Learning Donut

Every horse is different.  That has never been clearer to me when I consider the differences between Donut and Nimo.  While there certainly are some similarities, there are far more differences.  Which has created a bit of a challenge for me as I have been working with Donut.

I expected from the very beginning that I would not necessarily be able to use the same techniques and strategies when training Donut as I did with Nimo.  For one thing, I have 17 years of experience now that I didn't have when I first got Nimo.  While I certainly don't feel like an expert on horses, I do think that my ability to work with horses has improved.  That growth alone means that I will be working with Donut differently than I worked with Nimo.

I also expected that Donut would have a different personality and different preferences than Nimo.  But little did I know how much those differences would mean when it came to basic communication.

The best thing about Donut is that she came to me with some really solid training in leading.  The second best thing was that I realized it and worked very hard to maintain that training.  Because of the work that was done with her on leading, I can use what she knows as a stepping off point for teaching her new things.  

The big problem came when I started to understand that the way I've been working with horses for my entire life was probably at best less than optimal and at worst just plain wrong.

Let me back up for a minute.  I grew up around horses to a certain degree.  My grandma got her first horse when I was probably around 8 years old.  And then she got another one.  And I spent a lot of time at her farm riding both by myself and with her.  The thing about those horses is that they already had certain skills.  So all you had to do was just handle them.  You put the halter on and they would follow you around.  They would stand tied for grooming and tacking up.  And under saddle, they knew how to walk, trot, and canter.  In fact, one of the horses my grandma had knew how to work cattle.  I only got to ride him one time working cattle, but I remember it vividly to this day.  It was some of the most fun I've ever had on the back of a horse.

But because the horses already had basic skills, I didn't spend a lot of time learning much about how to teach a horse something.  I learned how to put tack on and I learned how to sit on a horse and I guess I must have learned some basic cues for how to turn a horse, stop a horse, and ask it to go faster or slower.

By the time I was 11, my parents had gotten me a horse of my own and I was in 4-H.  You'd think that 4-H would have been a great way to learn how to teach horses new things, but I don't remember that being the case.  In fact, my grand training adventure that started with a weanling Quarter Horse bought at auction ended up with me selling him at the age of 3 because I never connected with him.  He was somehow rideable, thanks to the professional that my parents had the good sense to hire to start his training under saddle, but I don't remember that my own contributions were significant to his education.

I was best suited to riding my trusty Arabian mare, who had been well-trained by someone else and basically just required that whoever was on her back sat still and stayed out of her way while she did her job in the show ring or went as fast as possible down the trail.  Nothing irritated her more than a rider who tried to influence her to slow down, or God-forbid, stop, while she was on her way to where ever it was that she was going.

I did take her to horse camp every summer and there I got some formal education in riding, but it was always pretty limited to getting a horse to walk, trot, canter, and turn reasonably well.  There wasn't a lot on how to communicate effectively with horses and quite honestly, the training methodologies that were common way back then (during the late 80s and early 90s) were really focused on the dominance theory.  Horses were supposed to do what you told them to do and if they didn't, they might get yelled at or hit or otherwise physically handled.

By the time I got Nimo in 2003, the general training world hadn't changed much.  The "natural horsemanship" techniques had started to become more common, but it was hard to get access to them unless you could find a clinic to go to.  I did start to amass a collection of books and videos about new techniques and I went to a couple of clinics as well, but my basic training philosophy with Nimo was still dominance-based.  

And that really worked OK with him.  He wasn't a particularly sensitive or flighty horse and the most challenging thing I ever had to do with him was teach him how to lunge.  He absolutely refused to move away from me.  I think part of the plan was that I finally had to resort to putting a plastic bag on the end of my lunge whip to basically scare him away from me, but it was also sheer repetition of working on it every day for months and months.  I remember absolutely hating it at the time, but no one, including my trainer had any good ideas for working with him on that particular task, so I ended up blundering through it on my own.  In the end, though, he was so solid on lunging that by the time Gemma was old enough to hold herself upright on him, I could safely lunge him with her sitting on his back.

But now, there isn't really much excuse to be using dominance-based training methods with horses.  There is a wealth of information that is easily accessible in books and videos and on the internet that provides lots of great alternatives.  And I have been quite determined to find a better way than how I worked with Nimo, particularly because Donut is a much more sensitive horse than Nimo, and she is unsuited to being yelled at or hit.

What I have discovered recently is something that I should have understood at the beginning of my work with Donut but didn't.  During a past phase in my life, I entered a masters program for secondary education.  One of the most fundamental things that was drilled into me was that there are different types of people and different types of learning preferences.  The trick to providing a good education to kids is two-fold.  First, the teacher needs to understand herself, which means knowing her personality type and the preferences that go along with that, and teach according to those preferences.  Second, the teacher needs to know how to present information based on different learning preferences so her students can learn.  The single fastest way to fail at education is for the teacher to either force herself or be forced to teach in a way that doesn't match her own personality preferences combined with presenting information in a way that doesn't match the learning preferences of the student.

I guess I don't know this for sure, but my guess is that working with horses is about the same as teaching kids.  The trainer needs to teach based on her personality preferences and she needs to present information with extreme regard for how the individual horse learns.

So the strategy, then, is to find a system of training that fits the way the trainer thinks and prefers to interact with horses and also fits the way that a particular horse wants to communicate and learn.  That is easier said than done.  I know this because I've spent no small amount of money on books, DVDs, internet subscriptions, and online training classes on the last six months or so.  I've investigated a variety of methods, including those by Mark Rashid, Warwick Schiller, Double Dan Horsemanship, Larry Trocha, Linda Tellington-Jones, and Tristan Tucker.  

There were three trainers that stood out to me as best fitting my own preferences:  Mark Rashid, Warwick Schiller, and Tristan Tucker.  The most important thing to me is that I can follow a method that requires as little effort from me and the horse as possible.  That probably sounds lazy, but one thing that became clear to me in my work with Nimo using Science of Motion techniques is that most people make riding horses way too much physical work.  I went from having lessons where I thought I might black out from lack of oxygen because of breathing too hard and having single or, on one memorable occasion, double calf cramps to feeling like I had done nothing more than take a saunter around the yard.  It wasn't that I wasn't doing anything in my Science of Motion lessons, it was that the work I was doing was focused inward on very nuanced body control.  It wasn't easy at all, but it was more like learning how to play an instrument than learning how to ski.  It was such a welcome relief, and I realized how much more mental energy I can give to my horse if I'm not constantly physically exhausted.

So the three trainers whose methods most resonated with me were ones where they had clearly spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to communicate with a horse as easily as possible while still allowing for individualized interactions.  That was all great and everything, but when I started thinking through or actually trying out some of the methods on Donut, I hit a snag.  Donut is an active young horse who is fairly extroverted and confident.  She is also crazy athletic and possesses what I am convinced is other-worldly reflexes.  In terms of her learning preferences, she is in what I am calling the mindset of "she wants to do what she wants, when she wants, and how she wants."  Any hint that I might want her to deviate from this very strong preference is typically met with a fairly impressive display of athletic ability that involves all four feet leaving the ground repeatedly, or in other words, an epic temper tantrum.

One day, after watching her antics occur about 10 feet away from me at the end of the lead rope, I contemplated the situation.  I had plenty of time, because this particular display went on for several minutes.  It wasn't until Donut had flung herself sideways in a way that was perhaps not advisable and found herself falling to her knees, that she finally realized she may have overreacted to my request to stand next to a ground pole.

Now, both Warwick Schiller and Tristan Tucker have some specific techniques designed to help horses that are reactive and anxious and not focused on their handlers.  I have gone through some of them with Donut and what I found is that I'm not particularly good at executing these techniques.  (I will share just how awful I am in a future post.)  And after thinking about why I'm not very good at them, I realized it had to be one of two things.  Either I have been handling horses for the last almost four decades and have only survived through the good will of the horses and an overworked guardian angel or something about the techniques wasn't working with my own preferences.  Given that Nimo was widely regarded as the best-behaved horse at the barn I boarded him at and that we survived more than one ride on our own in technical terrain without a single incident of bad horse behavior, I'm going to give myself credit for having at least some degree of reasonable skill in working with horses.

