No Big News

Today has been a very crappy day and I now no longer have any big news to share with you, so please disregard any mention of it.  Tomorrow is Chrome's fourth birthday and I'm just looking forward to that.  Tomorrow will be a better day.  :)

Ride 29 & Hoof Pictures

Since Faran hogs all of the hay I let Chrome eat his while tied to a tree (he has to be tied or he tries to eat grass instead) so that he gets enough.  It's convenient for grooming, cleaning hooves, taking pictures, tacking up (I rode bareback today though), etc. He's so shiny and the picture above is in the shade!

I rode for twenty minutes.  I cut the ride short because I thought he was sore from his trim on Wednesday.  It felt like he was short stepping when going down a slope, but when I got off and led him he was walking fine.  We've had a lot of rain though and his toes were digging into the dirt which made it feel like he was short stepping.  It's possible he is still sore, but I can't see anything when hand walking...

I also figured out why he's acting balky.  I thought it was because he wanted to try to eat grass, but he was balking on the driveway too.  After watching him for half an hour (while he ate his hay) I finally realized what it was.  It's because his legs itch!!!  I inspected his legs and they are covered in bug bites (or maybe sweet itch).  He was literally chewing on his legs every minute or two.  So you can imagine why he kept trying to stop while I was riding.  When I wouldn't let him lower his head (because I thought he was trying to get grass) he would walk on and stop again.  Poor guy.  Anyone have any suggestions for his itchy legs?  I'm going to start his Neem oil treatments again since the gnats are apparently back out already (normally this doesn't start bothering him until July or August!).  That will prevent new bites.  I need something to stop the itching from his current bites though.... it might be time to buy an antihistamine....

Anyway, back to the ride.  In the above picture we were standing in the grass and I left the reins on his neck.  He did not once try to eat grass or walk off.  Good boy!!  A+  It's good practice for standing still and patience though.  I bet you can't guess what happened next.... I put my camera away, picked up the reins by the buckle with my left hand and took my cell phone out of my pocket to check how long we'd been riding and.... he spooked!! This was the first time he's spooked with me on him.  Something from the neighbor's yard behind us spooked him, but all he did was jump forward (and boy does he have some JUMP when he wants to!) and trotted off.  He stopped when I told him to and everything was fine.  It startled me though because I wasn't paying attention, had the reins by the buckle and we were bareback... good reminder to pay attention while on horseback!!  He is such a good boy though.  :D

Now, on to hooves... I probably should do this in a separate post since I've already asked one question (about the itching), but I am sharing the big news tomorrow and Chrome's birthday is Sunday, so it would be Monday before I could post about them, so you just get one huge post for today.  :D

Here were his hooves before the trim...

Now you can see why I was practically begging my farrier to come out!  That's a LOT of growth in less than eight weeks!

 

Look at how much hoof she took off!

 

And these are from after the trim...

 

 

 Sorry about the grass.  I meant to get some on the driveway and forgot.

 Sorry the pictures suck and I only showed the left front.  I will try to do better pictures soon.  Anyway, it may not be obvious in the pictures, but my farrier does very little rasping at all and won't bevel the hooves (even though I've asked her to), so I bevel them myself (but haven't yet because I wanted to get pictures).  So what is you opinion on the trim?  How does his hoof look afterward?  What does it need (besides a bevel)?  Thanks for any advice!

Ride 28

I talked to my mom about Chrome and she thinks I need to exercise him everyday instead of giving him days off, but not necessarily riding him everyday because sitting around for a whole day is causing the stifle to get worse.  So yesterday I hand walked him around the property for thirty minutes, up and down the dirt pile, over all the fallen limbs/trees in the pasture, up and down the driveway, etc.  Mom was right!  After the walk he was moving MUCH better!  :)  So I'm going to keep riding every other day and hand walk him on the other days.

Today was ride day.  It was hot (well hotter than I'm used to after winter lol) and I haven't been sleeping because of my allergies, so I was feeling really lazy.  In fact I didn't want to ride at all.  So I rode bareback around the yard and I'm glad I did because we had fun.  He was being awesome... well he was still balky at times when walking through the grass (he walks out great on the driveway, it's just because he wants to graze, but he still doesn't try to dive into the bridle, so it's okay), but we worked through that.

