Writing this on my phone because I’m not up to using my computer yet but I figured I’d post an update.
Nay Nay has finished his medication and appears to be doing OK. Or so I assume. I haven’t really seen him in days. He got his feet done on Wednesday and was back to his old self for that so all is well on the Nay front, for now.
Jiminy potentially re-foundered on his front left which is his GOOD hoof. Having said that, he’s feeling good, super sound, and back to his ornery self. I guess he was feeling left out during Nay Nay’s medical debacle?
Which brings me to the point of this post.
Thursday night I was diagnosed with a (huge) DVT in my right leg. I had one symptom: pain. After talking with my PCP, it appears I am very lucky they even checked as I displayed no symptoms beyond pain.
Anyway, the pain has been bad (I pretty much couldn’t walk for several days), my mental state/anxiety has been bad, but it is what it is.
I need some testing to determine if I’m a 3 month blood thinner person or a lifer. My horse time will definitely depend on the answer—if I’m off in 3 month, I’ll likely just let Nay sit for a few months longer (once I can walk), but life? As my PCP said, you need to live your life—as safely as possible.
Anyway, just an update. Super down in the dumps but I’m sure I’ll get better. Today’s just rough.
For reasons, Nay’s been off since the holidays. I was lacking motivation because it’s been winter and I’m without an indoor this winter (I probably don’t have to be, but I choose to be). And I just haven’t felt like riding. So yeah. I decided to just give Nay some time off.
All was going well. The boys were a little weird about hay this year (I’m not sure if it was them or the hay but they did this to a few different types of hay including some really nice $$$ hay). Anyway, otherwise, all was good. Then about a month ago, Nay Nay started to act…off. When I’d bring him in at night, if he was at the “wrong” gate, he’d basically meltdown. If we grabbed the breakfast buckets before bringing him in? Meltdown. Do something he didn’t like? Meltdown. I chalked it up to winter plus potentially ulcers, but Nay Nay generally goes off his feed when he is ulcerly and he was cleaning his bucket completely… And nothing changes with some meds. I tossed scoping in the back of my mind, but this didn’t feel like ulcers..
As the days went on, the meltdowns got worse. Basically, you’d take him out and he’d rear, buck, and then spin around you. He wasn’t trying to get loose, he was just melting down. Or he’d be very spooky. Things got a bit better with clicker training, but didn’t go away. At the other gate (the “right gate”), things were better until they weren’t. We started either spooking out or walking out then bolting or rearing in slow motion. It was really odd. Getting ready to go on vacation, this had me super concerned.
I decided to work him the other weekend (just ground work) and he was fine. Not entirely sound, but fine. Not spooky, pretty OK, but fine enough. Except he couldn’t bend his neck. Either direction. He almost fell over trying to do carrot stretches.
That evening he walked out of the gate quiet, walked to his stall, then bolted out and galloped to find Jiminy. He didn’t go anywhere because it’s Nay Nay (he saw my neighbor’s construction equipment and decided to stop and graze on our property instead) — meanwhile Jiminy, my husband, AND my neighbor went running to catch him while I came around with the halter I just pulled off (Typically you can let go of Nay in the barn and he go into the stall himself — he’s done this for 4 years).
Anyway, on Tuesday the vet came out (on call vs my normal vet since that’s who I could get out last week). Reading Stacie’s blog, EPM was in lurking. Vet mentioned it, but his neuro exam wasn’t bad. He was having muscle tremors which was super weird and the vet (he did our vaccines this summer, or at least Jiminy’s vaccines and Nay’s rabies since I did the rest lol) said he was way more tense/stressed than this summer. Vet did NOT like how his neck looked so we started banamine and vitamin E. Vet left thinking Lyme. And we discussed neck x-rays if all else was normal.
In the end, my normal vet called me Friday. Nay tested positive for Lyme…AND EPM. Or suspected EPM since we don’t actually know, but his titer was sky high and indicated EPM. So yeah. We’re treating for both.