If that is true and it isn't just that I am really incompetent at handling horses, what about the techniques was creating difficulty for me?  I spent a lot of time thinking about that.  Like months.  Here is what I have concluded.  There are two reasons I am having trouble with the techniques.  First, I didn't grow up learning how to handle horses using these type of techniques, so it is much like learning a new language for me, and I'm old enough that learning a new language is challenging and uncomfortable.  Second, my brain doesn't like the idea of using a technique to manage horse behavior.  In other words, the idea of doing something like disengaging the hindquarters or putting the horse through a little footwork pattern to refocus them is not appealing to me.  (The thought process behind these techniques is complex and valid, so I'm not trying to diminish them in any way.  They clearly work very well for a large number of people and horses, but they aren't working for me and Donut, and it is far more likely to be me rather than the technique that is the issue.)

In this case, Mark Rashid's approach, which tends to be less specific technique-based and more focused on an individualized approach, is more appealing to me.  The problem is that Mark Rashid doesn't necessarily have a specific kit of tools that he has published regarding how to work with self-centered young horses.  (Or if he does, please let me know where I can find it!)  Mark's advice (I can call him Mark because I've attended several clinics with him, I guess) would probably be to figure out exactly why Donut is reacting the way she is and then take steps to address that reason.  I think other clinicians and trainers would say that the reason for her reactivity is not necessarily important.  It's more about helping her to find a way to calm down and focus.  

I have to admit that problem-solving with horses is not my strong suit.  I haven't worked with that many who had a lot of problems to solve.  But there is nothing like practice to help a person become better.  So I gave it my best shot.

Why was Donut so reactive about working in the large arena, even when all I was asking her to do was walk around for a few minutes and maybe walk over some ground poles?  This comes back to my assessment that the biggest reason was simply that she didn't want to do it.  For example, I could take her to the round pen and walk her around and she would basically act like she was bored.  She might not focus as well as I'd like, but there were no temper tantrums.  I could also take her to the parking area and do a few circles, stop and back up, and practice a turn on the forehand without too much of an issue.  She would even be calm enough to want to go exploring in the huge hay barn.  And, leading her to and from her field to the barn was rarely eventful, unless there was something unusual that spooked her.

So it was really just the big arena that was causing the problem.  The big arena is located well behind the barn.  There are some horses in a field nearby, but it isn't really in what I would consider Donut's home area.  In fact, the only reason we would go that way is for her to do something in the arena.  So big arena = work and stuff Donut doesn't want to do.

My next step in the process was to look at what Donut wants.  She mainly wants to eat.  She loves eating and green grass is her favorite thing to eat.  (She also likes to sleep, but I didn't feel like I was going to be able to work that in - ha, ha!)  

Donut's second favorite activity is sleeping!

I remembered something from one of Warwick Schiller's videos that talked about how hand-grazing is a great way to develop communication with a horse.  He has a specific technique called Matching Steps that he suggests as something to do during grazing, and I've tried it several times.  I haven't seen the benefits from using the technique with Donut that I saw on the video examples, but that could certainly be because I'm not doing it as well as I should be.  Or it could be that it works better with older horses.  Or perhaps with horses that have a different personality.  I'm not really sure.  But I do hand-graze Donut for about five minutes every day before I turn her out because due to our incredibly mild winter this year, there is still some green grass in the grassy areas between fields and buildings.

And I realized that I had been incorporating the work in the round pen (which is near where I was grazing her) and the work in the parking area (which is on the way to her field) into our daily routine.  But the big arena was something I was doing only occasionally because there were often lessons in the arena, and I didn't feel comfortable working with Donut while two or more people were jumping.  So I had been avoiding the big arena as the place where we did our ground work.

The first thing I did after I realized that was to move our hand-grazing sessions out by the arena.  We didn't go in the arena at first.  Instead, we just hung out there, and I let Donut eat grass.  I did that regardless of whether there were other horses out there or not.  Then, I started adding short sessions in the arena where I didn't ask her to do anything other than be in the arena.  Whether she wanted to walk around or stand still, I didn't care.  And we were only in the arena for a minute and then we walked out, and Donut got to eat more grass.  It didn't take long before Donut would happily walk into the arena and explore the entire arena and even walk over ground poles and flower boxes on her own.  She even tried to climb on top of the mounting block and one of the big wooden jump boxes, so I'm thinking pedestal training is in her future!  And when she found out there was grass to eat at the far end, well, let's just say, she thinks the arena is fine now.

Donut at our hand-grazing session yesterday that also included the introduction of polo wraps.  That is probably worth an entire post on its own!

 

The next step will be to start incorporating actual work in small doses and we'll see how it goes.  Remember how I wrote earlier that Donut's current mindset is that she wants to do what she wants when she wants and how she wants?  Well, I think the best strategy was to get her to a point where she wanted to be out at the arena because there is good grass out there, and she learned that the arena is still a place where she has control over her actions.   Now that she has learned the arena is part of her daily routine, I'm going to see how she does with giving me control over her steps for a minute or two and then see if we can expand it from there.  She is certainly quite capable of doing groundwork patterns and we've done them in other locations without an issue.  So I'm hopeful that I've figured out what was going on in this case and we're near a resolution.  I guess I'll find out over the next week or so!

This whole process that I've been going through with Donut has not been without its frustrating moments (not to mention the hit on my bank account as I've researched a variety of techniques).  I've certainly been frustrated with myself and with Donut more than once.  But if I learned nothing else from working with Nimo, it is that frustration often occurs right before I really learn something.  In this case, what I'm learning will form the entire foundation of my relationship with Donut.  I'm learning her.  And myself.  And how we can do things together.  I'm learning that no matter how accomplished an expert is, that expert can only work with what they have experienced.  And no one is more experienced with working with Donut than I am.  That doesn't mean an expert couldn't come in and do a better or faster job teaching her things.  Of course they could.  I have no doubt that any number of good horse trainers could do an excellent job with Donut.  She is smart and curious and athletic.  But those horse trainers aren't planning to spend the next 25-30 years with Donut.  I am.  So their advice and experience is helpful and relevant, but I have to use my brain too, and listen to what Donut is trying to tell me.  And right now, she is telling me that we don't have the foundation in place for her to go gallivanting around doing whatever I tell her to do.  I have more work and learning to do first.  The good news is that there will then be many, many more blog posts about that process:)

The Phone Call

[Note: This post is part of my Donut "catch up" posts, so this experience is actually from about three months ago.]

It was a normal Saturday, about 2 o'clock in the afternoon.  I was sitting at the dining room table, checking my To-Do List and thinking about what I needed to get done that weekend.  Then my phone rang, and it was the lady who was working at the barn that day.  In fact, she was the same person who had initially alerted the barn owner when Nimo wasn't feeling well, a couple of days before he died.  And, it was about the same time of day too.

She said, "Hey Gail, Donut doesn't seem to be herself.  She looks really lethargic."  We talked for a couple of minutes, and it sounded like Donut wasn't coming out of her daily nap like usual and she was still laying down and not very responsive to people.

I didn't spend much time thinking, I just got off the phone, ran to tell my husband I was headed to the barn, and rushed out the door.  As I drove as fast as was reasonably legal toward the barn, I realized that all of the protections I had erected after Nimo's death were failing.  I started to feel like I was going to hyperventilate, and my hands were shaking.  I felt like I was on the verge of really breaking down.  Every time I tried to come up with a plan for what to do when I got to the barn, my brain just shut down.  Even thinking about which vet I would call wasn't working.  

(I had planned to use a different vet clinic than the two I had used for Nimo.  While I felt that the vets from both clinics were capable in many ways, I had gotten frustrated with one clinic because it seemed like they were very heavy on diagnostic tests that didn't necessarily match Nimo's symptoms.  So each vet visit tended to result in hundreds of dollars of tests that didn't seem necessary, and that was money I would rather have saved for when it was really needed.  The other clinic had recently lost one of its two vets, which meant any emergency call would likely not be responded to very quickly.  I had found another clinic that I wanted to try, based on feedback from several clients, but I hadn't set up the initial visit yet.  So I couldn't decide who I should call.)

