So home at last, with no blowouts or travelling traumas! Now the tough road begins as I must keep this rambunctious almost two-year old secure in a 12×12 stall for weeks to come! Its already been two weeks and she is feeling her oats! The tube that has a catheter end attachment that you can see braided into her main runs along her face and ends inside her eyelid in the corner. I use a syringe to inject the medication into the catheter and then very slowly push it down through the catheter to her eye with air. The I wait 5-10 minutes and do it all again with the next one. She has several different medications. She gets this treatment every 4-5 hours. We will take several more trips to UC Davis over the next few weeks and months and hopefully, in the end she will be good as new. I try to tell myself that she is gaining valuable life experience here. [caption id="attachment_232" align="aligncenter" width="1024" caption="Also, NOT Diva, but an example provided by Davis. This is the conjunctival graph placed over the ulcer to provide structural integrity to the cornea. It should shrink and blend with the cornea in time. Diva\'s pretty much looks just like it."][/caption]

Hooray for modern science.  Diva is doing well, recovered from the general anesthesia “flawlessly” according to her surgeon.  I would like to think that a combination of her early imprinting and HorseSpeak methods played a factor in her ability to remain calm and relaxed when awakening to finding herself laying down in a strange room.

Her damaged cornea was graphted with a part of her conjunctiva, the intent to provide enough of a barrier to prevent her eye from perforating.  She should retain most of her vision, with just a small “floater” in her lower field of peripheral sight.

I’ve had to clear my  travel schedule for the rest of the month to attend her frequent medications, but I do so with gratitude.

Again, many thanks for all of your support and caring, and best wishes for my goofy girl.  Hopefully, she’ll make it to year three without any more traumas! When she gets her Olympic Gold, she will have stories to tell of her errant foalhood!

Well, as the infection healed it revealed that the damage to Divas eye was much worse than originally thought. So today, Tuesday, she will go into surgery to get a graph on the damaged portion of her cornea. As many of you know, I have been struggling seriously over the pros and cons of this decision. There are big risks on either side of the choice which made neither option an obvious one. Thank you to all who have listened to me whine, and to Donna for your practical analysis, combined with your personal touch that I knew I could count on. And thanks to Oregon Chris, my lifelong friend who began as my vet, for always being there when I need medical advice from a friends perspective.
I’ll update tonite with news and prognosis.

Buzz, Sunny and I were invited to spend a few days in Hyampom with Cory, Jade (her mare) and Boo (her dog), where Cory has a home, complete with 2 horse barn and paddocks. To get to Hyampom, you go to Red Bluff on Hwy 5, then go about a 100 miles northwest, mostly west, I think. The population is about 240, and they all know one another. Sunny, Buzz and I had been there last year, so we had some notion of how long it was going to take to get there and what we’d find when we arrived.

I was concerned about driving through the valley in the heat of the day, so we left our barn at 4:15 AM. I have to say that, except for the part about not sleeping the night before, that’s the perfect time to do the drive. We were almost alone coming over the hill on Hwy 17, and through San Jose, Dublin, etc – the only time I took the truck out of cruise control between Santa Cruz and Red Bluff was pretty much to go across the bridge out of the Bay Area.

Out of Red Bluff, the driving gets challenging – quite a lot of two lane, twisty roads. Also, Hyampom Road, the only paved road into Hyampom, is under construction, and you have to wait for an escort truck to convoy through the construction area. We were really lucky and only had to wait about 10 minutes. You can just about see Cory’s place from Hyampom Road, so just a couple of miles after the construction, we were home free. By the way, when we drove up last year, the temperature was over 100 – this time I think it was probably in the high 70’s or low 80’s.

It was early afternoon by this time, though, and I was wiped out from the drive, and Cory was recovering from a cold, so we unloaded Sunny (who was happy to (a) get out of the trailer and (b) see Jade in the paddock next to her), threw the dogs in the Cory’s truck and headed out for the south fork of the Trinity river for beer and meditation.

Cory being Cory, we had to take the “short cut”, which features a pretty close to vertical 8 foot drop and dip, followed by a shallow, but long river crossing. Since we made it across, it was fun.

After we came back, we fitted Jade with the Easy Boot I’d brought up with me, since she’d thrown a shoe the day before I was supposed to come, then we hand-walked Sunny and Jade up the road to see the sights: Icelandic ponies, chickens, ducks, and mules.