Pill pockets — a spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down.
Right now he’s on minocycline for Lyme and Marquis for EPM. It’s fun. And I’m freaking broke. 3 days later and he seems more comfortable and calmer so there is that. But, he’s off his feed because of course he is…
Oatmeal cream pies for the win though because we’re stuffing his minicycline in pies (with a peppermint center) and he’s happily eating them all up. The marquis is less enjoyable as it’s a paste, but he’s a good boy and takes it.
On Friday, Nay Nay and I took our second trip out to Fair Hill. I found last time that if I head out in the late morning, there are a lot of trailers (at least over at Gallaher Rd), but after 1pm? It’s dead quiet. So we went over after 1pm and were the only trailer. Perfect. He needs to learn to adjust to other horses, but we don’t need to do everything in one day.
We hauled over with our saddle on. Not necessarily because I was going to hop on. But, just in case. I wanted to lunge in tack to add that to our repertoire. And see if we were over the whole trying to roll while lunging. We’ll see. Results are positive.
Fair Hill! Empty Parking Lot
We got off the trailer and without other horses, Nay was significantly more relaxed. We took our time gathering our equipment (no bridle yet) and took a walk up to the ring. He was good. We ran into a cyclist who was VERY nice to ask if he could ride by and once Nay got a good look, he was fine.
Lunging was both better and worse. He was amped so I just went with it. If he wanted to move, move we were going to do. We started to the right and I just let him canter. And canter. And canter. And when he wanted to trot, we cantered a little more. And did a little more to the left. At the canter and the trot. Nay has struggled a lot at the canter so it was nice to have a nice surface just to actually canter. Maybe next time I’ll bring out my longer line and really work on letting him stretch. But this day just cantering was what he needed. Since we cantered a lot, I didn’t want to drill anything else too much so we did some walk-trot-halt transitions and decided we were good.
Sitting on my horse. Mission: Success.
And then I decided what the hell. Let’s see if I can get on this monster. He was quiet. Worst case? I’ll die.
I left a rope halter on under his bridle with an extra lead rope just in case and quickly schooled the mounting block. He had tensed up a bit, but didn’t lose his mind. More cars (no trailers, but cars with bike racks) showed up at this point so I just through caution to the wind and hoped on and stuffed a peppermint in his mouth. At that point, I achieved success.
My goal was to see what I could do. If it was walk to the ring and back? Great. If he panicked? We’d stop and school. But we just walked and stopped. Walked and stopped. He was super tense at first (his neck was very hard), but rather than being fast he was slow. So we just took everything in. The rocky ground kind of helped because I tried to keep him on the gravel so he stayed slow (lol) but eventually he moved himself to the grass. Whenever we stopped, we clicked, treated, and got some rubs, and he started to relax. Once we made it towards the ring, he started to stretch out and the reins got longer and looser.
Eventually we made it past all the arenas and took a look at the woods. He seemed to really like the crunchy leaves (why? No idea), but less the squirrels playing in the woods across from us. Once we turned around and wandered in the small field next to the ring we’ve lunged in and explored the area where the 2 horses jumped out of the woods last week. He very much enjoyed the journey around that area and wandering around the outside of the field.
Then I tossed all caution to the wind and decided why not walk through a tunnel. I mean, it’s scary, echoes, and looks terrifying. If I’m going to die, this will be the death of me.
And Nay just walked through the damn thing. WTF? No cares at all.
We didn’t wander too much on the other side. His timer was starting to go off and I didn’t want to get lost. So we just went back through, walked to the area we explored last week (he really started to say I’m DONE! My dollar is up!), but he was good anyway. And then headed back to the trailer and called it a day.
Did we ride long? No. But we were out at Fair Hill for almost 2 hours in total. And for the first ride? Perfect. Way more than I could have ever expected. Best boy ever.
Following the Fair Hill Adventures (hoping to rinse/repeat this week), I rode at home on Saturday. I debated on and off riding as it was super wet out. In the end, I wanted to take advantage of a tired horse from Friday (haha) and figured I could just walk.