As I drove, one of my first coherent thoughts was that I shouldn't be driving.  I was having some kind of emotional breakdown, and I could barely focus on anything.  But I didn't want to take the time to go home and have my husband drive me.  Then it occurred to me that I could call a friend.  One of my good friends had been working part time at the barn, and she knew Donut and what Donut was like during that time of the day.  I tended to see Donut a little later in the afternoon and evening, so getting feedback from someone who was familiar with her activity level would be helpful.  Also, she is one of those rock star people who are calm in a crisis and are good sounding boards for ideas.  Somehow I got my fingers to work well enough to use the touch screen on my phone, and I called her.  When she finally figured out what was going on - it took a minute because I wasn't making very much sense at first - she immediately said she was on her way would meet me at the barn.  She lived about the same distance away that I did, so she could be there shortly after I got there (assuming I didn't crash the truck first).

As I drove, multiple people from the barn called me or sent text messages to give me updates on Donut.  It was both a blessing and a curse.  I was glad to hear how she was doing, but everything was filtered through someone else's perspective.  And the thing that was unsaid but that I was very aware of was that everyone was crazy worried about me because of what happened to Nimo and how it would be really awful if something happened to Donut so soon after I got her.

In between phone calls and messages, I was unfortunately left alone with myself and my barely functioning brain.  I kept trying to imagine what thing could cause lethargy, but my brain simply could not put any name to anything.  I don't even think it could imagine the concept of a disease at that point.  I was just stuck on, "something is wrong with Donut just like something was wrong with Nimo, and Nimo died, so that means..."  And I kept trying not to break down into tears.

Finally, after what seemed like a million years, I pulled up to the barn.  The last message I'd gotten said that Donut was standing up and seemed to be eating hay.  That sounded positive, right?

As I walked to Donut's stall, two or three people told me their summaries of what they had seen, but I'm not sure I was listening.  I just wanted to see her with my own eyes.

And when I got to her stall and looked at her, she looked fine.  She was alert and immediately engaged with me, looking to see if I had brought her any of those wonderful carrots that made her whole world light up.  Then, my friend got there and she got the updates and we went in to the stall together to take a closer look.  

I think I was still shaking at that point and really not thinking very clearly, but I managed to figure out that we could check her vital signs to start with.  So we took her temperature (it was normal), and her pulse (also normal).  I was beyond thankful that I had the vital signs from the wellness check I had done a couple of weeks before I brought her to the barn.  Otherwise, I might have panicked when her pulse came back at 60 bpm.  (Young horses can have higher pulse rates than full-grown horses, and Donut's had been 60 bpm at her wellness check too.)

My friend and I went over her body carefully, looking for anything that looked like an injury or otherwise not normal.  We watched her for about 20 minutes and couldn't see any cause for concern.  The most likely explanation was that she had been taking a nap and maybe something had happened (like an unusual sound) that woke her up earlier than she was ready for.  And like can sometimes happen with people, she had a little trouble focusing at first because her body was still in sleep mode.

I did stay with her for a couple of hours, and I turned her out myself to make sure she seemed to be behaving normally.  Everything looked good, and I finally went home, thankful that Donut was OK.  And thankful that there were people at the barn watching out for her and thankful that I had a good friend that I could call if I needed help.

But the knowledge that horses can be so powerful and yet sometimes so fragile is something that I can't escape.  Being a horse parent is a lot like being a human parent.  We do the best we can with the knowledge we have, but we know that we can't control everything.  That somewhere out there is a virus or a bacterium or a hole in the ground or slippery mud or sharp rocks or a falling tree or some other hazard that we can't see or prevent from hurting our horse.  Despite all the worry and false alarms (and real alarms), I remain convinced that the uncertainty and the inevitable end is worth it for the joy these wonderful creatures bring to our lives.  But I could do without some excitement for a little while...

Product Review: Shutterfly Photo Album

I had mentioned last month that one of the things I accomplished was creating a photo album on Shutterfly for Donut.  It arrived a couple of weeks ago, and I wanted to share a video of the finished product as well as my thoughts about the process of creating the album and the quality of the finished product.

The album I created was a fairly short one, with 26 pages.  The minimum number of pages you can create is 20 and the maximum is 110.  For options, I got an 8 x 8 hard matte photo cover with deluxe lay-flat pages.  I also paid extra for Professional 6 Color Printing and the removal of the Shutterfly logo on the logo page.    

I would really have liked to get the leather cover option, but Shutterfly doesn't offer that with the lay-flat pages (unless you get the Professional Flush Mount album, which starts at $375, and that was really not a price point that I was interested in).  I was kind of on the fence about whether the lay-flat pages were worth it until I started designing the book and realized that having pictures cross the middle of the layout was going to work the best for some layouts.  After seeing the finished book, I think that was the right choice.  Based on feedback from a friend of mine, who has created several Shutterfly books, my understanding is that if you don't get the lay-flat pages, you really do need to be aware of how close your photos and text are getting to the middle of the layout because the "normal" pages will make it hard to see things close to the middle.

I've used Shutterfly a few times in the past, so I was familiar with how to upload pictures to the site, which was the first step.  The one thing that was a little cumbersome, but I can't see a way around, is the way I used to organize pictures for the album.  The first thing I did was to create an album in Shutterfly and put all of Donut's pictures from 2019 in that album, even ones that I wasn't necessarily going to use for the album.  That way, I felt like my pictures were backed up if something happened to my computer and back-up drive.  Then, I created the project, which was specifically for the photo album and added the pictures that I wanted to use to the project.  You don't have to set up a separate album on Shutterfly first, though; you can add pictures to the project straight from your computer, but I liked having them saved in Shutterfly.  (You also have the option of adding pictures from Google, Facebook, or Instagram, but I didn't use those options, so I can't comment on how well they work.  But you do need to be on a laptop or desktop rather than your phone to do the photo book editing, which made those options less attractive to me.)  One other thing to be aware of is that Shutterfly will require you to have at least 20 photos to start the project (presumably because the minimum size of the album is 20 pages), so don't be like me and try to start the album before you have your pictures!

In terms of the design process, the style of the book is Modern Black and the font I used is Neutraface Book 12 for the captions and Lulo Clean One 24 for the titles.  I opted to have the background of every page be black to keep the design choices limited and let me focus on getting the book done instead of fussing about which background color or pattern to use, especially because Shutterfly offers quite a few (over 4,000!).  I am really happy with the effect of the photos with the black background, and I will definitely continue that choice for future photo albums for Donut.

Editing the photo album was fairly intuitive for me, but I can see that people with limited technical skills may struggle a bit.  The system is set up with three editing options.  You can let Shutterfly place your photos in the book for you and then edit the pages and add text.  You can use a basic editing process where you place the photos yourself on each page and are limited to the format you select from what is a dizzying array of options.  Or you can use a more advanced editing process that gives you more control over the sizing and placement of photos and text boxes.  I started by using the basic editing process and switching to the advanced mode for some pages where I wanted to make some adjustments to the Shutterfly layout option.  I found the text box feature to be pretty limited in the basic mode, so if you like to add a lot of text, you're going to need the advanced option.  It wasn't hard to switch between the basic and advanced mode, though.

One editing issue that I did run across when I was doing two-page layouts or even if I just wanted two independent layouts to have some symmetry across the pages was that Shutterfly won't give you the information you need to align things across both pages.  It will give you the "cheat" lines that show when you are in the middle of the page and to align text or photos on a single page, but it won't allow you to do the same across pages.  You can get the information you need by checking the details for the position of the photo or text box, but it is more cumbersome.

In terms of processing the album, I was pretty impressed.  I made the book during the Christmas rush with no expectation that it would ship before Christmas.  In fact, it was made and shipped within a week of me completing it, so it did ship before Christmas, but not in time to arrive by Christmas.  I think it was delivered on December 28 or 29.  But that was a pretty amazing turnaround time for what I'm sure is the busiest time of year.

When I got the finished book, I was pretty happy with it.  The printing quality of the photos was excellent.  I'm not sure how much of a difference the upgrade to 6-color printing made, but I do know that at home, I do notice a difference between the photo printer that uses 4 colors and the one that uses 8.  But the difference is less noticeable for high-quality photos.  My guess is that if you have high-quality photos, the upgrade may not be worth it, but if you have lower quality photos, you may notice a difference.  

I also liked the look of the matte cover versus a glossy one, although I will say that it does nothing to avoid getting fingerprints on the album, which is the reason Shutterfly offers it as an upgraded option.  So from that standpoint, whether you get a glossy cover or a matte cover should be based on what you like the look of rather than a concern about fingerprints.  Nevertheless, I will probably stick with the matte version of the cover.

