Gorgeous day for a walk

Dan got a day off yesterday, because... I thought maybe giving him a day off between rides was smart. 

So today we went for another walk. And it was BREEZY and a bit brisk/cool, but he was super. He didn't put a foot wrong :) 

It was a gorgeous morning and we were by ourselves until we got back to the parking lot. Then it was starting to pick up.

Walk ride #2

So.. I left Fleck at home today because Kelli offered to let me ride Marvin. So... Dan hung out in the trailer while I did a 45 min or so dressage ride on Marvin. He's kind of fun. He's a lot like Dan... only he's passive aggressive while Dan is active aggressive. But both are just cheeky. I was able to practive my Kelly homework with Marvin because.. he kind of has the same issues as Dan. It was kind of fun really... and in many ways... helpful to know that I'm not an inadequate rider... It works.. It just.. wasn't really working because Dan was sore and compensating. I mean it was working... and he was trying. And there was some habits between both of us that made it hard, but.. you know what I mean. It was just nice. And it's nice to have a horse I can hop on, have fun with, but am not obligated to do anything with. So... maybe that's a good way for me to stay "in the game" so to speak and get my dressage itch scratched without having to made Dan sad. Anyways, after the dressage ride we went for a hack. He was super. He was in front and marching. He totally feels like those dancing swaggering goats in that video. Hee hee.  

So when we got back, Dan was still quietly chilling in the trailer. He's sooo good! I swear, if I have to do stall rest... I would probably be better off leaving him in the trailer. hee hee.. Anyways. I unloaded him and started grooming him and the neighbors to Ashland started doing some crazy construction and making crazy annoying sounds. Dan got keyed up and on edge and I was wondering if my ride was going to go well. But I figured once I got his feet moving, he'd settle. So.... I tossed the bareback pad on, grabbed my neck strap, and opted for his jump bridle. And off we went. And sure enough, I was right... he marched out and we had a great ride. He didn't put a foot wrong. We grazed, we stared at things, we walked.... we had a nice ride. I'm trying hard to avoid all the hills, but... it's hard not to. 

It was a pretty pretty day! 

I cannot make this stuff up!!

Are you for real Dan?! For real?!?! So... I slept in... and finally got up to feed. And it's still a little chilly. He's at the gate by the front right field so I say hi and tell him to come eat. He comes RIP ROARING up... and skids to a halt in front of me. Sigh... that is NOT resting your stifle son. So I manage to herd him into the stall after minimal shenanigans with the dogs. They eat.... I turn him back out... give him his hay. Take his blanket/sheet off. Lock them in the barn pasture.

Then I go inside to eat my breakfast. And it warmed up quick so I open the back door and am about to pour some cereal when I hear the gate clanging. I peek out.. Dan's not pawing at it, so I carry on. And it clangs again... So I look again! He has freakin' rolled INTO the gate and is apparently stuck. So I run out in my socks, jump the fence, and get to the gate. His shoe is caught in the wire of the gate... half ripped off... and he's stuck. I can't get the shoe to come off the gate... can't get the gate to move... and meanwhile, I'm starting to panic that this is going to end poorly. So I finally realize that my best bet is to just finish ripping his shoe off. So I do... Dan is still up against it, so I unlock it and it swings forward (thank goodness it swings both ways!) and then he shifts.. puts his front leg under the fence... but luckily manages to shift up and gets up and is like... "Thanks Mom"...and saunters off. Of course... guess which leg is hung in the fence.... THE RIGHT HIND!!! Seriously Daniel.... OMG!!!! You're killing me... killing me!!

Unfortunately.. he then took off at the trot for a step or two and then slammed on the breaks so I don't know if he wrenched it and was sore... or if he just hit the breaks because he ran into Fleck's big ol' butt... 

I texted Freddie and explained and said that if he wanted to wait til next week it was probably fine. Funny enough.. he was literally leaving a farm 10 minutes down the road so he drove over and put it back on. I barely had time to get dressed before he got there. HA!

Freakin' horses! 

