Pie is Home, and a Great Ride on Drifter

First, the most important news - Pie is home at the new barn and seems to be settling in well.  After his two-hour trailer ride, he walked down to the barn, through the barn aisle - I doubt he's ever been inside a big barn before - through the indoor and into his paddock - he was snorty and nervous but very well behaved. Here's his sweet face:

And this photo shows how beautifully muscled up he's gotten with regular, good work - he's standing on an uphill slope here:

But the rest of the day was also very good - I was up at Heather's working with both boys.  We did a ground work session with Pie - he's got the basic ideas.  I had Heather work him first so I could watch what she did, and then I worked him.  She had me work on looking for soft moments when he was pulling to the outside so I could offer him some softness.  His right lead canter was really very nice - he struggled more on the left lead, starting out with cross canter and then having to correct with several large bucks - he was clearly frustrated by his inability to organize his legs.  We were able to get some decent left lead canter transitions by my waiting for his trot to be soft and then asking.

Then I rode Drifter.  We had a really wonderful work session.  He softened right up for me in halt and back after a few moments of resistance - much better than Wednesday. Heather had me work on getting him to give a big walk, then a bigger, even more animated walk, while offering softness, without throwing away my reins, if he stretched down but maintaining enough contact to catch him immediately and redirect him down if he inverted and went up.  The goal was to have such a big, engaged, soft walk that trot just flowed right out of it.  After several interrupted "hops" where he tried to throw his head up, invert his back and thrown himself into trot - this is a really engrained, habitual behavior with him - he did some really nice walk/trot transitions, followed immediately by a very forward, engaged, stretching down, big trot.  The trick was for me to interrupt the going up the instant it started to occur  - if possible when he was just thinging about it and hadn't done it yet. After a rest break, I got two beautiful transitions out of the huge walk into trot, and some amazing, really big trot.  Heather says his gaits are exceptional at both walk and trot (and canter is also pretty nice already - it tends to go with a good walk) - she said his free walk scores would have been very high.  His back and barrel swings, and he's learning that he doesn't have to cramp up in front and can stretch his top line.  The feel and quality of his gaits is amazing - he's starting to be everything I thought he could be.  He's beginning to figure out that there's a more comfortable, soft way to move, and is starting to give up on his habitual, braced behaviors - I couldn't be more delighted!

It was an exceptionally fine day with horses!

Banamine Makes Everything Better

Our vet/chiro made a special visit to Dawn this afternoon to check her out and do a blood draw for the EPM test, since she seemed to be getting worse - we should get results by early next week.  When I got to the barn, Dawn seemed a little mopey - not eating her hay, occasionally shaking her head - a sign of a possible headache - and when I walked her in the barn aisle she seemed a bit uneven.  I gave her her UlcerGard, and she did start picking at her hay, but she was being very deliberate about how she chewed.

When our vet/chiro got there, she did the basic neurological tests - tail pulls to the side, turning test, foot placement test and also poking her with a pen at points along her sides and then running the pen along her sides to test her spinal reflexes.  There were some abnormalities - her left hind is not working properly in both the foot placement tests and turning tests, and her walking isn't normal - she's usually a horse who puts her feet down quite sharply and her gait now looks like someone who's had a beer or two - much more tenative and not as regular.  She also tends to adopt a stance with her front feet a bit farther apart than normal and hind legs wherever they stopped moving, even in an awkward stance - Dawn is a horse who normally stands extremely squarely, so this was abnormal.

Dawn got a 500-lb. dose of Banamine as well as some levamisole by mouth, and started perking up and eating her hay very quickly - the Banamine clearly made her feel better.  When I checked on her at 9 p.m., she was bright-eyed and eating steadily and her chewing seemed improved.

We think it's quite likely she's got an active case of EPM, as 5 out of 7 horses at our old barn (including Pie and Drifter) have already developed abnormalities and been tested and treated.  The blood test will give us more information, and she'll be starting on the decoquinate/levamisole paste treatment followed by the decoquinate feed top dressing.  If she responds as well as Pie and Drifter did, we should be OK . . .

And, in other news, tomorrow I'll be going up to visit and work with Pie and Drifter - and then I get to bring Pie home - very exciting!