Nay was actually great. Other than some carrot stretches, we didn’t actually do any ground work. I just hopped on and off we went. He was good and the ground was actually drier than I expected. We walked and worked on some different things for a while.
And then I decided to trot.
And all hell broke loose.
Sort of.
Kind of.
So lucky he’s cute. Seriously.
Right away the groaning and grunting and tantrums started. Because why not?
Did he do anything? Yes and no. He hopped around a little bit and all that got was more trotting (once we halted and backed up). So we trotted. And trotted. And trotted. And trotted. And ran into a tree. And trotted. And trotted.
He was significantly better whenever we trotted over poles because he had to concentrate to go over the poles, but honestly? I’m 95% sure he was attempting 2 things. 1. Attempting to show his displeasure over being asked to work and 2. Trying to scare me to get out of work. I’m 99% sure he was not trying to unseat me because if he wanted to unseat me, he could have actually put effort into getting me off. He didn’t. But, I suspect it was a scare tactic effort of hopping around in hopes he could stand and do nothing.
To the right? Again, same crap. But, the right is less easy for both of us. Same tactics, less smooth. I obviously need to work to the right. Instead of bend, I feel like we’re making right turns. So progress is needed. Poles again are super helpful. So, it’s a work in progress but much progress is needed.
Hopefully one of these days we’ll get to trot on a flat surface. That would be super nice.
We’ve been chugging along here, but I haven’t had anything interesting to post. So I haven’t. That said, we’ve finally had some adventures so back to blogging.
I’m determined to learn to trail ride. Nay Nay has big (very big) shoes to fill. Batt was the world’s best trail horse. And while I don’t think Nay Nay will ever fill those boots, he can at least aim to fit the role of “safe trail horse” or “fun and safe trail horse” or “we can go on a trail and have fun and go back to the trailer and not die trail horse,” right? Or at least that’s the goal.
But Nay Nay has opinions and I’m determined to work up to trail riding. I’m not taking him out, getting on, and expecting it all to go well. But I want to go work my way up to that so I can achieve success.
Where the eff am i?
On Friday, I headed out to Fair Hill in the morning and bought my annual pass. First level of committing to I WILL LEARN TO TRAIL RIDE DAMNIT! And then hitched up my trailer, loaded up Nay Nay, and headed over to the park.
My goal? Get there, look around, and come home in one piece.
And while I had grandiose visions of riding, realistically, that was never in the cards.
Such high head carriage.
We got there, parked, and Nay was fine until I opened the escape door at the exact moment that a pair of riders headed towards our trailer. Nay saw them and broke the trailer tie… but thankfully he walked out of the trailer like a gentleman. For all the crap he pulls, he respects the step up of my trailer and walks out slowly and respectfully. His eyes were popping out once off the trailer, but his feet were firmly on the ground. And despite the anxiety, he registered the clicker click.
After a moment of breathing, I grabbed my gloves (next time, gloves first, then horse), grabbed my whip, and off we went. We grazed for a while and then took up residence in the dressage warmup ring.
Posing random places
Goal there? Move our feet. We ended up lunging the entire way around the ring. I wish I could have recorded it. He looked fantastic. But we lunged at the trot, moving around as we went. Nay was definitely looky and very concerned about walkers and bicycles. LOL. But we did keep moving. I also forced him to lunge through a big puddle.
After we lunged to the left, I took him to the center to work on some other stuff when we almost died. Yes, death.
Old cross country jumps
You see, we were in the center of the arena when 2 horses exploded out of the wood breathing fire (um, walked out of the wood and stood still). Nay basically started rearing and spinning when he saw them. I yelled my apologies to these ladies who thought I was insane with my crazy horse who I struggled to get under control… Eventually I did and they moved on.
We did lunge to the right, again around the arena, but it was less pretty (we also struggle to the right so we need to work that way). But, we got it done. After we worked on backing and regaining focus.