Sanity restored.... for now

So.... I decided that in an effort to keep both of us sane... there was nothing wrong with Dan and I going on a 30-45 min walk... on flat ground... a few times a week. Dr. Laura agreed with me. And it will help keep him fitter, which should help keep him muscles around his stifle stronger, which would minimize wear and tear on the joint, right?! Right. :) 

So... we loaded up and went to Ashland to enjoy this amazing gorgeous spring weather. Seriously... I don't remember ever having a Spring where we got more than 3 days of beautiful weather. This whole month so far has been glorious other than the rain/tornado watch Sunday. It's not even been humid. It's been amazing! Of course... sigh... 


Anyways... it was nice. We just walked to the lake... down to the creek crossing... and back up through racoon loop. And he was super. No jigging.... no spooking. He was just power walking, but not in that manic way he did at the beach on the last trip.. just a regular power walk. He stopped to eat a ton. And stopped to look at some other horses in the XC field a few times. And when we first started... he slipped out a time or two. Eeeks... But he didn't seem phased and we carried on. We had one small short little hill I couldn't avoid and he immediately popped into the canter and cantered two strides up. oops! But maybe that's less stress on his stifle than walking?? He makes me laugh though... on Racoon Loop he stopped to sniff. I didn't see poop or anything but he was sniffing like a blood hound..  Then I realized there was a ton of bird feathers. Ewww... Then he stuck his lip out and up and threw his head up. Hee hee. You're a goober Dan! A goober!

It was a pretty day. And I guess it's maybe because I'm home all day... with nothing to do... but he seems sooo bored! He's been hanging out at the fence... staring into the house.... poor guy. 

That's not RESTING Dan....

So.. in an effort to cheer myself up, I decided to ride Fleck. I figured I would do it at home, so Dan didn't have to be left home alone so soon. Yeah... shenanigans ensued. Dan does NOT feel ouchy.. or not ouchy enough apparently...

He came along for the ride... and added some shenanigans on his own. Of course Fleck tried to crow hop some too and was silly. But.. it was good for my soul.

Vet Visit

It's taken me a few days to write this, because.. it just freakin' sucks. I've had to process... and I've had to focus really hard on trusting God and putting my faith in Him. And maybe I'm being too optimistic, but... I don't know what else to do... so here goes..

I took Dan back to the vet for another recheck. Because... something isn't right. And maybe it's unrelated to the hitchyness/rein lameness I'm feeling and have felt for awhile. But... jumping Dan is not his normal self. Even Dan is not his normal self. The other day when I tried to take him for a gallop and he really didn't even want to canter. When he is adding strides in the lines. When he is struggling to get through grids. When he is telling me no over bigger fences. When he is not jumping out of stride. And yes.. I thought it was confidence or training issues... but lately, I've decided it's not. I'm not scared anymore. Yes, I'm nervous, and yes it's hard to be confident when he's not taking me to the fences, but.. I'm not riding him backwards anymore. Something isn't right. And now, he's not breathing as well as he used to. He's much more labored with not a lot of work. So... is that pain? Oh, and... his topline is looking rough lately, as is his butt muscling. And maybe it's because I had upped his work and he was dropping weight... but maybe it's because something hurts so he's not using himself properly. So.. I had finally had enough and decided to get to the bottom of it. Because.. if there was nothing going on... then maybe I did need to send him to a trainer. But there was NO way I was going to send him to a trainer without making damn sure there wasn't any pain issues. 