The Boys Make Great Strides

I was up in Wisconsin riding both boys today.  We were outside in the big, open arena - it was chilly and quite windy but the sun was nice. Both horses are making great progress.  Pie is easier - he's learning many new things and taking them all on board, pretty much without a problem.  The key with him was unlocking his body - he's no longer stiff and short-strided and inverted, but can carry himself softly, engaging his core and relaxing his top line.  He's not the same horse at all - he even looks different just standing there, and when he's moving the difference is remarkable.  His gaits are now foward and fluid, and both his walk and trot are beginning to show the beginnings of true engagement and lift.

We had an excellent work session today.  My focus was on getting exactly the quality of gait I wanted from the first moment, and on him maintaining consistent softness at walk and trot, including through transitions and changes of pace within gaits.  We also did some nice canter work, with my beginning to ask him to soften, and on the right lead - which seems to be his easiest one - he was actually volunteering softness when I was barely asking.  Tomorrow, Heather will take him on a little trail ride, and then she'll work with me on his groundwork on Friday, and then I'll load him up and he'll be coming home.

Drifter is also progressing very well, although with him making changes is more of a challenge as he has lots of old habits and has to learn to let go of old, engrained ways as well as taking on new ways of acting and moving.  So with him, it's often a case of two steps forward and one step back.  He's still experimenting - he says, is this old way I used to act/carry myself better, or is the new way better?  And one very interesting thing - as we peel layers away, and he learns new ways of going, the old behaviors/patterns recur again as breakthroughs occur - as he finds a new way of moving, he has to go back and test out the old behaviors again.  Heather says that this is likely to continue to occur until the point when he just gives up on the old ways - we're close but not there yet.  My job is to be extremely consistent with him so that he can rely on my consistency and leadership and relax into that.  I was to think of upwards transitions as forward rather than up, and downwards transitions as having an element of up as well as forward so he'd use himself correctly.

Drifter's a great example of why riding a horse from front to back is such a bad idea.  His baseline tendency is to overflex, while not using his body properly at all - he looks good but it's not the real deal at all - and he then tends to push upwards with his head and neck and brace on your hands whenever you ask him for an effort - hence the "hop" on the walk/trot transition - he's throwing his body at the transition as there's no other way to get it done if he's carrying himself wrong.  Heather agrees with me that he was likely ridden in a tight tie-down (hence the bracing upwards) - the white hairs on the bridge of his nose are clues as well - and likely in a strong bit and possibly also with drawreins - they sure got the headset but not much else.  Also, she believes he may have been strongly pressured to perform as a young horse without a proper foundation being established and when he wasn't mentally mature - we think he may have been a competitive barrel horse - and the likelihood that this sort of pressure may happen again still worries him, although he's starting to let go of that worry.

He came out pretty braced, and we worked through that in the halt, back and walk - once it was gone, it was gone.  This was him reverting to some old behaviors after beginning to make a big change in his way of going as a result of getting his breathing sorted out, and his body more connected from front to back. Today we worked on him stretching down, instead of cramping his head and neck up, and using his whole body from nose to tail softly in a connected way.  He was really starting to do this - the quality of his gaits was noticeably improved and he's beginning to let go in his top line and engage his core.  We did have some "hops" on attempted walk/trot transitions, but I was able to interrupt them immediately and wait for him to feel right (just on the verge of softly offering what I wanted) before I asked, and we got some excellent transitions without the hop.  And his downwards transitions were much more fluid and forward - now that he's beginning to use his whole body, he can lift himself from behind.

And Drifter seems to be calming down a bit and is also less reactive around other horses.  Heather was riding one of her mares while I was working him, and he worked well in close proximity to her - he nickered at her once but was otherwise able to concentrate.  He also nickered quite sweetly to Pie when I returned Pie to the adjacent paddock.  Heather thinks the chaste tree berry is beginning to have an effect.

Another great day with the boys!

And a Drifter Update . . .

Just got a phone call from Heather - when she worked with Drifter today, his whole demeanor was different - more relaxed and "with" her.  Canter work on the lunge also went very well - he seems more relaxed and the breathing was there almost immediately.  I can't wait to see him tomorrow and to see how both the boys are doing!

Oppressed by Opossums (?!!)

Some of you may remember Pie's and Drifter's experiences with the infection that causes EPM in horses - take a look at the EPM page for all the details.  Both boys were diagnosed with the disease through a new blood test, after developing gait abnormalities and, in Pie's case, recurrent colic, and both completed treatment (a new treatment that's in clinical trials) and have made complete recoveries.  Since 4 horses at the old barn (out of 7) had symptoms and tested positive, the other horses were tested as a precaution.  At that time Dawn did not show a clinically significant antibody response to any of the three strains of the organism that causes EPM, and her response on all the neurological tests was completely normal.

