Monthly Progress Report

 This photo is blurry but I love it!  I love his neck when he arches it like that!  So handsome!

A note before we proceed.  I'm going to stop putting height and weight gains on his monthly progress report because he's still 15.2hh and it's kind of a pain to measure him for his weight.  I prefer to just do his weight when I deworm him and not worry about it the rest of the time.  I'm pretty good about eyeballing their weight.  He looks like a good weight right?  So for now I'm going to just do his progress and goals for each month.  I'll probably measure his height on his birthdays (he turns four in a month!!!) from now on since technically he can grow taller until he's seven.  :)  I'm also going to use my trainer's measuring stick (the kind for horses) to see if I get a different measurement.  I've been using a 1 by 2 and a level to measure him for years lol.

Date: 4-19-13
Age: 3 Years 11 Months

Progress:  Since I totally forgot to do his progress report last month it feels like we've done a LOT!  I've been so bummed out over the last week or two that we haven't done anything because of his stifle and my back so I looked back through my blog and we have accomplished a lot.  We went on walks, went for rides in the pasture, trotted, learned how to free longe in the round pen, relearned how to longe on a line, completed three weeks of our Couch to 5k (sucks to start over but I will next week-busy moving stuff from my old house this weekend), played with the four wheeler, etc.  I'm proud of what we've done.  Now that my back is feeling better I just need to get back to it!!  

Goals:  My main goal is to start our Couch to 5k workouts again.  It was definitely improving his strength and balance.  I'm also going to focus on exercises that strengthen his stifles, like the hay bales and cavaletti.  The one thing I'm going to do different this time is walk him everyday, even on his days off to keep him moving.  I'm hoping that will prevent the stifle problems from cropping up again.  My other goals are to get his teeth done, although that might be next month since they are having discounts on dentals (yay!) and to find a chiropractor to check and see if his back is bothering him at all since pain, soreness or stiffness could cause him to not use his stifles in a way that strengthens them.  I don't think his back hurts.... I really don't, but a friend said it helped her horse with a locking stifle, so I figure I should try it.  A visit with a chiro can't hurt anyway.  :D

P.S.  My blog buddy Janine's (http://enzo-janine.blogspot.com) post just reminded me of something else I have to work on!!!  Trailer loading!  Chrome was not exactly easy to load the day we moved, so I need to work on that with him since he has to have his teeth done soon....

Now I have something very exciting to share!

The picture is horrible, but do you notice something really cool?  He's laying down!!!! I haven't been able to approach him without him standing up in three years!  When he was out on the thirty acres I just never saw him laying down.  Since coming here I've seen him lay down a few times, but normally when he sees me he jumps up because he thinks I'm going to feed him, let him graze, groom him or play with him.  Today when I got home I noticed him laying down so I ran out to the pasture as fast as I could (he was laying right by the gate and having me run straight towards him didn't spook him yay!).  It took me a minute to get the gate open because the chain was stuck, but I finally got in and cuddled, scratched and hugged him.  Then I ran to the house to get my camera, ran back to him (startled him awake oops, but he still didn't get up), cuddled him some more, took pictures and fed him crackers for being such a good boy.  Unfortunately the crackers gummed him up and he had to go get a drink.  :)  I hope he finished his nap when I went back inside.  I'm so proud of him though.  He's such a good boy!  Sorry the pictures aren't great.  I was so excited and didn't pay any attention to the settings or anything.  And the one above I was holding at arm's length and had no idea if we were in frame lol.  

 Sleepy Chrome.  You can see by my shadow that I was right next to him.  He moved his head to so it turned out blurry, but still so cute!

And here are the rest of the pictures I took this afternoon.

I think I tilted the camera here because in the other pictures he doesn't look butt high...

I (or rather my husband) was using my target stick (dowel rod with tennis ball on the end) to get him to stretch his neck out, but Chrome decided to eat it..... haha!

 Posing with his head up instead of stretched out.  :)  Isn't his summer coat coming in pretty??

And I let him graze in the back yard.  He loves it!  Most of that is clover and weeds, but he enjoys picking through it for grass.  :)