Mustang Saga

I need to make more of an effort to get out and play with my horse every day. It's good for my mental health, and I think he likes a break from the winter doldrums too. Yesterday I took him for a short walk to the barn to do a touch-up trim on his hooves. Then, inspired by a conversation with a friend, we practiced ground tying. Which was hard for him, because I'd just been giving him treats and he was hopeful I had some more.

I made a realization the other day when I was feeding. Setting down pans of feed, Tonka often tries to nose into Scout's before I get his set down. I moved him off and said "You know better than that!" and he stood there nicely. It made me realize that he did know better than that, and he just took for granted that I didn't give him credit for being smart enough to know that a feed pan set in front of someone else was not his. So he was taking advantage of me. He's such a wiley critter. From here on out I'll raise my expectations of him a bit, and be more consistent, instead of assuming he doesn't know something and letting him get away with silly stuff. Like walking out of a "stay" command. :) He does know what I'm asking for, I just need to hold him to it, and remind him when necessary.

Today India and Huck went to the vet. I think I mentioned the arthritis I recently noticed in India's feet. Turns out she probably has some pain in her hips too. I wasn't sure about putting her on daily Rimadyl because of some eating problems she has (previous x-ray showed some irregularities in her esophagus shape), but the vet said it would be fine, and might actually help with the eating too, if her esophagus is painful. So we started that today, as well as a joint supplement, fish oil, and vitamin C, as preventives. I also got some wormer for both of them, since they're eating so many mice lately. It's like a walking smorgasbord for them out there!

Huckleberry just needed his shots. He was excited to get there, but then he wasn't too sure about my vet. He'd always seen my other vet there, not my favorite horse vet, so this was a little new to him. My vet really admired him, quite a lot - his size, his coat, his nice face & long legs. Asked a lot of questions about how he does out riding with the horses and stuff. He said he's just the type of dog he wants when he gets a new dog soon. Quite a compliment! His old dog can't ride with him anymore. :( Why oh why can't they live as long as we do?

We discussed Soxy and I picked up a HUGE bottle of tetracycline. I've never had a pill bottle this huge. But with the way things have gone with this intermittent infection, we'll probably use it all. She's had her last dose of SMZs and now will be on just the tetracycline for another 3 weeks. The vet reinforced my decision not to do the scope and all the flushing for the infection. He said it's pretty hard on the horses, and doesn't always guarantee it won't come back.

Roads were terrible this morning and this afternoon. I did a little fishtail on one hill on the way into town, and on the way back saw a horrible wreck. I couldn't look but it didn't look good from the little I saw. On top of that, the truck was driving funny and I was so DONE driving by the time I got home. Happy though - we're getting our ball joints fixed tomorrow! Hopefully that will solve the problem I'm having with the truck, and I really hope they don't find any other issues.

That's my day - hope I didn't bore you to death!