The next day the first order of business was riding. Cory had only had Jade out once in the previous week or so that she’d been in Hyampom, and that outing was pretty anxious, so we wanted to get the girls out together to see how they did. Cory used one of the new Blocker ties to hold Jade while she got her tack out, and Jade did another pull back. The Blocker tie worked as advertised, but it was still scary, and Jade re-opened the wounds on her legs she got at the beach pull back.

We decided that we couldn’t go out without at least starting to address this issue. We couldn’t set up Jade at the place she did the pull back because it was a post for the roof of the barn, and when she started getting nervous, she started circling the post. There was no way we could release her from pressure if she wrapped the rope around the post, and, as big as she is, she could have pulled down the barn!

When Sunny started pulling back, MaryBeth had me run a long rope through the tieing fixture on my trailer, let Sunny get back to where she was comfortable, then put pressure on the rope. As soon as she came forward, I released. I repeated it until she could get really close to the trailer, then with me waving a flag, etc. Based on that, we decided to use the trailer with Jade, figuring that she couldn’t wrap herself around it. Ha.

Working with Sunny was pretty straightforward because she initially wouldn’t get within 12 feet of the side of the trailer (she had no problem loading), so there was a consistent problem. When we tried it with Jade, Cory couldn’t get way from her fast enough to apply pressure – Cory would back her up to the end of the rope, then Jade would just walk up to the trailer with her. When Cory stayed by the truck and I backed Jade up, when Cory put a little pressure on, Jade went around to the back of the trailer and tried to load herself!

It was clear that we weren’t addressing the pullback problem. However, when we were backing her up, we noticed that, although she was really good about backing by wiggling the rope at her, she didn’t move if you put your hand on her nose – she’d just push back. Based on my discussions with MaryBeth, we decided that we had found a place where she had a consistent problem yielding to pressure, so we’d start there. The first time, I stood there, leaning on her nose, for over a minute, I think, before her weight shifted back. We worked with her until we could put a hand on her nose and get a full step back, then called it good for the day.

By that time, Jade was really calm, or maybe really bored, so Cory finished tacking her up, I got Sunny ready, and we set out for a ride. The first thing to know is that all rides at Cory’s start out at her house, and you just ride out on the road. So, this time we went up the road past Jade’s Private Gauntlet – where all the farm animals were – to a vineyard built into the side of a hill. We toured through the vineyard, and took a short path into the woods behind it, then came back down through the equipment area, where the girls saw every power and hand tool imaginable.

We returned to Cory’s, and continued along the road in the other direction, riding through downtown Hyampom – about six buildings, but quite a lot of traffic – and out to the river where we’d taken the truck through the previous day. The girls took a drink and got their feet wet, and we came home.After we gave the horses lunch, we took off for another place on the river, where the dogs went crazy.

On Thursday we were scheduled to ride with one of the local women, at 9 AM, on her ranch, which is about a mile away from Cory’s. So, we woke up at 6 and fed the horses and hit the road promptly at 8:30. We were about 5 minutes late (because Sunny walks sloooooooooooly – gotta talk to somebody about that), but so was the local, a woman named Uschi, riding Little Bob, a Morgan-Arab cross, according to rumor.

Little Bob is a handsome guy, but a handful. Uschi was working as a volunteer at a kid’s camp in the area that includes riding in their curriculum, and Little Bob was brought in as a kid’s horse. Unfortunately, he threw everyone who got on him until Uschi – so she got to take him home. Anyhow, when we met him, he didn’t want to buck, but he certainly wanted to move and Sunny’s pace drove him crazy. Uschi was extremely gracious about keeping him in hand and led us on a ride like I hadn’t imagined we’d take – well, ever.  Several times during the ride, Sunny and I were ready to head for home – if only we’d known which direction it was.

We started off down the levee between the air strip and the river. We stepped off the levee and went down to river bottom – filled with river rock, sand, and little hollows of willows. Not only did the rocks make the footing uneven, there were lots of 5 foot high, 60 degree sand/rock banks to climb up and drop down, and the trail would drop down into a hollow, then come out through a screen of willow branches.

After awhile, we came up to what looked like a beautiful pasture, and the view *was* beautiful – but the pasture was star thistle. Jade and Little Bob seemed unfazed by it, but poor Sunny seemed to think that if she was *really* careful where she stepped, she could avoid it. By the time we got through the pasture, the other two pairs had waited for us several times and we were 100 yards off the back. The good/bad news is that Sunny just didn’t seem to care.