The pages are nice and thick and sturdy.  They don't stick together and they look like they are cut square and evenly.  The deluxe lay-flat option really does allow a nice two-page spread with photos that cross the middle.

Now let's talk about the logo issue.  You can pay about $7 to get rid of the Shutterfly logo.  I thought that meant that there would not be a logo page at all.  But in fact, the logo page is still there with a barcode on it at the end of the book.  And Shutterfly feels compelled to put a barcode on the back cover of the book too.  Those are incredibly annoying.  The only thing your $7 gets you is the removal of a small orange box that says Shutterfly on the logo page.  I think that is a ridiculous amount of money for what you get, and the repeated barcodes on the last page and back cover are frustrating, especially if your cover is darker-colored or black.  In fact, that is my biggest complaint about the book.  It is minor, and it may not bother some people as much as it bothered me, but I may investigate other options for future books solely based on my annoyance about that.

Finally, what about the value of the book?  Figuring out what the price of an album is on Shutterfly is a bit of a dynamic process.  Different options add cost to the album and the use of some backgrounds or layouts can add cost too.  Plus, different albums can cost more or less, based on specific design features like metallic components on the cover.  And there is a per page fee as well for longer books.  Not to mention, Shutterfly is always running a variation of a sale.  I made two photo albums through Shutterfly last month -- one with pictures of my daughter for her grandparents, which pushed the page limit.  The other one was this small album for Donut.  The best value is definitely in the albums with lots of pages.  I paid about $100 for Donut's album and about $200 for the album of my daughter.  But my daughter's album about 100 pages, so it was basically four times as long as Donut's.  Otherwise, I think I chose the same options.  Also, there were different sales going on when I purchased each album, and I think the sale when I made Donut's album was not as good as the one when I purchased the album with my daughter's pictures.

When I think about the cost of Donut's album compared to what it would have cost me if I had done a scrapbook instead, I think the cost is probably similar.  Empty scrapbook albums typically cost $20-30, and I can easily imagine spending $50-$100 on supplies, given my scrapbooking style.  A simple photo album made by hand would definitely be cheaper, but the design choices would be severely limited, and it would not look nearly as professional as the Shutterfly album.  So for me, the cost was totally worth it.  Especially because of the time savings.  Once I'd gotten the photos uploaded, I think the album took me about three hours.  If I'd scrapbooked the photos, I could just as well have added this album to the graveyard of other unfinished projects in my craft room because the time involved would have been significantly more (I'm guessing a minimum of 20 hours).  And if something happens to the album, like coffee gets spilled on it or the dog chews on it, I can just order another one, rather than sink into a deep depression because of the loss of a unique and precious object that I poured my heart and soul into.

To sum up, overall I am pleased with the album.  It looks nice and all the photos are in one place where I can actually look at them instead of hunting for them on my phone or having them disappear into the ether that is the photo folder on my computer, never to be seen again.  

The pros are:

• Great way to back-up photos if you don't already have a back-up system
• Deluxe lay-flat option offers more options for design and looks good
• Matte cover is a nice alternative to a glossy cover, based on your preferences
• Pages are thick and well-made
• Printing quality is excellent
• Fast processing time
• Reasonable value, compared to my scrapbooking style and given the time savings

The cons are:

• The editing process is a little fiddly and requires a little bit of a learning curve if you don't want to do just the basics, plus you can't do it on your phone
• The barcodes, particularly the one on the back cover
• The lack of clarity about how much the album is going to cost until you have selected all the options and added all the pages

To finish up, here's a video of me paging through the book.  I will warn you that this is a pretty low-end video production, but I guess I have to start somewhere:)  It should be good enough for you to see how the album turned out, though, as well as both the logo issue and the fingerprints on the back cover.

Feel free to comment on any experiences you have had with making photo albums for your horses (or other pets or people!).

Donut Goes to the Dentist

Or rather, the dentist comes to Donut.  After I'd had Donut for a couple of months, I felt she was ready to be introduced to having her teeth floated.  I was pretty sure she had not had them evaluated or worked on before, and I wanted to make sure that any problems were identified soon, so they could either be resolved or mitigated.

I opted not to use sedation for this first visit.  For one thing, because this was her first appointment, I didn't necessarily expect that the dentist would be able to do everything he would do for an older, more experienced horse.  I figured I could always schedule a follow up visit if needed.  What I really wanted was to see how she acted to determine if sedation would be needed in the future and to give her a positive experience.  My dentist also specializes in not using sedation.  He has a very quiet manner and I have never seen him yell at or hit a horse, no matter what shenanigans they were engaged in.  He never seemed intimidated by Nimo's size and while I did lightly sedate Nimo for a few years, it became unnecessary over time.

When the big day arrived, I gave the dentist Donut's background, and asked him how he wanted to proceed.  He set up his tools in Donut's stall and basically just started working with her.  He didn't use a speculum on this visit because of how young Donut was and because it was her first appointment.  But he did do a fair bit of rasping.  He identified some sharp edges, which he said was normal for yearlings that haven't had previous dental work done.  So he rasped those down.

He didn't identify any other issues, except for letting me know that Donut did have wolf teeth and that he recommended extracting them before she was two years old.  He said that at that age, the teeth are typically much easier to extract and that he used to do it without sedation decades ago when sedation options for horses were not as safe as they are now.  That said, he did recommend sedation for the extraction and he said he could use the speculum then too.  He thought that sedation for the first time a speculum is used can be helpful for a lot of horses, so they can go through the process and understand that it won't hurt them.  So we set up an appointment for the extraction for this coming March, just before Donut turns two years old.

The most amazing thing about the whole process was that Donut was completely unfazed.  She acted like it was the 10th time her teeth had been floated, instead of the first.  In fact, when the dentist was done, she tried to follow him out of the stall!:)

Donut acts like a pro when she gets her teeth rasped!

I've had the same equine dentist for 20 years.  I started using him because he was the barn dentist at the first barn I boarded at when I moved to Virginia.  Over the years, he has been the dentist for four different horses (including Donut), and he is the one equine professional that I have trusted implicitly to take good care of my horses' teeth.

Because of that trust, I have never spent much time learning about equine teeth.  But at some point I know this dentist is going to retire.  I'm sure he'll give me plenty of notice and do his best to refer me to a qualified and capable colleague, but I do want to add learning about teeth to my list of things to do, so I have a foundation from which to evaluate the new dentist's work.  

Right now, I can summarize what I know about teeth in just a few sentences.  I know that a horse's teeth grow constantly, although the rate of growth can decrease with age.  I know that young horses lose "baby teeth" and grow adult teeth just like young humans and dogs do.  I know that not all the teeth come in at one time or age the same way, and that is why looking at a horse's teeth can help determine its age.  

I'd like to more, like what the different teeth are called, when they grow in, how they age.  I'd like to know more about how growth or wearing can go wrong and how it can be fixed.  I'd also like to know if there are ways to prevent it.  And I'm sure there is a lot more that I don't know that I don't know.  So I might like to learn some of that stuff too.

But how to go about learning it?  One of the things that I hope this blog will become is a resource on pretty much any horse-related topic that I can think of.  Equine dentistry is definitely a topic I'd like to include information about.  So I've set up a separate page for dentistry resources (look for a tab at the top of this page and click it).  I don't have too many yet.  I'm not sure if that is because there aren't a lot of resources available for horse owners or if I just don't know the right place to look.

Here is what I have found so far:

The Horsemanship Dentistry School by Dr. Geoffrey Tucker.  This school offers a path to becoming an actual dentist, but the beginning module seems to be targeted more for the average horse owner and is priced accordingly at $47.  I've taken the nutritional course offered by the same vet, and I found it to be very informative and well worth the purchase price.  (My plan is to post a formal review of the nutrition course soon.)  So this class is definitely on my short-term list of online classes to take.

Hannes, Chris. Caring for the Horse's Mouth.  I haven't read this book yet, but it is on my list to buy this year.  It is the only book I could find that didn't look like a textbook.  I'm not sure I'm ready for textbooks just yet!

The Center for Neuromuscular Horse Dentistry.  I've seen this type of dentistry, also called Natural Balance Dentistry, mentioned by a number of horse professionals, including Mark Rashid.  The website does have some publications, a DVD, and other information on it, and I'm definitely interested in learned more about this technique.

