New kicks and naughty pants

 new shoes

turned out and went wild

Finally..some consistency

 Finally!! I feel like I'm able to make some progress again. Dan's poor little pecs have atrophied while on stall rest because we haven't been doing our homework. He regressed. Of course, I need to adress his feet too and then hopefully we'll really see progress! But today we got another session in. We hiked up to the arena and did our pillar work. After his roll of course. ;) 

He was good! Again, we didn't really work on the rock back, but we did some pillar 3 today. He *might* even be getting the hang of mirroring my feet. :) He did it a few times. Smart boy!!

It was super hot and humid though. Ugh. So we didn't stay out there for too long. We did lots of walking though with a nice long relaxed neck and a very forward walk. Yay!

Good pony. Now to hope for some rain and time to keep up the work. Freddie is coming Thursday, so.. let's hope we can make some changes in his feet pretty quickly without being too quick. 

He was distracted in the 3 high neck photos. MOST of the time we had a nice soft happy neck, like in the second photo :) 

Fun Play Date

 Today was a fun day! I slept in a teeny bit. I took my time feeding ponies. Then I took Funny out for a little bit of work. Then I enjoyed some air conditioning. I left the ponies out for a bit as the breeze was pleasant enough and Dan was behaving. I did bring him in when I worked Funny. Cause I'm not dumb. 

Then it was his turn to play. I loaded him up and we went and picked up Indy. Yay! BFFE! We hauled to Serenity Creek for "Jupiters 5th Birthday Party". It was basically a ton of obstacles and spooky stuff to play with. They had bubbles, pool noodles hanging down in the breeze, pool noodles from the side in a squeeze, cavalettis', a small pool with floating duckies and noodles, an inflatable fire hydrant, a turning pole on a barrel, a teeter totter, a tire to stand on/in, etc. I figured it would be a fun thing for Dan to do. And hopefully he would behave. He did. Kind of. ;) 

We got there and unloaded and walked over to the check in place. They wanted us to paint the ponies so the pictures would be more fun so Dan got a ton of blue and purple hearts on his butt and Indy got pink hearts. Then we headed to the arena. Dan didn't mind the bubble machine. But they had one of those inflatable skinny "salesman" things that they always have at used car lots! ha ha. That was a little alarming! They also had three giant balls with unicorns in them that were rolling around a little bit next to the wind machine salesman thing. Both dan and Indy were a little freaked out, but managed to get close. Dan did rear a few times and attempt to spin, but I managed to keep him under control. We investigated some umbrellas and walked over some cavalettis. We also walked through the weave poles. They had a fan with a mister on it. Dan LOVED that. He kept sticking his face in it and his forelock would wave in the wind. Hee hee. He did try to eat it though. Whoops!

Then we headed to the field to investigate those toys. Dan sniffed the stuffed dragon and was like "whatevs". He wasn't phased by the inflatable fire hydrant. The turning pole was a little squeaky so he jumped at first but nosed it a few times. Then we went to the pool. He marched right on in and started pawing. Unfortunately he was starting to paw some holes in the tarp on the outside rim, so I pulled him out and didn't let him play. I didn't want him to destroy it. They had an unside down teeter totter (laying flat), so like a bridge, and he walked down that no problem. He walked right on the real teeter totter but it was fresh wood so it was a little slick. He got halfway down it, before it started to tip, and then jumped off sideways. Whoops! We're not supposed to be doing stuff like that Dan. Watch your stifle! Then we walked over the railroad ties criss crossed cavalettis and he tried to trot and missed and got all scrambled! Eeeks. Your stifle!!! But he was getting all spazzy. So we stopped for a moment and grazed to let him self soothe and calm himself. Then we tried the hanging noodles. It took him longer than I expected but they were also flapping pretty crazily. He did try to eat them though too. Ha ha. But he went through. I also managed to get him up on to the big giant tire tractor with sand.  He also pawed the tar out of the sand while up there, but was a bit bouncy so I didn't get photos or videos of that. Then he jumped off! no!!! No jumping!!! Ack! Maybe this was a bad idea! 