We continued through some more benign flat land and did a little trotting, which was pretty funny. As it turns out, Sunny’s trot is to Jade’s trot as Jade’s walk is to Sunny’s walk – that is, Sunny trots way faster than Jade and I had to really work with her to slow her down. Initially, I was hauling on the bit, which had very little effect, then I started serpentining her down the trail which worked. That said, I’d like to work on having several speeds in each gait that I could actually use ON THE TRAIL – that’s important – as opposed to just as an arena exercise.

When we emerged, we were on a bank. To the right, a trail went straight up hill. To the left, was the river. Uschi sort of hinted that the river was the right decision for our inexperienced horses so off we went, Little Bob first, followed by Jade. I knew we were in over our heads (so to speak) when I noticed that the water was over Jade’s stifles. When I looked down, my boots were getting wet to the ankles, and the current was substantial – so Sunny and Jade had a darned good inaugural river crossing! I know that Sunny was belly deep, and I suspect that her chest got wet, too.

We rode along the bank and crossed over the river again at a shallower point, where Uschi took pictures of us. It wasn’t as dramatic as the first one, but the photos prove that we did, in fact, cross the river. Shortly after that, Uschi and Little Bob headed for home (and neither Jade nor Sunny seemed to care) and so did we.

Just as we got on the levee, where the surface was good, we picked up a trot. After about 50 yards, Cory said, “Damn, the Easy Boot is gone!” Sunny and I went back and found it, just about where we picked up the trot. While Jade and Cory were waiting for us to come back with it, Jade threw her OTHER shoe! As a result, we took it really easy on the way home. The good news is that Jade didn’t act lame, which she definitely would have 3 months ago. The soles of her feet are really tender and even very little pressure could cause enough pain so that she reacted explosively. After her behavioral problems were traced to her feet, Cory has had prescriptive shoeing done, which seems to be making a difference.

After we got the horses settled in, we took the mutts to yet another beach on the river, where we all had another great time, and saw some wild turkeys on the way back.

Friday was our last day, and I thought it was going to be a low key horse day because of Jade’s shoelessness. Cory thought otherwise: she decided this was the perfect time for me to ride Sunny bareback. And that’s what we did.

We started off by doing some hand walking around the “racetrack”, a fire break Cory’s husband had made around the barn and paddocks, a rectangle about 100 yds by 75 yds. We had been using it all week as a warm up area, so the girls were both comfortable with it. Jade looked sound, so Cory hopped on board. I delayed the inevitable by fooling around with a bareback pad (pure western cinch, so I had to do some kind of knot on the cinch rather than a buckle), but the time finally came to buck up and do it.

I sided Sunny next to a picnic table we’d hauled down to use as a mounting block, scratched her belly (required by our mounting protocol), and stepped on board. And she stood there. I sort of breathed deep and she walked off. We did a couple of laps around the racetrack at a walk, first with Jade leading, then with Sunny leading. When Jade was leading, Sunny and I did short stints of trotting to catch up – whoo hoo!

Sunny seemed not to mind at all, and it was a revelation for me. I could feel *so* much more of her movement.  It’s a good thing she has no money because she’d be a BAD poker player; she telegraphs everything through her back before it hits either her feet or her head. It was fascinating, and I’m going to try to do it at home regularly, just to check in.

After we put the girls away, we went to the river and Buzz swam about 30 miles. After we packed, we went to the Hyampom Bar and Grill and met about 10 people from Santa Cruz and had a great cheeseburger. Perfect vacation.

Hi Marybeth, 
 I just wanted to shoot you a quick e-mail to update you on my progress since our last lesson.  I have continued to practice my postng which is coming along.  I’m still a little uncoordinated with it at times, however, it is working!  As a result, I am seeing improvements in many areas.  (Remember, my original objective was just to be able to sit his trot.)  Here are a couple areas where I am seeing positive results: 
       - I am no longer hesitant to trot.  I use to avoid this at all costs.  Now I find myself clicking him into a trot in many different situations.
       - Val is learning to keep a more even pace when we trot instead of continuously accelerating.  I’m sure this is because not only am I not bouncing around all over the place, but also
               because I don’t have to think about not bouncing off and can focus on guiding him on his movements, speed, etc.
       - I am no longer intimidated to lope.  I never liked doing this before because I had to go through the rough extended trot to get to the lope which meant I was always off-balance when
               we started.  I also dreaded the horrible bouncing around that would occur if he broke out of his lope.
       - For the first time ever – - – I am doing all gaits on the trail!  Not being able to keep my seat during the trot meant that the only time I was truly in control was when I was walking him.                          Obviously,the idea of not having full control on the trail was not a situation that I was willing to put myself into.  With the posting I can maintain control, which makes everything else                 possible.

