Abscess Update & Other Things

For most of December, both of my boys have had hoof abscess; one for Izzy and two for Speedy. It seems as though we are finally back to normal, or very nearly so.

He feels so much better!

Speedy's second abscess came immediately on the heels of the first one - and I am not kidding here. It started the very day after being deemed sound from the first one. Fortunately, that second abscess lasted only 3 or 4 days. As of yesterday, he was seen rodeo-style bucking in the morning before breakfast. I think he feels better.

Just to be sure, I pulled the hoof pack and picked out all four feet, examining them for any sort of hidden tenderness. When that all checked out, I took him up to the arena for a quick lunge. I gauged him to be 95% sound. There was an ever-so-slight hitch in his giddy-up, but that might have been due to several weeks of standing around.

This is why this cooler already has a tear in it. Each boy had a mouthful before I shooed them away like a bunch of flies.

I am not sure that Speedy will be sound enough for a ride this morning, but I may hop up on him bareback just to make him feel happy. He gets grouchy if he thinks he's being ignored.

Hilarious. Two seconds later they were sniffing for bits of grass on the ground. These two love to play!

I gave Izzy his last dose of UlcerGard on Saturday. Boy, am I glad that's over. I made it to the barn every single day for 28 days straight, and still counting! I say I go to the barn every day, but the reality is that it's more like 5 - 6 days a week. Try doing it for literally seven days a week for a month. It gets old, really old. Especially in the dead of winter when it's dark and freezing ass (California style) cold. You do what you have to do though, right?

There's Mr. McDreamy! Photo from Saturday's lesson.

After having an abscess that left him gimpy for nearly three weeks, Izzy finally went back to work last week. If you're a minor, cover your eyes for a moment as my language is about to get strong. For the entire first week back to work, Izzy flew past the land of jackassery in favor of straight up asshole. He was a dick just to be a dick. We had three or four rides that were filled with expletives on my part, and ginormous "F" Yous on his. Dude was a complete and total A-hole.

So much fun to ride!

After a lot of free lunging and me jerking the crap out of his face, he finally turned his brain back on. And before some of you get all preachy on me, this horse is huge and he weighs about a billion pounds. His number one go-to is to lock his jaw and neck and run off. When he does that, I have no recourse but to halt the (bad word coming) shit out of him. I feel bad, I really do, but he simply can't hear me otherwise. By Friday afternoon, he was over it and ready to play ball. We had a lesson on Saturday that not only gave me some new tools, but also some new feel. More on that tomorrow.

Big Brown Horse is also much happier.

Today is the first day of my Christmas break. I have two weeks off with dry weather predicted for all but one of those days, and I finally have two horses who are (knock on some wood here) sound and healthy and ready to get back to work. 

I see a lot of flying changes and simple changes in our future!