We then went to go bobbing for apples. They had some water and some water with apples. Dan drank a good bit (good boy) and then saw the apples. He quickly (like within 20 seconds) figured out that if he pushed them to the bottom and held them down, he could bite them. He probably bit pieces off of about 1/3 of the apples in there. Ha ha. Whoops! They were having a blast! We finally pulled them off the apples and decided to head home. 

So, they had a fun hour or so. I hope that it gave Dan something fun to do and broke up the boredom of resting and not riding. And hopefully he didn't tweak himself and undo our last month and a half of misery. I did see him trot this morning and he looked fantastic! And then he cantered a tiny bit. Doh! But tonight after we got home, I fed him and gave him his meds. He was pretty tired and was snoozing in his stall. I let him rest for a bit and then turned him out. No running while out but he was walking a good bit. He looked pretty decent at the walk. Maybe I imagined some shortness/assymetry, but it's hard to say. I did give him a gram of bute just to help in case. So.... fingers crossed we will be okay tomorrow! He'll get bemered for sure tomorrow too. I meant to do it tonight but it's so hot. 

Back to the "grind"

 Ha ha! 

I finally got a day to do some pillar work. It's just been too hot and hard to do it on work days. 11 hours working in this heat and humidity and then still have stalls and feeding... it's just not gonna happen. But Thursday I managed to find some time. It happened to be the hottest part of the day thanks to a poorly timed and extremely long car servicing appointment. Sigh. Oh well. 

I took him up to the arena and he immediately rolled. But he enjoys it so! He was all red and dusty though. Ha ha. So then we did some pillar work. I focused more on letting go in his neck and walking with purpose forward. We didn't do as much pushing his balance back because of the shoes still. But we got some good work and plenty of yawns and licking. Yay! We also played a little bit with the abduction in pillar 3. Going to the right is definitely harder (Right? Or was it left? I think right). But we got a few good steps. 

Then we headed back in. I rinsed him off and cooled him down and they went back in their stalls while Mike and I went to go get motorcycle gear. 

That night I ended up turning him out in the dog pen pasture... because there's actually still grass and it looks like the rest of the pastures and soon to be this pasture will be fried to a crisp soon. So I figured I'd let him enjoy the grass and since he's been so good... I could make sure he wasn't silly while I cleaned stalls. And he wasn't. He just sat there and grazed. Not even any trotting or anything. Trazadone is magic!! 

I almost left him out all night, but figured I'd be smart and put him back in his lane. Which, to be honest, is the length of the pasture anyways because I opened it up since the grass had all fried up. So if he wanted to gallop, he still could. 

Good boy making good life choices though buddy!

And then tonight... I put him out in the pasture again and again, he just kept grazing. So I might leave him out all night. We'll see. :) But we had another pretty sunset!

Bodywork with Betsy

 So.... I made poor Mike come home a day early from the beach so I could do the Bodywork With Betsy clinic. She's one of the girls who works with Celeste and does the pillar work. So yay! And honestly, we were pretty beached out at this point. :) And we missed the animals. Although it did suck coming back to reality. But it was good to be back home too. I missed the stars and the quiet and peacefulness. 

I said hi to all the critters and fixed the water troughs and got them all cleaned and fresh with new valves. Then I went and got Dan from camp. He did great and seemed happy. I'm so glad Aubrey was able to take him. When we got home, of course, him and Fleck played wild stallion and were being naughty over Funny. Dan ended up snagging his left hind on the broken board and held it up for 2 minutes. Seriously horse?!?! Enough already with the injuries!! The good news is no big scrapes or bumps and he seemed fine after a minute or two. Although it's hard to tell if he's sound because luckily he's only walked or done two little bucky squirts. So... hopefully he's sound. Between the missing shoe, the puffy fat right front, and now the left hind smack and the right hind surgery.... I'll be lucky if he comes out of this pasture sound! So..come on Dan.. get it together!