If you have any resources that you've found to be beneficial, please let me know in the comments, either on this post or over on the resources page.  I'd love to add them to my list:)

The Last Week of the Year

I don't think I could have predicted the events of this week if I'd tried.  I've rewritten this post in my head at least three times this week.  I really thought I'd found the unifying theme of the week by Wednesday, but by Thursday, that was all shot to hell.  And by Friday morning, I realized there was not going to be some kind of year-end epiphany or even a cohesive lesson learned for me to write about.  If I thought last week was a hot mess...well, this week unbelievably topped it.

It all started off innocently enough.  I had planned to ride Layla (Donut's mom) again on Sunday morning.  That all went off without a hitch.  The horses loaded and unloaded uneventfully, and we had them groomed and saddled and ready for the trail in short order.  

I also had a different bit to try with Layla.  You may remember that I'd ridden her in a curb bit last time, and I didn't feel like that was an appropriate bit, given her lack of education under saddle.  This one was a snaffle type with a two-jointed mouthpiece that my friend used on a different horse in competitions.  The middle part was a flat, rectangular plate instead of the more typical links I've seen that have more dimension.  Luckily, I had just started learning about this type of bit in an online class I'm taking (more on that in another post), so I had a clue about how it was supposed to work, and I knew from the way it sat in Layla's mouth that it was actually a fairly severe bit.  The plate sat at an angle so the edge of the plate made contact first, rather than having the plate sit flat on the tongue.  

I wasn't crazy about putting a severe bit in her mouth, but I figured as long as I didn't need to use much contact, it would be OK.  And given how quiet she'd been during the last ride, I didn't expect any issues.  (cue off camera laughing please...)

My friend was riding a different horse this time.  There was nothing wrong with this horse.  To anyone looking at him, it would seem like he was just walking along the trail.  Layla, however, saw something much different.  He had a different energy - a more active, assertive energy - than the horse my friend had ridden last week.  And Layla picked up on that.  She was a completely different horse than what I'd ridden the week before.  She was anxious, excitable, and not comfortable in her own skin.  My friend said she'd noticed that about Layla in the past.  She seemed to change her personality under saddle based on which horse my friend was riding.  (BTW, that is a huge indicator to me that Layla needs a lot more time working alone with a person, so she learns that she can rely on her rider for guidance.  Right now, she is almost exclusively operating off of the other horses around her, which has the potential to create unsafe situations for everyone.)

It took about 2 minutes for me to be happy that I hadn't insisted on a softer bit for Layla.  I was going to need every tool I could muster to ride her.  The good news was that she was more responsive in this new bit than she had been in the curb bit.  I was actually able to use a direct rein and leg and get something out of her.  It wasn't necessarily pretty, but if I needed to move her over, I could, which was a significant improvement over the week before.

The footing was downright awful.  We'd had rain and a little snow the previous week, so the ground was a combination of frozen ground covered by a thin layer of melted and slick mud, or actual ice, or actual snow, or some kind of icy grassy snowy muddy mess.  In short, it was not a great idea to do anything other than walk the horses.

Which was totally OK with me, because I had my hands full.  I spent the ride working with Layla on not walking with her nose up the butt of the horse in front of her.  We practiced riding next to the said horse at a safe distance or behind said horse at a safe distance.  It was not without some effort on my part, and every once in a while I would let Layla go back to her comfort zone to take a break from the mental work I was asking from her.  And she did actually have a full-blown panic attack at one point.  My friend decided to change directions and take a different trail and so she walked back past Layla and up a hill.  Layla lost her mind because she didn't change direction as quickly and got a little behind.  She threw her head up and started acting like she was going to bolt or buck or just go crazy.  I basically tried to steer a little to keep her from running into the other horse that was riding with us and keep her from running, which would have been bad given the footing.  Once she got near my friend's horse again, she settled a little, but it took her a long time to get her brain back.

A little later in the ride, I started tackling another issue.  On the previous ride, Layla had a tendency to be bent slightly to the left.  I didn't worry about it then because it was our first ride and because it wasn't really bothering me.  On this ride, though, she was constantly leaning on my left leg to the point that it was making me uncomfortable.  So I finally insisted that she yield a little through her rib cage and travel straighter.  I used a lot of leg and moderate pressure on the bit to get my message across and I had to repeat it a few times, but I was able to communicate what I wanted and she did figure it out.

As we neared the end of our hour and a half ride, Layla finally fully settled and we reached the point where if we'd been in an arena, I would have felt like I could finally get some schooling done.  As it was, we were about 10-15 minutes from the end of the trail, so I just enjoyed the peace.  Warwick Schiller would say that Layla had become present.  That is, she wasn't worrying so much about what the other horse was doing.  She was paying attention to her own body and where her feet were going.  And she had a connection to me through a gentle contact on the bit.  It felt especially good after over an hour of us being out of sync and her paying a lot more attention to where my friend's horse was in relationship to her and me having to be really insistent whenever I wanted to communicate with her  because she kept forgetting I was there.  It was good to end the ride that way, I think.  And I'm hoping that maybe next time it won't take us so long to get to that point.

This is my first between-the-ears photo since Nimo died, and I miss seeing the curved tips of his ears so much.

 

After I was done riding Layla, I headed over to the barn to take care of Donut.  And when I got there, I had a terrible shock.  I realized that Mini was gone.  Her owner had decided to move her early.

I've been leasing Mini for my daughter since the beginning of March.  However, Mini has heaves.  And without going into too much detail, it has become clear that this barn is probably not the best place for Mini to be.  Gemma and I have been doing our best to care for her every day (even though our lease is only for two days a week), but her condition has been deteriorating.  Her owner had moved her other horse to another barn a few months ago.  Her original plan had been to keep Mini where she was because her young daughter, who she'd gotten Mini for, wasn't riding much, and she could see that Gemma adored her and we could help care for her.  But there has been some drama at my barn, and the owner decided that keeping Mini there wasn't the best choice for her.  So our lease would be over at the end of December.

I wasn't sure exactly when Mini was leaving, but I had felt certain that her owner would give us enough notice so we could say goodbye.  That all changed the night before.  I had brought Mini in from her field to check on her, and I'd noticed she seemed a little lethargic.  She isn't a quick mover to begin with, but she seemed to be moving slower than usual.  It could have been because she was tired from moving through all the mud, which had reached significant levels.  Or it could have been that she was tired from battling her breathing problems, because she was wheezing again.  I gave her medicine and let her owner know.  Her owner responded by saying she was thinking maybe she should move Mini the next day instead of waiting for the end of the month.  And would Gemma be able to say goodbye on Sunday?  Well, I couldn't figure out how to make that happen.  I told the owner that it would be really hard for me to coordinate that and the only possibility would be that my husband could bring her out in the morning, but that wasn't ideal because Gemma would be upset and dealing with crying 8-year-olds is not my husband's strongest skill.  It would be better if I could be there.  

When I never heard back from the owner, I assumed she had decided against moving Mini so suddenly.  But I was wrong.  She had sent me a message about two hours before she came to get Mini, but I didn't get it because I was out on the trail and it probably wouldn't have been enough time for my husband to get Gemma to the barn anyway.  

Once I realized what had happened, it is not an exaggeration to say that I was filled with a terrible rage.  I felt sick to my stomach to think that once again I had to give Gemma really awful news.  (With the pandemic cancelling so many things and Gemma's guinea pig dying and her fish dying and Nimo dying and losing her beloved riding instructor and finding out that Mini would be moving at the end of the month, I was getting damn tired of delivering bad news to my kid.  And now I had to tell her she wouldn't be able to have the last ride she'd planned with Mini and that Mini was gone.)  I did not do a good job of controlling my feelings, and I had the worst time handling Donut because I was so upset about what had happened with Mini.  Somehow, though, I managed to send a really reasonable and adult-sounding message to Mini's owner conveying my disappointment about what had happened.

Being a parent actually sucks a lot of the time.  But I've always felt that owning a horse is good preparation.  When you have a horse, you spend a lot of time working to pay all the bills associated with said horse.  And then you spend a lot of time grooming and taking lessons and practicing and falling off and struggling and being confused and trying to figure out what to do.  All so that every once in a while, for three seconds, you get this amazing connection with your horse and the feeling is so wondrous that you would go through the 100 hours of work all over again just so you can feel that connection again for three seconds.

