News

The vet called Friday afternoon with the news.  Her white blood cell count was good but her red blood cell count was low signaling that she is anemic.  The vet said that he wasn't too worried about it.  He would come back in a month or so and take another blood sample to make sure the red blood cell count didn't drop anymore.  In the meantime, we were to "worm her real good" to make sure it wasn't because of worms.  I have the horses on a regular worming schedule but I re-wormed them all again on Saturday, just to be on the safe side.

Star has been feeling great since we started her on the Bute pills.  We were worried she wouldn't eat her grain with the bitter tasting Bute pills in it, but she cleans up her grain dish - every last bit!  The swelling is still there but has gone down and she's been trotting around in her turn out.  I have her with Melody in her turnout and I think I'm gonna leave it that way this winter.  We seem to have peace within each grouping, so why mess with it?

Gunner's swelling has gone down a little.  The vet said he should be back to normal within a week so I'm keeping an eye on it to make sure it does.

I've been doing more groundwork exercises with Melody whenever I lead her in or out of the turnout.  She's been introduced to the tarp.  I first had her walk on it - no big deal.  She sniffed it a little and then walked on and stood with no problem.  The next time she walked right onto it, no questions asked.  The next time, instead of walking on it, I rubbed her with it.  She was alert at first and then got bored.  I repeated all the tarp stuff with her for about a week and then moved onto laying it across her, over her head, neck, back and butt.  She did some dancing but nothing major.  Those lessons were repeated over the following week until she was bored with that too.  It doesn't take much for her to be ok with what we work on.  She's very trusting and has a good head on her.  She came in from turnout the other day with a mystery cut on her face.  I have NO IDEA where that could've come from.  It's healed up nicely now, though.  Being a light colored palomino Melody is absolutely filthy, and you can see every spec of dirt on her!  I can't stand it!!  Zoe is a buckskin and her cream color gets really light in the winter too but she keeps herself clean, but not Melody!  I think she finds the smelliest, muddiest spots in her turnout and rolls, and naps there!!  I'm looking forward to the warmer weather already so I can get her clean again!  Yuck!  I should try to snap a picture just so you can see how nasty her creamy coat is!  Oh well, nothing I can do about it.  We brush her the best we can but it doesn't get the deep down stuff...

With all that's been going on, not much progress with Zoe lately.  She's been itching for work so I did lunge her the other day.  She was happy about that!  We are going back to working on leadership exercises to help build a better working relationship before the riding happens again.  Not that it's a bad relationship but more that we haven't been working together for a while now and I want to start off with a trusting relationship.  Make sense?

Well, that's all for now!




Quote for the day:
"He who has health, has hope; and he who has hope, has everything."

-Thomas Carlyle