Still looking but much happier
While we were backing I caught 2 horses walking towards us from the other direction. Not wanted to have another incident or destroy the ring again (I had just managed to stomp all of our foot prints/rear marks), I walked out of the ring and let Nay graze. Unlike the first pair, this pair called out hello to us and started chatting as they approached. Nay looked up, saw them, heard their voices, and let out a deep breath, and started grazing again. They stopped near us, chatted for 5+ minutes, and all was good. I think the calling out was biggest difference. It makes all the difference at home when my husband approaches and calls out. After they left, Nay wanted to follow, but he was happy enough to walk the other direction.
We ended up going on a 15-20 minute walk and explored the park. We chatted with a couple and their dogs and grazed as needed. We did some backs and halts when we needed to engage the brain and made good use of the clicker (carrots were a no, but nilla wafers were a yes). In the end, we headed back to the trailer and he was 1000% more confident than when we first headed out.
After who knows how long, I actually rode my horse on Sunday. And Monday.
What is this witchcraft?
Sunday started off with lots and lots of neighbor noises. Chainsaws and leaf blowers and other “fun” sounds. But clickers and cookies and groundwork and Nay quickly focused in on work. Anyway, I tacked him up before groundwork, thinking that if he was quiet, I’d get on, and if not, no worries.
And he was good! I’ve ben working on lunging to the right. The right in general has been a struggle. He isn’t bad. But he falls in. So, lately I’ve just been pushing him out on our circle. Nothing crazy, just respecting space while also forcing him to use muscles he doesn’t want to use. Each time, it gets better. (we’re sort of/kind of lunging but also not? Not working on a huge circle or worrying about speed, just following commands).
Anyway, I got on. Which earned someone a click and cookie. And walked. And explored. He was VERY good. It appears Nay really likes walking over logs. A lot.
I also trotted. I short half loop in each direction. It went fine. Nothing exciting, but fine. Regardless, he was the best boy ever.
I had some time on Monday so we headed out to repeat our exercises.
A brief lunge. Exercises over our 4 poles (spaced out like a clock) at the walk and trot both ways — he’s getting so much better! And ignoring the neighbors and their weird music and whistling. Following all this? I got on. It went well. Again. Easy walking and exploring and weed eating. We walked our logs and explored and listened to Jiminy call when we left his view. And then. Then. THEN. We trotted.
Spicy.
I mean, not at first. We trotted. At little in and on the edge of control but it was fine. And then someone stupidly trotted a log. You see, Nay was hyper focused on his log. Like stupid hyper focused. So I agreed. We had a slow and in control trot at that point so why not? You know why not? Because the entire wooded area is not flat. So we trotted and got super enthusiastic. There was squealing. And head tossing. But it was fine. So we trotted to the right. The right was quieter. Except we trotted the top area. And there was another log (I completely forgot about this log), but this log is smaller so I figured we’d be fine.
It was a log you could post over, but someone decided he needed to jump over it and try to buck on the landing. Going slightly downhill because that’s what you do. Right? So we got regrouped without walking and continued trotting without breaking to the walk. And it was fine. And being stupid, after a while, we reattempted the bigger log a few times, landing, halting, backing. So after a few spicy logs with a spicy, happy horse (JUMP — an 18 inch log at that), I figured I’d trot a circle and call it a day.
HAHAHAHAHA.
Nope.
SAY SPICY SPICY came out.
You see, trotting isn’t fun. Backing isn’t fun, and not jumping isn’t fun. But what’s especially not fun? Being told what to do.
Someone got angry spicy.
Yep.
He started grunting and swinging his head and squealing (we had to spin a few times). Then, I yelled “grrrr” back at him ever time he did anything and we trotted for 15 minutes until we looked like a horse instead of a spicy rolling meatball. I’m not sure it was ever pretty or perfect, but it was better than the ugliness he tried to roll out. He did try to toss out his best “I’m trying to scare you” tricks, but instead got my “grrrrrrr trot spicy meatball” response. He was thoroughly confused.