Parenting feels the same to me.  I have to clean the house and wash the clothes and cook the meals and go to work and teach the child, all so that we can have these brief moments of connection or I can watch my child having fun and enjoying life.  This was not one of those moments.

I don't think I've dreaded something as much as telling Gemma about Mini for a very long time.  I couldn't figure out how to do it.  I'd just have to tell her straight out.  Which is what I did.  And she was super upset and so I sat with her for a couple hours while she worked through her grief.

While that was going on, Mini's owner sent me a message saying that we were welcome to come see Mini any time at her new home and she suggested Wednesday of the coming week.  On the one hand, that was a very nice offer that certainly helped mitigate the damage done by moving Mini early.  On the other hand, I had my life planned for Wednesday, and it didn't include driving an hour and a half to see a pony.  But what choice did I have?  My daughter was so upset and if I'm honest, I was upset about not being able to say goodbye to Mini too.  I have been taking care of her as if she was my own for 9 months.  She is a sweet pony and I had come to love her.  So we made plans to go see Mini on Wednesday.

Meanwhile I still had Monday and Tuesday to get through.  I had recently cleaned all the algae off the sides of one of my fish tanks and in doing so, I remembered how much I love that tank.  It only had two fish in it because a plague had decimated my fish population over a year ago, and I had felt like I shouldn't get more fish because I worried they would die too.  But the two that had been in there did look kind of lonely, and I got it in my head that I wanted to get three male guppies (no breeding that way!) to see how they did.

But you may remember that our washing machine died very inconveniently right before Christmas.  My husband had decided that before we got the machine delivered, he wanted to have a plumber check out the connections as well as a couple of other lingering plumbing issues we have had.  So the plumber was coming at some point on Monday between 7:30 am and 8 pm.  (I mean, that is even less convenient than waiting for the cable company!  But we were glad to get a plumber to come out on short notice.)  My husband and I decided to split the time waiting for the plumber to arrive.  I normally don't work on Mondays, so I agreed to take the morning shift.  I had to get Gemma out to the barn in the afternoon for her riding lesson, and I also wanted to go look for guppies, so my husband came home from work at noon to take the afternoon shift.  (The plumber came at about 4 pm, and made minor repairs, so everything was now set for the delivery of a much-anticipated washing machine!)

We did get three guppies and they are quite delightful.  I really wish I'd gotten them sooner, because watching them literally makes me feel less stressed.

Gemma had her riding lesson that afternoon without Mini and it went well (she has other ponies that she can ride, but she'd just had her heart set on one last lesson with Mini).  I didn't get the time to spend with Donut that I'd been counting on because I kept getting waylaid by other people who wanted to talk.  (Yes, I know what you are thinking.  More on this topic in a bit.)  One thing that I did notice when I brought her in, though, was that she seemed to be breathing hard.  And I thought that was weird.  And then I thought maybe it was because of all the mud.  Walking through mud definitely makes me breathe harder than normal.  Or maybe she always breathed like that I had just never noticed.  Or maybe it was my imagination.  So I watched her once she got in her stall and she seemed fine.  Her breathing seemed back to normal.  I chalked it up to One of Those Things That Is Not a Big Deal.

On Tuesday, I just generally spent the day hating life.  I hate Tuesdays.  I'm not sure if I've mentioned that before, but I hate Tuesdays.  More than any other day of the week.  Part of it is that Tuesdays are kind of like Mondays for me because they are my first work day of the week.  But I'm also trying to manage work, homeschooling, general life things like laundry and cooking and cleaning, and getting out to the barn in enough time, so that we can leave by 4:30 and be home by 5:00 so my husband can take Gemma to her climbing team practice.  Then my husband and I typically have Date Night.  I know Date Night is supposed to be fun, but our options are much more limited now, and I always feel so rushed to fit one more thing in that it has started to feel like a chore.  My husband is pretty easy going about what we do, and mostly it's just been dinner at home for this year.  Which is, of course, not stressful at all.  But it feels more like a thing to check off my To-Do list instead of something fun.  So I should probably address that.  But then that is one more thing for me to do, so I don't.  Anyway, I made it through Tuesday.  And normally, Wednesday would be a little more relaxed with no evening commitments.  (It used to be that my husband would take Gemma climbing after we got back from the barn, but I finally had the good sense to stop that.  It stresses me out to have a definitive time that I need to leave the barn.  As you know, barn time and regular time are not the same, and having to try to make them the same just about gives me a panic attack.  I HATE feeling like I need to leave the barn by a certain time.  So now, Gemma and I can be at the barn as long as we like on Wednesdays, and that works much better.)

Except this Wednesday I had to take Gemma out to see Mini.  To make the timing of everything work, I would have to leave just after I finished up work at 1.  This was also the day the washing machine was going to be delivered.  We had a 7:30 - 11:30 window of time set for the delivery, and I'd asked my husband to stay home from work, because I delegated this issue to him and I get tired of people (aka my husband) thinking that because I work from home, it's not a big deal to handle appointments like that.  It actually is.  Just like it would be if I was in the office and I had to try to manage some kind of regular life thing.  So I've gotten to the point where I either take leave from work or ask my husband to take leave.

When I woke up on Wednesday, I could tell that my body was just about done.  I had never gotten any days to really relax and not have extra obligations after Christmas and my body was about to remind me that I needed to.  I had a nice back spasm going and a migraine coming on.  I was also flat-out exhausted.  I hadn't been sleeping well, and everything was starting to catch up to me.  I wanted nothing more than to snuggle up in bed with some good TV show going and doze for the rest of the day.  It finally occurred to me that I should be able to do just that, at least until 1.  So I sent an email to my boss telling her I was taking the day off.  I didn't have any meetings scheduled or deadlines to meet, so I wouldn't be leaving anyone hanging.  

Then I told my husband my plan.  He agreed that it sounded great and since I was just going to be resting, I could take the first turn on the new washing machine and wash the loads I wanted to wash and he could do his laundry in the afternoon while I was carting Gemma all over the state.  Because doing laundry and resting are totally the same thing.

My first reaction was to picture myself burying his body in the woods behind our house.  But there has been a lot of rain and the terrain is hilly, so maybe there would be too much run-off that would expose the body and I should go through the extra trouble of burying it out at our acreage, where everything is flat and the body would be less likely to be disturbed...(I am convinced that no jury of my peers - peers being stressed out and exhausted wives and mothers who have just managed to survive almost 9 months of a pandemic and Christmas - would convict me.)

On second thought, there really was no way around it.  We had piles of laundry accumulating everywhere and there was no way I could trust my husband to wash my clothes.  He does his clothes and things like towels and bedding just fine, but I had three loads that I really needed to handle myself.  Also, we've had a front-loading machine our whole married life and our new machine was a top-loading machine with significantly more advanced features than our old one.  Someone was going to need to read the manual and advise my husband on how to use the machine and my daughter doesn't know all the words yet.  

I'm pleased to say that the washing machine arrived and was hooked up with no problems by 8 am, so I spent Wednesday morning learning how to use it and admiring its features.  I also taught my husband and daughter how to use it.  (Gemma blessedly loves doing her own laundry, so I knew teaching her was well worth the effort.)

Then after lunch, Gemma and I headed out to visit Mini.  If we lived in a normal place, there would be a road that would take us directly from our house to the barn.  Alas, we live in Virginia, where all the roads are based on animal trails.  And not normal animals.  Animals that are directionally-challenged and have no concept of how to most efficiently get from point A to point B.  And so began the hour and a half extravaganza of 257 turns.  We would go for 9 miles on one road and then 3 miles on another road and then half a mile on another road and then 4 miles on another road and then 2 miles on another road...You get the idea.  It was absolutely nuts.  Gemma started to get car sick because of all the twisting roads and turns.  I vowed to never do the drive again, and I spent a lot of time cursing the situation I was in while the pain pulsed in my right eye from my burgeoning migraine.

We finally made it to the address I'd been given.  There was no barn sign, but the address looked right and the entrance fit the description I had.  So we turned on to the driveway, which was paved.  And we drove and drove and drove and drove.  I think it was about a mile before we saw a couple of buildings.  But they looked like storage buildings, not barns.  So we kept going.  Finally I saw some horse fencing, an indoor arena, and a barn.  Also the Potomac River.  A lot of the Potomac River.

