Mustang Saga

Scout went on his second trail outing today. I hadn't seen that I had a phone message, so I didn't know Melissa wasn't going to be able to make it until I got to the trailhead and she called my cell phone. So we went out all alone! I haven't done that before, but I'm going to try to do it more often. It was really peaceful and relaxing.

I was going to delete this first picture until I realized how interesting Tonka's face is. He has a completely different expression on each side. Evil Eye and calm, uncaring eye.

As you can see the Evil Eye didn't work.

Finally a decent pose.

He had the cutest look on his face for this next picture, with both ears locked on me, curious what I was doing with my phone/camera. Of course as soon as I clicked to take the picture he moved. There is another interesting eye thing to note here. His right eye (on your left) is the one that was kicked when he was only a few days old. The only lasting difference I've noted is that the eye is kind of pulled in, flatter to the face than the other eye. It also waters sometimes. But he sees fine with it. All I had to do was move my hand while ponying him on that side and he'd move back (he was feeling kinda trotty when Tonka really moved out).
(I think he has a fungus on his face, going to scrub him with betadine later)

We did do some trotting when the surface allowed. We had to wait for the gravel to give way to dirt. Scout trots with Tonka really nicely while being ponied. He knows the voice cue "trot" with two clucks, so he moves right up into a trot with Tonka and I don't have to worry about any jerking on the rope.

Now on to something gross and worrisome:

I've never seen these in my horses before. I looked them up, they're ascarids, also called roundworms. I'm not sure how I need to proceed with wormers at what interval, so I called my vet and he'll call me back when he gets a minute. I found one website that said to stop the life cycle, worm every 60 days with either Ivermectin or Quest or double dose with Panacur. I don't know if I can use Quest that often. It did the trick this time, for sure, but I don't want to poison my horse. I did pick up his poop from the trailhead and bring it home with me, like every responsible horseman should. I had left my poop fork home so had to put it in a plastic bag, like with dog poop. That's one big puppy poopoo bag!