FYI, at no point did I growl. I literally just said “grrrr.” It seemed to work.
(yes, the log was a bad idea, but it uncovered the holes that needed to be uncovered, plus he was entirely too happy about it).
Today happens to mark 4 years since we lost Batt in the most traumatic of ways. I knew we were were approaching the date, but for whatever reason, it caught me completely off guard this morning. I still miss that boy so much. Life was so different back in the Batt days. Easier and harder? It’s hard to explain. Batt days had Subi and Subi, especially in recent years, wasn’t easy. Batt was. Nay, for all his issues (and he has issues) is very, very easy day in and day out. He wants food and his stall and a specific diet and that’s pretty much it.
But, it doesn’t do anyone any good to compare. That said, when we first moved home, I did most of my riding back in my woodlot. The sellers did a decent job cleaning a path/track so I could trot a loop, canter long sides (occasionally canter around if I was brave/the footing was decent/the trees weren’t too overgrown), and pop over some cross rails and poles. Overtime, it got harder to ride back there. Trees fell, scrubs grew, and I just got…bored. Subi was fine (and Batt was Batt), but it was…less fun. I wanted more space. So I found other places. I hauled out and expanded my riding.
Fast forward to now. Nay is coming off more or less… 4 months off. We’re still on steroids but he’s down 100mg (I’m doing this slowly and it’s working to control the ‘roid rage) and we have to start somewhere. I don’t really want to go back to my old program for reason (I can’t really explain it) and as a result, I feel odd just showing up and borrowing the facilities for free. I can haul out to the neighboring state park and use their arenas for parking, but I feel like my horse needs to be in some work before I do that?
Enter: the woodlot.
The woodlot a few weeks ago…
My husband and I are tirelessly working to make it useable. Actually, we’re working to make it better than before. We’re cutting trees, scrubs, weed whacking, dragging (scheduled), cutting branches), etc.
Same view of the woodlot after some work…
It’s not flat, the footing isn’t arena footing, but then again, if you ride in a paddock/pasture, that’s not arena footing either.
Earlier trip, exploring.
I haven’t sat on Nay yet. It’s OK. We’re click-treating so far. First time out he was terrified. But the clicker helped. He actually slipped on a rocked while I asked him to move his feet to walked over some poles and fell. Got up and tried to be stupid and fell on his butt again. After that? He was much better.
Second trip in? 100% more relaxed for 80% of our trip. We circled our poles, click-treated, backed, trotted in hand, etc. Then got over stimulated and stressed.
Third trip? Things were even more cleared out and Nay was even more relaxed. We “sort of” lunged (I had a lunge whip but not a full length line) at the walk/trot. Nay worked on understanding the ground (it’s not perfect and there are still ferns and brush) but did great to the left. The right was hard. Cantering (him, not me asking) to the right was a… choice but forward was the preferred option. I click-treated the right answer and eventually he understood the assignment. It was just… hard. Life is hard when you are completely out of shape.
Handsome boy after 5 whole minutes of trotting (non continuous)
We also trotted out circle of pole (pole at 3-6-9-12) when we’ve just been walking them to the left. Super hard, but he did it. To the right? Today walking them was a struggle (especially when there was something to watch in the distance). So I rewarding the forward (today forward=walk to the right)) and called it a day after that. Nay was tired and a touch sweaty. It appears clipping might be in his future after all.
Anyway, I’m hoping to do a little bit in hand ever day I’m home over lunch. It doesn’t need to be much, just something. If he stays this quiet? Maybe I’ll get on his back soon too. Just walking now. But walking is better than nothing. Slow. Steady. Progress.
Today was the first day that showed no stress. So I’m hoping we can build from there.
Why blog when you have nothing to say? Yep. What’s going on in these parts of the woods? Nadda.