I came to learn that Mini now lives on some of the most expensive real estate in the state of Virginia.  The estate is something like 1,000 acres with a ton of frontage along the Potomac River.  And not crappy, rocky frontage either.  Nice, sand beachy frontage.  I caught a glimpse of the main house (there are others) and I'm pretty sure about 20 of my houses could fit inside it.

The details of the property and Mini's owner's arrangement are private, but suffice it to say that I was reassured that Mini would have a very nice home and the owner had clearly made plans to give her the best care possible.  I can't tell you how much of a weight that lifted off of me.  A huge part of my stress had been worrying that Mini would not have the care she needed, and I realized that was not going to be the case.

Gemma had a great time riding Mini and playing with the owner's young daughter.  We started out in the indoor arena, which has that gorgeous fiber-based dustless footing, and then rode around some of the property by the barn with a view of the Potomac.

Heading out from the indoor arena

Testing the outdoor arena

Exploring

Enjoying the beautiful afternoon sun

Heading back to the barn

It was actually a really fun afternoon.  It was so quiet out at the farm, and Mini's owner and I talked about the difference between the activity level here and back at the farm where I keep Donut.  She had boarded there for over 10 years and I've been there for over 7 years.  We discussed the changes we've seen, and a big one is how much activity there is now.  The boarders used to be older and many of them didn't ride.  There was always some kind of lesson program, but it used to be much smaller.  Now it is pretty big, with lots of young kids and teenagers and more horses.  That really affects the energy level at the barn.  And it finally occurred to me how much that energy level was impacting me.

I'm sure last Saturday's post gave some pretty good indications of how I was feeling about some of the drama at the barn, and that level of drama has been pretty uncommon until the past year or so.  I realized that I was probably overreacting to some things simply because there was so much going on.  While I used to appreciate the opportunity for interacting with actual live human beings at the start of the pandemic, that constant interaction was wearing thin for me now.  I spend a lot of time aggravated because I either don't get to work with Donut at all or when I do work with her, I'm constantly interrupted (and not by just my own child).

Don't get me wrong.  I like all the people I board with.  They are, for the most part, genuinely good people.  But the timing, frequency, and length of the interactions has gotten to the point that they are maybe not doing me as much good anymore.  And it wasn't until I was out in the quiet stillness of Mini's new home that I could finally see that.  So it turns out that the hour and a half of twisting, turning roads was worth a whole lot for me to come to that realization.  I don't know if I would have figured it out otherwise.

I realized that I needed to do some thinking about how to address the interactions.  But a couple of things happened later that night that helped.  When Gemma and I got to the barn, it was later than it normally would have been.  But there were still people.  I talked to three people over the course of 15 minutes before I even laid eyes on my horse, who was already in her stall eating.  The first of those three people was the owner of the horse I'd hauled to the hospital the previous week.  She thanked me profusely for taking her horse and explained the circumstances of why she wasn't there and what was going on in her life.  And that allowed me to let go of the irritation I'd felt about that situation.

Another person chatted with me about her older horse who I'd been worried about because she is clearly near the end of her life.  And as we talked, I realized she was trying her best to do right by that horse.  We probably had different philosophies about what the right thing was, but that didn't make the horse's owner's perspective less valid or less right.  It was just different.  And I was able to let go of my worry about that situation.

One thing that I have tried to do a lot of as I've gotten older is to see things from another person's perspective.  I think I've gotten better at it over the years, but recently, I've been having trouble doing that.  I knew that I was having trouble, but I couldn't figure out how to fix it.  Well, apparently having a little quiet time with a special pony did the trick.  (Or maybe money really can buy happiness!  Being on all the expensive, quiet waterfront property did something good for my soul - lol!) Because all of a sudden, I was able to start seeing other perspectives again and let go of my worry about situations that weren't my responsibility or in my control anyway.

So by the time I made it to Donut, I was starting to feel a bit better.  I gave her the first dose of the Panacur PowerPac dewormer.  She's been having intermittent loose stools and diarrhea for the past couple of months, and I've been working my way through a list of most likely causes.  I was at the point on my list where I wanted to treat for roundworms (ascarids).  I had done a 3-dose schedule of ivermectin back in September, but I had learned that young horses sometimes have trouble fighting off all the parasites and that it is a good idea to treat them as if they have a significant worm load until they are 2 years old or so.  I had also discovered that roundworms have developed a resistance to ivermectin, and that the Panacur PowerPac is more effective.  So I decided to treat her for the roundworms to see if that resolved the loose stools.

Then I mixed up her beet pulp mash with her supplements and gave it to her and I was surprised to see that she didn't dig right in to it.  I wondered if maybe the dewormer I'd given had made her not want to eat.  I sprinkled some of her grain on top of the mash, and then she started eating, although not with quite the same gusto I'm used to seeing.  She did finish all of her food, though, so I took her out for a few minutes of hand-grazing (we still have green grass!) and then turned her out before heading home for the night.

For the last day of the year, I was scheduled to work a full day.  That kind of sucked (normally I work part-time, but I work one full day a week to get Mondays off), but I had stuff to do, especially since I'd taken the previous day off.  I wasn't super motivated, but I forced myself to work on my projects.  By mid-afternoon, I was wondering if I was going to be able to stay awake long enough to get out to the barn, and I was fantasizing about going to bed at 7 pm.  (I know, my life is just too exciting - lol!)

Somehow I made it through the day, and then Gemma and I headed out to the barn for what I hoped would be a quick check on Donut.  When we got there, a vet's truck was parked in front of the barn.  As I walked in, I saw who the vet was there for.  It was a horse that was getting a little older (late teens) and had an assortment of minor issues, so it didn't occur to me that it was a big deal at first.  And then I saw the owner's face.  I asked what was on.  She said he was colicking.

You guys, that is the third colic in less than two weeks.  In fact, this horse is in the same herd as the horse that I took to the hospital last week.  Not good.

I decided to check on Donut while the vet finished her exam of the colicking horse.  I gave Donut her second dose of the Panacur PowerPac and then mixed up her mash.  She took one look at it and went to the corner of her stall.  I think my heart stopped beating for a second.  Could she be colicking too?  What was going on?  I went in the stall with Donut and it was clear she wasn't herself.  Normally she is a bit of a pocket pony and she is constantly sticking things in her mouth.  My hat, her brushes, my coat, the edge of a bucket.  She explores the world with her mouth.  And she was doing none of that.  In fact, she was sort of acting like a normal horse, and for about 1 second, I enjoyed that.  And then I snapped myself out of my reverie and continued to evaluate her condition.  Lack of appetite, although it looked like she had eaten almost all of her hay and her grain meal.  Lethargy.  What else?  I checked her temperature.  When the thermometer hit 101.6, I pulled it out and headed over to the vet.  Donut's temperature is always 100 degrees.  I was scared.

I asked the vet if she check Donut too once she had completed her exam.  As it turned out, her assistant was actually a vet too, but recently graduated and doing an internship.  So she was able to get started with Donut's vital signs.  The good news was that her gut sounds were OK.  The bad news was that her lung sounds were not.  The vet came over then and listened to, and she agreed that Donut's lungs didn't sound normal and she wanted to do a rebreathing test.  I learned about the rebreathing test after taking care of Mini, who has heaves (more correctly known as equine asthma now).  The vet sticks a bag over the horse's nose and basically tries to suffocate it so she can hear what the horse sounds like when it takes a really deep breath once the bag is taken off the nose.  I can't watch it - the test horrifies me.  The horses don't seem to be all that fussed about it though.

So I went over to the colicking horse's owner to get an update.  The horse definitely did not look that great, but also not as bad as I'd seen.  The current status was that the owner was on the fence about whether to take him to the hospital or not.  The vet had said watching him through the night at the barn was an option, but taking him to the hospital would not be a bad idea.