Now, what about opossums?  They're a marsupial - one of the few in the Americas - that is very common in my part of the world - they eat a wide variety of foods and are also efficient scavengers.  The problem with opossums is that they're an intermediate host for the organism that causes EPM in horses.  If, as they move around the landscape, their urine or feces contaminates water, hay or grass, it's a source of infection for horses.  Here's one of the critters - they're not the most attractive animals, but perhaps my judgment is colored by their role in causing EPM:

In the past, diagnosis of EPM in horses often only occurred when symptoms were dramatic - horses falling down or walking as if drunk.  The tests for EPM that were used weren't that accurate, which also made diagnosis difficult - there are several other diseases/conditions that can produce symptoms like this.  Treatment was also often ineffective. With the new test, it's now possible to diagnose EPM at very early stages of infection, where treatment can be started before more serious neurological damage occurs, or when EPM can be ruled out as a cause, and the new treatment that's in clinical trials seems to be very effective - at least that's my experience.

Dawn's been feeling a bit odd to me under saddle for a week or so.  She's seemed heavy on the forehand and has been having trouble softening.  Her gaits, which are normally fairly engaged and springy, have felt flat and dull - she's still plenty forward but the sense of power and lift is missing.  Occasionally, she take a funny step - not tripping, but like when you put your foot down and the ground isn't as level as you thought and your foot shifts. And, the last time I put her on the lunge a few days ago, she showed me that cantering on the right lead wasn't something she was happy about, by kicking out - it wasn't a buck, it was a protest, which is very unusual for her - I suspected some sort of issue with the left hind leg.  And she's been shaking her head a lot after our rides, and doing a lot of yawning.  Her stance when standing on the cross ties has seemed a bit odd - front feet farther apart than normal - and she's been very slow to give me her feet for picking - normally she lifts them in turn as I walk around without my asking.  It's like her legs are glued to the ground, and when I pick the left hind and let it go, it just falls to the ground.

Now some or all of that could be due to other things - I've had the chiropractor out, the dentist is coming Monday and the farrier is due.  But a number of these things are similar to things that happened with the boys, which made me suspicious. So yesterday, I decided to do some simple neurological tests to see what I saw - I'm not a vet but did these the best I could.  And today I took some pictures as well.  Now, remember that when Dawn has done these tests in the past, her responses were completely normal.

If you take a horse's front leg, and pull it out to the side, a normal horse will resist and will pull it back to the normal position very quickly.  Not Dawn - she just stood there with her front leg splayed to the side, and gradually shifted her weight so she was standing with her front legs well apart.  Same thing with the other front leg.  Here's a couple of pictures to show you what I mean:

With the hind legs, I did the test where you pick up the leg and place the foot behind the other hind leg - a normal horse will generally resist putting the foot in that position or at the least will lift the foot immediately and put it back where it goes.  With the left hind (remember that problem with right lead canter), she was perfectly fine with leaving her hind legs crossed and made no effort to move the foot.  The right hind was a bit better - she did allow me to place it in the odd position, but slowly moved it back to the normal position.  Here's the left hind in the odd position:

This one is particularly interesting - you can see her off-center hind legs through through the front legs, with both hind legs offset to the left (sorry for the horizontal stripe - Blogger seems to be doing this lately)  -  also note the somewhat splayed front legs - this is not normal for her:

Then we did the turning test - I couldn't get photos of this since I was turning her.  She had obvious difficultly turning in a small circle, in both directions, and did not normally cross the inside hind in front of the outside hind with each step - her steps and foot placement were irregular and she was slightly dragging the left hind.  When I backed her in hand, she was lifting and placing the right hind toe first, which is normal, but dragged the left hind.  I didn't bother with the tail pull to the side test.

Uh oh - all of this is abnormal . . .  Our vet/chiro is coming with the dentist on Monday to do the sedation for the dental work, so she's going to draw blood so we can have another peptide antigen test for the EPM organism done by Dr. Ellison.  I'll be interested to see what the results are, but the good news is that, if it is early-stage EPM, the treatment that's in clinical trials seems to work very well for most horses.  It's quite likely that Dawn did have the EPM organism in her system at the time of our move to the new barn, since she used the same water sources and hay and grass as the other horses, but did not have an active infection - some horses never get infected even when exposed - and that the stress of the move, and the effect of stress on her immune system due to that and also possibly due to her recent vaccinations, allowed an active infection to develop.