       I have to say that I have never looked forward to riding as much as I do now.  Every day I push it a little further and am finding so much fun in this.  I really think that Val is enjoying it much more as well.  We still have a ways to go on the collection but I know with continued practice we will get there.  Thanks again for your great help in all this.  Who knew one lesson could lead to so many good things!

                                                       Lori

Ahem.  This is the same post I did before – but somehow I managed to foul up the entire blog with it – so I’m trying again.   Sorry for the inconvenience!

So. Yesterday afternoon I pulled Sunny from the pasture to give her lunch and tied her, with her lunch bucket, to the rickety rail where  she’s been tied for meals and grooming every day since September 1. I left her to give one of the other boarders a hand with something – I was about 25 feet away – and she pulled back.

**The following is HOW I THINK it happened.**

I had tied her at the end of the tie rail using the new Blocker ties I’d bought. When whatever scared her caused her to pull back (there are lots of bees around now), there was enough tension on the rope so it SNAPPED the (rotted) 4×4 post and pulled the entire fence section loose from the other end, which scared her even more so she went back even more, which the Blocker tie allowed her to do – and then, the end of the rope where the popper is, was wide enough so that it would NOT go through the Blocker tie, so the rope couldn’t come loose from the fence. When she hit the end of the rope, I suspect that the fence bounced after her, and that’s when she really took off.

**Back to what I KNOW happened**

What I saw was Sunny charging around the barn trailing two, 6 foot rails held together by a 4 foot long, 4×4 post, with most of the nails exposed. I got to her just as she’d run around the barn, caught the fence section on a corner, turned around and jumped back over the section and was heading down the road.

As I came to the corner of the barn, she stopped, either because she saw me or because she was so terrified, and I was able to undo the rope (it had a panic clip on it, whoo hoo). I then re-tied her halter and we did breathing exercises for a few seconds. She calmed down quickly, so I clipped her lead back on her, picked up the fence segment with one hand and led her with the other, and dragged the segment back out of the way.  She didn’t seem frightened by the fence itself, even though it was moving with us, which I thought was a good sign.

After dropping the fence, we marched to the tie rail to finish her dinner. I didn’t tie her, but I ran the rope through one of the rings and held the end, so I think (hope) that she thought she was tied. At first, she wouldn’t get close to her bucket, then she wouldn’t put her nose in it, then she’d startle every time the rope bounced into the bucket, etc, etc.  She never completely loosened up, but she finished her lunch and a second helping, and allowed me to file off some rough edges on her feet while standing there. The rough edges on the feet were the only potential “injury” from the adventure that I could see. My two responses are (1) lucky, lucky, lucky! And (2) Sheesh! Horses!

 

Any thoughts?  MaryBeth was working with us on trailer pull backs and I’m going to continue that work as if this hadn’t happened, and  I’m going to continue to feed her at the tie rail, also as if this hadn’t happened – except I’m going to hold her rope rather than tying her for awhile.

Oh yeah, the Blocker tie was one of the new ones, with the smaller diameter ring on it. I’m going to try to replicate the accident (without Sunny’s participation) and see if one of the old style ones would have let the popper through.

Marybeths Take on It

Wow, sometimes even when you are doing it all right *&^% just happens and we have to hope we have prepared our horses for the unexpected.  I think you did a fine job handling it and am confident that it was your presence that stopped Sunny from further disaster.  Taking her back to the  “scene of the crime”  was good thinking.   You describe her reaction the the bucket…which makes me think, since you mentioned the bees, that likely a bee (yellow jacket?) was in the bucket and stung her.  Seems she was more reluctant about the bucket than the tie area/post.  Remembering that horses are very sensitive and aware of what happened before what happened happened.  Interesting point about the blocker tie, please follow up with the results of your experiment.  Continue with the training as we practiced.  One of the experiences we explore in the Despooking Demystified clinic (which Shannon has let me know she wants to schedule at Ohana Farms)  is learning to stop when something is dragging along, and to stand still if a legs caught up in something.