Lessons - Many Rides!

Thursday - Private @ 2:00 with Kim.
Dakota in the indoor - w/t/c.
We're retraining him from the ground up, basically. FORWARD, FORWARD, FORWARD!

Friday - Private @ 2:30 with Kim.
Dakota in the big arena, ended in the indoor - w/t/c.
Same. But better.

Saturday - Group @ 10 with Kim.
RODE RIO! I was the first one to EVER ride him out back... ever. And he was pretty much perfect! He just needs some balance and bending and he'll be so totally awesome. So, obviously, w/t/c/j.
Then I rode Dakota in the indoor. w/t/c. Same as Thurs/Fri, but he was TOTALLY on his butt for at least THREE STRIDES at the canter in each direction instead of like... one stride.
Then I rode Rio again... in the indoor. w/t/c/j.

Last 3 Rides

Yesterday, I rode Dakota in a lesson!
w/t/c/j - we did gridwork! However, since its the first time I've jumped him, and I probably did it a few days too soon, we just did small crossrails. I stopped when Kim raised the X's or changed them to straights.

Monday, I rode Dakota in the new indoor for the second time!
w/t/c - BAREBACK!

Saturday, I lunged and rode Dakota in the new indoor for the first time! =]
Lunged: w/t/c
Rode: w/t/c
[He's been galloping around when he's turned out, so he's stayed in some semblance of shape.]

PTL - Good Vet Report!

PRAISE THE LORD!
Huge praise report. =]

Huge huge huge. Turns out... right when we got there [after the assistant guy ran Dakota up and down the driveway so Dr. White could watch how he went] the doc took some farrier's tongs [dunno the technical name for them. They're metal pliers with flat surfaces, and he pressed them on either side of Dakota's hoof] and found that my baby was sore in the HOOF! Although, he did say that the calcium deposit looked like it had been pretty bad before it healed over.

ANYWAY.. He took a thermograph, and saw that there was tons of heat in a certain spot at the bottom of the hoof. Which means there was more blood in there than there usually is. So, He took an x-ray of the calcium deposit as well [that was cool, you could see the bone and the calcium. Some of it was attached to the bone, where doc said it was prolly infected at some point, but then there was just floating calcium. pretty awesome. Sorry, sidetracked. ^_^] and saw there was no problem there. Then he took an x-ray of the bottom of the hoof and it was AWESOME again. haha. You could see little think lines going from the outside of the hoof to the inside. Doc said those were where blood vessels were. We saw the x-ray of a normal hoof, where the lines were about 1 cm wide. Then we looked back at Dakota's hoof, and his blood vessels were dilated to about 3 cm wide. So... BRUISING!

We got a formaldahyde/iodine hoof paint to put on the sole of his hoof for 6 days straight, then 3 x a week for a few weeks after that. We also got bute [painkiller in the form of a gel that you pretty much shove in their mouth using a syringe - fun, I know] to give him 2 grams daily for 6 days.