I'll keep riding Dawn so long as she doesn't feel unsteady, but will only ask her for long and low or relaxed contact, will avoid sharp turns and won't do much if any cantering, particularly to the right.

Darn those opossums!

The Beginnings of the Breakthrough with Drifter?

Some of you may remember the post I did a while ago about how Pie had a major breakthrough when Heather got his breathing going again at the canter - here's the post.  Last time I was up, Heather and I were discussing Drifter's reluctance to "let go" - he's having difficulty connecting his body from the front to the back and mentally he's not really softening even when he's compliant.  I wondered if he were really breathing - failure to breathe correctly - it's easiest to detect and fix at the canter - as that is often a sign of a horse that's tight and "closed". I got a very interesting message from Heather this evening - she worked with him on the line today - she usually does just ground work with each horse once a week - I'm quoting from her e-mail and don't think she'll mind:

Checked in on Drifters breathing today. I had done this with him shortly after he got here, and he was breathing really well. But since we are "pealing the onion" with him, I wanted to check again now that we have gotten down a few layers. Interestingly enough, he was holding his breath today. I could hear it at the trot even before I asked him to canter. When I first asked him to canter on the line, he was so uptight he couldn't canter right. He was crossfiring and counter cantering, breaking down into the trot...I just kept asking him for canter again every time he lost it. Whether he was crossfiring, counter cantering, or cantering correctly, I only wanted canter, and didn't put any pressure on him as long as he did so. After about 10 minutes of this, his breathing started to come through, and by 15 minutes he was breathing with the normal, quick and steady rythm. Once he was breathing, he automatically corrected and softened his canter. Correct leads, and nice even stride. Once he was breathing well one direction, we went the other way...it only took about 5 minutes in the second direction, but we went through almost the identical process. He was pretty stuck...he looked different afterwards...almost more "open", and much softer. I am so glad that I checked in on this with him again...my hope is that this will help us break down some of those internal/mental walls he has up. I will check in on this again before I ride him tomorrow.

I think when we weren't initially asking him for much, he was able to (perhaps) conceal how he was doing and feeling, but as we've asked more, the inability to "let go" and be soft in mind and body has been holding him back - hence the issue with canter on the line today.

I think this may be the beginning of the breakthrough we've been looking for with him . . . I'm very fortunate to have a trainer as skilled as Heather to work with him and get him past this to a much better place.  I can't wait to get up there on Wednesday to see how he's doing!

Pie and Drifter Go on an Outing

Heather took Pie and Drifter on an outing yesterday, and I got a full report last evening.  She had planned to do this with them as part of their exposure to new things and circumstances.  Drifter will be doing more of this after Pie comes home this week.

The report was very good - they both did very well.  Both boys loaded well into her two-horse straight-load trailer (she's done no loading work with them, but Drifter's trailer-loading issues seem to be falling away just as we suspected they might) and rode well next to one another.  Her friend's place was about 10 minutes away. Each horse was able to stand quietly in the trailer while the other was loaded/unloaded.  Each boy hung out in the round pen while she worked with the other one.  She rode them in the outdoor, and there was a lot of stuff going on while she was working with them - multiple horses being ridden and a new horse that was running and bucking in his paddock.  And at one point at the end of her ride on Pie and beginning of her ride on Drifter, a small pony was being ridden - neither boy was quite sure what to think of the pony at first - I've seen this in horses that haven't seen ponies, or sometimes loud-colored horses like pintos or Appaloosas, before - but both ignored the pony pretty quickly.

Pie was groomed and tacked tied to the trailer, and although he was a little nervous, he stood pretty well.  She hand walked him around the arena for a few minutes and did some simple ground work.  He was attentive to her within a few minutes and she had a very good ride on him.  He noticed everything, including the running, bucking horse, but kept his main focus on her.

Drifter was pretty quiet while waiting in the round pen, but was playful for a few minutes while the other horse was running and bucking.  She groomed and saddled Drifter ground-tied outside the arena and he stood pretty well, needing only a few reminders.  She also hand-walked him around the arena and did a few minutes of lungeing before getting on.  He came around really well, and her ride was also very good.  He would occasionally get distracted by horses coming and going, but could come back to her quickly.  His transitions were mostly smooth with only one or two "hops" into trot.

Both boys loaded well into the trailer for their ride back to Heather's.  I'd call that a pretty good report!