We walked around for ten minutes and then did some trotting.  He trotted the length of both driveways (my grandparent's driveway branches off of ours) and did so well!  He LOVES trotting!  The great thing is he happily comes back down to a calm walk when asked.  And he was doing whoa perfectly!!  And standing patiently for fairly long periods of time (I was chatting with my mom and being lazy lol).

We also worked on backing a little and yielding his hindquarters, but I didn't want to do too much because his stifle is still locking.  The ride was twenty five minutes long.

My farrier finally came out and trimmed him.  She took off a good three quarters of an inch of hoof!!!!  I can't believe how quickly his hooves are growing.  I asked her several times to come early and she wouldn't so I guess I'm going to have to start trimming him myself between trims.  I don't mind doing it, but I just have to be very careful with my back.  I'll post hoof pictures when I can.  I didn't take before pictures of all of his hooves (just left front) because.... once again I was being lazy.  Sleep deprivation sucks lol.

Anyway I have big news soon.... I'll post when I can.  :)

Ride 27

Sorry no pictures.  I cleaned out my feed/tack shed this morning and the dust got my allergies so stirred up that I took a Benadryl and then slept all day... :(  So when I went out to ride Chrome it was past time for them to have their supper and he was being so barn sour.  I rode bareback out in the pasture for twenty five minutes.  He was being balky headed away from the barn and walking fast going toward it.  So annoying!!!!!

I finally got a small limb to use as a whip and then didn't even have to use it lol.  I walked him around through the trees, up and down the dirt pile hill and over all of the fallen limbs and trees in the pasture.  I trotted him around in the back of the pasture too.  He's slowly learning how to trot while turning in a half circle, but I was having trouble doing it because he was being balky, grr.  We've mostly been trotting straight lines though so at some point we have to learn how to trot while turning.

It was a pleasant ride though because the weather was perfect and it was so peaceful outside.  He wasn't being obnoxious to the point that I didn't enjoy myself.  I just hate having to kick him with my heels when he balks, but I'm not going to nag either so kicks are what he got.  He quickly figured out that if he didn't go when I squeezed my calves he was getting the heels next.  I think from now on I'm going to use the clicker out in the pasture so that we can focus on learning how to back, trot, yield, etc. and hopefully that will keep him from fixating on the front gate.  I'll also try not to ride him at supper time if possible from now on.

I don't want you guys to think it was a bad ride though, I just want to be honest when he acts bratty so no one thinks he's perfect lol.  To me he's pretty close to perfect hehe, but he has his days.  I hope you all got to ride and that your horses were perfect and not barn sour lol!  Night!

Donkey Day

 My boys playing bitey face.

I didn't have time to mess with Zep much other than feeding him and petting his face, so today I'll just spam you with pictures lol.  I've been busy all week cleaning out my old house and finally finished it (thank goodness since the renters move in June 1st), but still have outbuildings to clean out so I'll probably be busy again this week, but I'm getting there.  :)  Anyway here are the pictures.

ZepZep rolls a lot because the flies bother him but he won't let me fly spray him.  :( 

 He sure is cute doing it though!!

See he's sitting again!  Told you I trained him to sit lol.  Just kidding.  :) 

Look at that evil expression!  I bet you can't guess what he did next... 

 Yep he stole it.

 I'm soooo dying to get a brush after him!  I wish donkeys didn't take so long to shed out.

Grabbing a drink after all of the fun.

One thing I did accomplish this week is that I got his halter off.  I was crouched next to Chrome while he ate and Zep came up really close behind me.  I twisted around and rubbed him nose, then his face, then his ears, then I reached around with one hand and unbuckled his halter.  When it shifted on his face he spun away from me and then stood there.  It finally fell off of his face.  :)  The reason I took it off is because even though I loosened it a bit it was still rubbing his nose.  I'll just leave it off.  Someday I'll get around to clicker training him to accept haltering.  :)