Camaro, the blog name I chose for my current horse, has not been talked about much on here, considering I've owned him for nearly a year and a half now. Last year, I intended that I'd post about him pretty regularly, documenting our progress as a team and his career change from an English Pleasure horse (which he was 'too sensitive' for, one of the points that drew me to consider buying him) to a dressage horse.
Ironically, the sensitivity that sealed the deal for me when purchasing him, was part of my main focus in our early months. Not making him less sensitive to my leg and seat, no, I love that part of his sensitivity; but to getting him to accept contact with my hands/reins through the bit without freaking out about being touched in the mouth and immediately throwing his head up and dropping his back, very effectively inverting himself.
Last Spring, just when I was achieving a nice steady contact with his mouth and he was learning to use his back instead of dropping it, we hit a major roadblock. Laminitis.
I can't tell you the amount of metaphorical weeping and gnashing of teeth (all mine) that ensued over the next 6 months. In the big picture of things, it was a relatively minor bout of laminitis as far as laminitis goes. I mean, after weeks of stall rest, a low-sugar pelleted feed and grass hay (absolutely not one trace of alfalfa) diet change, and a set of fancy shoes with gel pads, he worked his way back up to being sound and on 8 hours of turnout (with a grazing muzzle) in only three months!
He did hate the muzzle. But he learned how to eat through it, by late summer he'd become very adept at sucking up lunchtime hay like spaghetti.
So I got to gingerly get back in the saddle in late August. Where we started at square one on the contact issue. *Sigh* For exactly five rides spaced out over 3 weeks when he started very obviously displaying signs of an abcess in his right front. *Double sigh*
Another emergency vet call. The abcess was located, cut out, and drained. I got to practice my foot poulticing skills for about 10 days while it all drained out and healed over. Yay. Fun. More weeks of not riding a lame horse.
This was followed up by a thrown shoe just as we were once again sound and resuming light riding. And, same shoe, thrown again three weeks later. From there proceeded some farrier issues, the very tough decision to part ways with the farrier I'd used since 2007, and to trust my horse's foot care to the farrier that the barn owner used.
Can I say I haven't once, in the nearly six months since then, regretted that decision? Camaro has been joyously sound. I've been back in the saddle somewhat regularly--barring two weeks of heavy equipment ripping through the farm doing drain repair for the county, the holidays, bouts of frigid weather, and adjusting to becoming Faline's afternoon babysitter--and we are again making progress.
Am I afraid of a repeat laminitis episode this spring and the grass comes back to life and there's actually something to graze on outside during his hours of turnout? You betcha! But, he's lost about all the weight we wanted him to lose (his bloodwork last spring put him at borderline metabolic syndrome), we've kept the changed diet, and he again will be wearing a grazing muzzle all through his daily turnout as soon as the grass starts growing.
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