I'm trying a new stifle exercise with Chrome that I had read about, forget about and then read about again in my Equine Fitness book by Jec Aristotle Ballou. Using a square bale of hay I have to walk him over it, trying to keep him as straight and as slow as possible. Going slow is what helps build up those muscles that support the stifle. At first he would step over with his front legs and swing his haunches around the side of it, but I did eventually get him to walk over it straight by halting him after stepping over with his front feet so that it was under him, having him stand a second and then asking him to step his rear hooves over. Here's a video of some of our better attempts...
He's definitely feeling better. His perky, pesky personality is back lol. I didn't even realize he was acting different until today. A friend of mine suggested having a chiropractor look at him since this could be a back issue as well. I'm in the process of trying to find one.... I hate moving!! I miss all my old equine contacts lol. I'm just glad my farrier is willing to travel so far to keep trimming him. :)
Anyway one reason I know he was feeling better is because he was galloping around and doing his floaty trot this evening. :D Yay! His stifle stills locks occasionally, but it doesn't seem as sticky as the past three days. Since he was trotting fine today I'm going to start his Couch to 5k tomorrow again. I've decided I'm going to go out and walk him twice a day for at least ten minutes even on his days off since he's not moving around as much as he did on the thirty acres. Keeping him moving seems to be making the biggest difference. Hopefully with these stifle strengthening exercises I'll be able to prevent this getting so bad again. I have several other exercises to try, but I'll share them later when I can get pictures or video.
Thank you everyone for your support and advice. I was feeling really sad about all of this coming back, but you guys helped to make me feel better. I'm so happy to have all of my blogging buddies. Night everyone!
Okay... let me recap what has been happening.... I've been thinking about this a lot and I think Chrome has had stifle problems longer than I thought. When he was younger... I don't remember the exact time frame, but you can probably find it here on the blog... I thought he was lame in the rear end. He walked with a short stride on one side. At the time I thought it was hock soreness or growing pains, but now I'm wondering if the odd gait was from very mild UFP (upward fixation of the patella a.k.a. locking stifle). So the very first day I noticed a pronounced locking stifle was the day we moved to our new home on February 3rd, then again the next weekend on the 9th/10th. I started handwalking him consistently in late February and didn't see a problem again until March 16th, but it wasn't locking on that day, he was just stomping it every couple of minutes which he's never done before that I noticed. This is all on his left hind by the way. The stomping happened after his first round penning session where I only trotted him for two minutes (literally I timed it).
So I started his Couch to 5k training on March 16th. It started out with five minutes of walking, two minutes of trotting and five more minutes of walking. So from March 17th to April 5th I didn't see a single sign of any stifle problems at all. No stiffness, no short stride, no lameness, no locking, nothing. And then BAM on April 6th (yesterday) it starts locking again. I walked him a little and let him graze in the yard, but I brushed it off thinking it would go away like it has each time before. Then today it was even worse!! There were times he was dragging his leg and/or hopping forward to get it unlocked. He was jerking it almost to his belly at times when it would pop loose and I got terrified it was stringhalt again, but I did tons of research and talked to a bunch of people today and it's not stringhalt. I just have no idea why it came back. Why does it show up and then disappear for weeks at a time? We were up to five minutes walking, seven minutes trotting and five minutes walking and he was fine! Was it because I rode him on Friday? Was trotting with my added weight too much too soon? Was it because I was asking him to yield his hindquarters? That's the only "new" exercises I had added in.... I rode because it was a beautiful day and I wanted to ride my horse and I was doing the hindquarter yields because several people suggested it for strengthening the stifles... after doing some reading I'm wondering if I added in too much too soon. What I'm reading now is saying just ask them to yield once or twice in each direction and that's it. I was doing it four or five times on each side.
I did a lot of thinking today trying to figure out where this is coming from and I think it's because he went from 30 acres to 5 acres and from hilly to flat. So I'm thinking I need to go out and walk him around the pasture for five to ten minutes several times a day, even on his days off from his actual workouts. When his stifle starts locking he stops moving around and just stands by the gate. When I walk him around for a bit the next time I glance out my window he's off in the back pasture grazing. I think getting him moving is very important, but I'm wondering now if I need to start over with the Couch to 5k (5 min walk, 2 min trot, 5 min walk) or keep going where we left off (five min walk, seven min trot, five min walk)....
Anyway here is a video from today....
And here is one from two months ago....
I'm talking to my trainer about taking him to her lameness specialist, but it's a looooooooooong drive, so I don't know when we will be able to do it..... any suggestions? What should I ask them about? What should I have done with the vet? Should I just see my regular vet? What should I ask him? Thanks for listening guys. I appreciate your input. :)
P.S. Something else I realized today is that the locking stifle is on his club foot and the problem usually shows up when he's due for a trim..... I'm having my farrier out asap to trim him to see if that's the problem. I'm probably going to shorten his trim cycle too, so any input from the barefoot trimmers/specialist/enthusiasts is greatly appreciated as well. :D
Some of you may remember the Donkey Days I used to do (http://rdxhorses.blogspot.com/search/label/Donkey%20Day), well it's back! Tonight I finally locked Zep in the round pen... so it's time for Operation Tame Led Zeppelin. :D His halter had started to rub his nose a bit, so I had to loosen it!
I was feeding Chrome his supper and as usual Zep was hovering nearby waiting for the handouts he knew I would be giving. :) When he took a handful of feed I reach under his chin with the other hand and clipped the rope on his halter. I called to my husband so he could come help and Zep moved away. When the rope moved it spooked him and he bolted. I couldn't let go fast enough to avoid a minor rope burn, but I'm okay.
So Zep galloped all over the pasture because the evil rope was chasing him.... I was kind of hoping he would wrap himself around a tree since it was my super long rope, but he didn't. We fed Chrome and Faran in the round pen and it wasn't long before Zep went in too. After locking him in (and removing the horses) we opened up my hay ring that has three pieces pinned together to make a corral. I gently coaxed him (by following behind him about fifteen feet away) into the hay ring chute. I pushed the ring closed behind him and he was caught! It was really cute. He fit perfectly in the hay ring lol!!
Once he was caught he stood still and let me loosen the halter. It's really weird that once he's caught he will let me pet him all over the head and neck and mess with his halter to my heart's content.... weird. So after loosening the halter I fed him several more handfuls of oats and let him out. Then I closed the hay ring again so we could feed his hay in it and he couldn't poop in it or sleep in it. Tomorrow we will set him up with a lean-to just to keep him dry. I think most of the cold weather is past..... I hope. This winter has dragged on sooooooo long lol.
So anyway I'm going to start clicker training with him again and I'll post each Sunday for Donkey Day with an update on our progress for the week and hopefully I'll have lots of pictures. :D