Then I checked in with the vet about Donut.  The vet diagnosed her with a mild respiratory infection.  (Remember how I thought Donut was breathing hard a couple of days ago?  Well, it probably wasn't the mud or my imagination.)  I was so relieved it wasn't colic, I almost fell down.  The vet recommended taking a blood sample to see if we could get a sense of how serious the infection was.  I agreed.  I'd been planning to call the vet the following week to set up an appointment to run a CBC anyway as part of my attempt to figure out what was going on with Donut's intermittent diarrhea.  The vet also wasn't sure whether the infection was viral or bacterial, so she left me a bottle of SMZ to start treating with antibiotics based on how Donut seemed to be doing over the next couple of days.  If she seemed to be fighting the infection off on her own, then the antibiotics probably weren't appropriate, especially given her diarrhea.  On the other hand, if she took a turn for the worse, I wouldn't have to wait on a holiday weekend to start treating her.  The vet also suggested I start Donut on a probiotic, partly because of the diarrhea and partly because it could help if we needed to start her on antibiotics.  As it happened, I already had an appropriate supplement sitting in my living room, because probiotics/prebiotics were next on my list of things to try if the dewormer didn't seem to help.  So I was all ready to go on that front. 

I checked in with the barn owner then to let her know what was going on with Donut and find out if she wanted me to keep Donut in her stall as a way of isolating her since we didn't know if the infection was viral.  Although, by that point, the other horses in the herd had already been exposed and the vet said that there probably wasn't much point in trying to isolate.  (Plus, remember Mini's lethargy from a few days ago?  Also, she didn't come out of her wheezing as fast as she normally does once she gets her medication.  I'm betting she had a minor infection too.  I'm kicking myself for not taking her temperature back then, but I made a mental note to send a message to her owner to let her know about the possible infection as soon as I had a chance.)  The barn owner said it would be fine to turn Donut back out, but before I did that, I had something I had to do.

Remember that colicking horse?  Yeah, the owner decided she wanted to take him to the hospital.  She had her truck at the barn, but her trailer was back home and hadn't been used for so long that she wasn't sure it was safe to be on the road.  Also, it was dark and she was worried and didn't feel comfortable driving.  So I offered to haul him.  I always drive my truck out to the barn, so I am ready to take Donut to the hospital if I need to, and that meant I could be ready to go in a few minutes.  

It was my first time hooking up the trailer in the dark with this particular truck.  (I got a new one back in April, but haven't had the opportunity to haul much since then.)  Because I wasn't hauling much, I kept a hitch cover on instead of the actual ball mount to prevent weathering and also to keep me from running into the hitch with my shin.  So I was trying to unlock my hitch cover and get the ridiculously heavy two-ball mount that I decided I had to have into the receiver in the dark.  After what felt like an hour, I finally had the trailer hooked up and ready to go, and I pulled up to the barn.

The horse loaded fine, although he was a little anxious.  His owner and her husband, plus me and my daughter all piled in the truck and we drove to the hospital.  Thankfully, we were going to the closest one, so it only took about half an hour.  The owner couldn't stay with him because of COVID restrictions, so I took the owner and her husband back to the barn.  I should note that if you are in a stressful situation, such as the deteriorating health of the horse you love more than life itself, riding with an 8-year-old who hasn't had any dinner is maybe not your best strategy.  You might be better off following in your own vehicle.  Otherwise you might be forced to endure fits of giggles and conversations about poop.  I'm just sayin'.

The hospital called while we were en route back to the barn.  They reported a distended colon but they weren't sure about whether there was an impaction yet.  More time was needed.  Surgery was an option at what sounded like a staggering price, but they weren't recommending it just yet.  They wanted to see if fluids and supportive care could help first.

I dropped off the owner and her husband at the barn and then drove my trailer back to the trailer parking section (which felt like it was in the middle of nowhere in the dark) and unhooked the trailer.  I left the hitch on my truck because I had already said I'd pick the horse up once he was ready to come home.  (It honestly never occurred to me that he wouldn't come back.  The other two horses that colicked were doing fine, even the one where the owner waited three days to get medical care.)

Then I checked on Donut, who was just hanging out in her stall waiting for me.  (One of the things I love about Donut is how she never stresses about being in her stall, even if it isn't the normal time for her to be in her stall.)  I let her eat some grass and then turned her out.

I called one of my friends on the drive home because I had to tell somebody about all the drama.  While I was talking to her, the vet called back with Donut's bloodwork results.  (Using a vet clinic that has its own hospital has its benefits!).  Her bloodwork was actually pretty normal, including the overall white blood cell count, indicating that whatever infection she had was probably not serious.  She did note two levels that were slightly elevated.  One was a protein marker for inflammation, which was very slightly elevated.  That wasn't unexpected, given the mild infection.  The other level was a type of white blood cell.  (I didn't know there types of white blood cells, did you?)  This type of blood cell was an indicator for allergies or parasites and it was very slightly elevated.  So my thoughts about deworming Donut may have been on the mark.  I don't even want to talk about the potential allergy issue.  I don't think that is a problem, but I guess we'll have to wait and see.  The vet said she'd call me the next day to check on Donut and we left it at that.

My husband had made dinner, expecting us home much earlier in the evening, and he thoughtfully warmed it up for us when we got home.  Gemma and I were starving by then, because it was after 9 pm.  My plan to go to bed at 7 pm was firmly squashed.

I ate and then spent some time updating various relevant people on the events of the evening, including sending a message to Mini's owner letting her know what Donut's symptoms were, so she could double-check Mini the next day.  And I was so worked up from everything that happened, I actually did manage to see the new year in, which is a first for me in quite a few years.

The next day, I headed out to the barn in the morning, so I could check on Donut.  Plus, I wanted to bring her in for the day, because it was supposed to be cold and raining, and I didn't want her out in that while she was trying to recover from an infection.  She seemed to be in good spirits and her temperature was back to normal.  She ate a little beet pulp, but she definitely was not quite back to normal on either the eating or energy front.  The vet called to check on her and I let her know the details.  The vet said to continue to hold off on the antibiotics and to call if her condition worsened over the weekend.

Then I got a text from the colicking horse's owner.  She said his condition was not good, and he was heading into surgery.  About an hour later, I got a message letting me know he didn't survive the surgery.  I don't know for sure why.  I'm sure the details will emerge over time, but it was a really crappy way to start the new year.  And once again I found myself giving Gemma bad news.  While she wasn't necessarily close to this horse, she had helped care for him many times.  She often helps out around the barn by cleaning stalls or bringing horses in, and he was one that she had handled more than once.  Which is kind of impressive because he was a 17 hand Thoroughbred.  Plus she was thinking of the two times we'd hauled horses to the hospital as rescue missions where like the shows she watches, everything turns out to be OK in the end.  But real life doesn't work that way sometimes.  So she spent the afternoon grieving for the loss of another horse.

I really wish that I could have gone to bed at 7 pm on New Year's Eve and awakened to a new year full of promise.  But the reality is that the world doesn't work that way.  There is no magical reset button on January 1.  Both good and bad things continue to happen on their own schedule, without regard for our hopes and dreams and resolutions.  I keep seeing so many people fervently wishing to see the last of 2020 and excited for the start of 2021.  But the calendar year is irrelevant to the universe.  The pandemic is still here.  All of the economic problems associated with it are still here.  And the loved ones that we lost in 2020 aren't going to reappear.  

But there is good too. There are things that would never have happened this past year if it hadn't been for the pandemic, and they helped people.  I know a lot of working moms whose lives are markedly better now than pre-pandemic.  There are families who are closer.  There are opportunities that would never have existed.

And there were good things that happened because bad things happened.  I have Donut because I lost Nimo.  Donut had a place to live, but she didn't have a home until she came to me.  That matters very much for her, and if Nimo's death could serve some kind of higher purpose, there is nothing better than giving another horse a home.  And I have a new perspective formed out of the perspective that I lost for awhile.

I don't expect 2021 to be any less of a challenge than 2020 was.  Some of the challenges may be different, but they will still be there.  My barn may have a serious problem - three horses colicking in less than two weeks warrants some investigation.  Which has already been started, but who knows where it will go.  Donut still isn't out of the woods with her infection, and I still need to figure out why she is having diarrhea.  Gemma lost the pony she was leasing, and we'll have to work something else out for her.  Actually, I know exactly what the solution is, which is buying a horse for her, but my husband is not convinced.  So I have a challenge there.  And there are probably some things that aren't horse related (like how many more guppies can I get?) that will come up, just like every year.

Regardless, I am hoping that all of you find your way through the quagmire that is life for another year and that I will see you on the other side!