Got to delivery shavings to Daytona Beach 8
When I last left off, Nay Nay was on steroids and high on life. Then it was time to come off and his world came crashing down. Very, very down. You see, after 2.5 months, getting off steroids is hard. I struggle after 10 days. And he was on capsules versus tablets so tapering was even rougher. In fact, so rough that even though I’m pretty sure I started the process around the first of October, today, October 25, he is back on a full dose while I wait for a new bottle of prednisolone tablets to come in. The vet office was out of the super large bottle and at this point? Why not keep him on a his capsules rather than getting a tiny bottle while we wait.
You see, we tried to go every other day on the capsules (twice) and both times he does fine until we hit day 6 and his world unravels. He’s now also getting ulcer meds because life is ROUGH. In fact, Sunday night as he was melting down in a steroid-withdrawn rage, he reared, slipped, and fell on the ground. I may or may not have laughed at him in between calling him a bunch of names I’m not repeating here. So yeah. He’s unhappy and uncomfortable. This freaking sucks. I’ll have 500 tablets to HOPEFULLY get him off… Maybe. Or I’ll renew.
Course walk with William Fox-Pitt
Corgi race participant!
In other news, whenever we do go back to work? We’re planning a discipline change. We’re going to try some dressage and see where it takes us. I’ve been thinking for a while and after lots of conversations with lots of people during the Maryland 5*, I think I feel good in this choice. I have some trainers to try and some new arenas to haul out to (howdy public riding facilities I knew nothing about…). So once we settle a bit, we’re going to go to clicker training ground work bootcamp and then maybe, MAYBE I’ll sit on my horse again. We’re also going to clear out a path in the woods so I can at least have a short loop to walk and trot through once I’m ready. I rode Batt back there all the time. And even Subi. Just got over grown and there are some fallen trees that need cutting up… But, I’m hoping I can eventually sit on Nay again. His brain needs work.
Other than that? Jiminy is doing well. His inhaler really helped and he’s back to normal. I put 5 days and 45 volunteer hours into Fair Hill this year for the 5* working in stabling and the Young Event Horse and I’m still exhausted. I have almost no photos to show of my time, but whatever. Hope everyone is doing well!
I could start this blog by saying absolutely nothing has been happening, and while that’s true, as the title of this post implies, it’s also…not.
As I’m sure everyone everywhere has heard, there was a county jail break not quite 3 weeks ago and a convicted murderer escaped. That was close, but not that close to me. About 15 miles? But my county. Near Longwood Gardens. I pass by the jail and Longwood regularly. No big deal. Until he stole a van and camped out 5 minuted from my mother’s house and she was in the shelter-in-place zone. In fact, news media was live-streaming from the bottom of her hill. So, that was unsettling. And watching the coverage, I knew every road and hill and fun place they kept showing. But he was caught and life returned to normal. Sort of.
Early on…
Wednesday night there was a horrific fire in my town. It took out almost an entire block of our Main Street. 90 people were displaced from their apartments above the small businesses. After burning for almost 20 hours (water was in short supply as fire ponds ran out and water was trucked in hourly), buildings were demolished to stop the spread. It’s completely heartbreaking. They think the fire started in the Dubarry warehouse and just spread. It’s all just gone. These aren’t my photos. All courtesy of the folks on the Oxford Facebook group.
Dubarry during the fire
the aftermath
The before
The after
Then last night 9 juveniles overtook 2 female guards at a detention facility in Morgantown, PA (15 miles the OTHER direction from my mom) and were running loose. They were all back in custody by 7am, but still. Come on PA… let’s fix all of this (the facility happens to have stuff like this happen often). 4 gave up because they were cold and tired kids. But still. 5 stole a truck and got in mini chase.
Then there is Nay. He’s still on vacation because, it turns out, steroids make him nuts. So, for everyone’s safety, he’s off until he’s off his steroids… We’re trying that now, but he got hives immediately.
Anyway, as you can tell, things have been pretty uneventful, boring, and not at all resembling any Dick Wolf TV show.
Three Chestnuts 