Anyways... I was a little worried to take him away after bringing him back since him and Fleck were dueling, but... oh well. I didn't get up super early but we managed to get to the farm the clinic was at by 10:30 I think. Dan got a large round pen style stall in the shade, so he was a happy camper. He settled in and just chilled. He was quiet most of the day. Although he apparently did try to open the gate so they had to tie him in and a friend went to see him and he tried to eat her phone. Ha ha. 

Anyways, he was the last of the day. I watched the others and it was cool stuff and helpful. By the time it was our turn I was getting a migraine though, but luckily not too bad. I grabbed him and he was his usual busy self... walking around and being a nosy pest. Betsy looked at him and immediately zoned in on his feet. Basically he's got "clown shoes" on and his toe is too long and too far in front of him. His heel angle doesn't match his toe angle and she thinks that is a HUGE part of the problem. She noticed he's getting a little roached too and said she felt like a big part of that was the long toe. She said his pasterns were short and sized for a 14.2 hand horse not a 17 hand horse, but that his feet were for a 17 hand horse, so... it was too much. She was sweet and took photos and drew some angles and lines for me to show to Freddie. And, looking at those, he's not too far off, but... I agree.. he looks like he has the broken back axis and I feel like his feet are too far out in front of him. She said that this was all contributing to his posture and tight psoas and weak sling. She suggested only doing pillar 1 and not doing the rock back yet because until we fix his feet, we're just pushing him back into the dysfunctional hind end. Sigh. She worked with him a little bit but not a bunch. He was so distracted and nosy and bulldozer-y. She said it was likely because he wasn't aware of his where his feet were. So, we didn't really do any pillar work. I did a little while she was talking, and got a few good yawns and releases. She did give me some good advice on the whole "relationship to contact" and him pulling/yanking on the lead rope. She told me to get a flag (ideally the extendable one from amazon) and carry that all the time. Hold the lead rope like it was reins, because when I have my pinky towards him, it gives me more stability and strength. And if he's polite and walks, I can go with him. But if he pulls... rather than pulling back, flap that flag around him! Not beating him, but flapping it as a distraction so he stops pulling and focuses on me. And if he pulls hard, flap hard. If he pulls less hard, flap less hard. That way he learns to soften to contact without me having to "yell" harder. Cool! We'll try that. And we've got a session with Meg coming up in July to work on just this too, so I can be practicing in the meantime. 

So yeah.. it was helpful, but also a little depressing. I was hoping that we'd get to work on the pillars... maybe even do some nerve release stuff. And I was sort of thinking his neck was looking better despite the fact that we didn't do anything this last month, but not really. And it was a gut punch to be told that his feet were awful and ruining him. Especially because I've been thinking they were a problem for a bit, and Rana told me the same thing awhile back... and I just haven't done anything about it. Partly because life... partly because UGA told me they were perfect... partly because I hate confrontation and Freddie is good at what he does and I trust him...  I was a little overwhelmed and sweet Gail came up to me and told me she saw me struggling and not to worry and gave me a hug. She almost made me cry. Oh, it's so nice to have such sweet friends. 

But the good news.. the silver lining.... BY GOLLY I'M FOCUSING ON THAT SILVER LINING!  God is working all of this together in good timing. I mean.. I know I've been needing to work on my patience. And clearly I was not doing in hand pillars and had started doing them under saddle, so... perhaps this "forced" time off is the only way God knew I'd do it. And now I've got no excuse to get his feet figured out. And hopefully I can get Freddie to fix them and not have to find a new farrier. I'm being impatient because I was hoping to spend this month doing pillar work and then next month I can start lunging, but now if I can't really do pillar work until I get his feet fixed, that puts me 10 days behind "schedule" (Freddie can't come til the 30th). But I suppose I can still do pillar one and work on relationship to contact. And then once Freddie comes, we can start pillar 2 and 3, which he probably shouldn't be doing until then anyways. Sigh. I'm trying to be patient... but it's so hard!