So... we went to see Dr. Laura. We got there and they looked him over. He's a little sore in his back still. They agreed that while he looked SUPER and better than before at first glance.. his topline looked a little crappy and his lumbars and LS area and gluteals looked a little weak. We watched him jog and did some flexions. Nothing too horribly exciting. He was a little positive to the right hind, a little more positive to the left SI joint, and a little positive on the right front I think. So then we lunged him. He kept counterflexed while tracking right and his haunches kept falling in. But again.. maybe 2/5 lame on the right hind,, and 1/5 on the left hind. Same the other directions. So.. then I got on and rode him. And honestly, he felt more lame to me. As in, more lame than he felt yesterday or even most of the time before. They thought he looked way sounder than he did on the lunge. So I hopped him over a cross rail. It was a little hard to evaluate as when we tracked to the right, he had a longer approach and jumped it fairly nice and even took one flyer. Tracking from the left, he had a shorter approach and kept chipping and even groaning as he went over. So we talked. They agreed that he was breathing harder than they expected and he even had some frothy nasal discharge. So we discussed options. They felt like a bone scan wouldn't be a bad idea since it wasn't a glaringly obvious lameness issue. However, no one was available because of the virus. Although perhaps Aiken Equine could do one. So she messaged them to see. In the meantime, we talked about doing a BAL for his lungs. We decided to go ahead and re-xray his stifles because I was a little worried about the cyst on the left stifle. We also figured maybe we could inject his stifles again and see how that made him feel until we could get in for a bone scan. 

So we started with xrays of the stifles. The left one looked great and that cyst thing was really hard to find... maybe still there but definitely not worse and maybe even better. So yay for that. Then they did the right stifle. It took awhile and they were struggling to get the bones lined up right. The right stifle showed narrowing of the joint space, an osteophyte and scerlosis of the intra condylar space. Sigh... That's bad. That's especially bad since the images 10 months ago didn't look that bad. And in those past 10 months we've done two rounds of IRAP. :( So then she suggested we do an ultrasound. So we did. And it's bad too. It showed bulging on the medial mensiscus and possible disruption of the meniscal ligament and possible disruption of the lateral ligament too. That's bad. So bad. 

So basically... the plan is to send the images out for consult and see what happens. In the meantime we rest him up and wait. However, we decided that stall rest was not really an option and the best bet was letting him stay out and hoping he didn't go bonkers and fling himself around. We also decided that perhaps a 30-45 min walk a few times a week, on flat ground, wouldn't be the end of the world. It may help keep him sane and keep him from being bonkers in turn out, and in theory, keeping his muscles in shape should help support the joint. I'm also lasering him daily and using the bemer daily. 

So... I'm heartbroken. I'm terrified! I don't know if I'm even going to get to do more than just walk on the trails with my boy anymore. I don't know if he's doing to destabilize and I'm going to have to make a quality of life decision sooner rather than later. The prognosis all sounds pretty grim. With meniscal injuries the return to current level of work with arthroscopy surgery is about 50-60%. But if you add in degenerative arthritic changes, that goes down to like 35%. BUT... that is also with significant lameness. So it's hard to say with Dan. As really.. he's not significantly lame. I really would like to think that there is a chance he can go back to jumping, even if we don't get to do the prelim 3 day, but realistically, I'll be lucky if I can get my bronze on him. And I feel so awful for continuing to ask him to jump, for basically a year... the whole time he's been telling me that it is hard. And then I even put someone else on him... and he got in trouble for stopping. It breaks my heart. I feel awful. And I hate that he never got a chance to really shine. I go back to how amazing he felt at Jumping Branch, and... I think we could have gone far. UGH... this freaking sucks. So bad... And he's not even 9 years old yet! :( 

Puzzling... this one...

Sigh... this horse!! I love him, but man.. I wish I just knew what the heck was going on!! So... I decided to ride today.. because partly... I wanted to, partly I wanted to make sure that what I was feeling I was still feeling, and partly because I wanted him to be tired for tomorrow so that his vet visit could be productive (in theory). Currently, my thoughts are that when he is tired/fatigued, his symptoms are worse.  And I thought hard... if it's a tendon/ligament issue, I didn't want to break him. So I decided to put on the dressage saddle and do some dressage. If he felt awful, I would just go for a long hack. If he felt great, we'd ride and then go on a long hack. 

So that's what we did. We met Kelli and we both did our dressage. Dan was actaully pretty good. He was doing his whuffly concentration snorts... drooling well.. and I feel like I was able to accomplish my Kelly homework. I was actually able to get some left rein connection on my own again. Yay! We even had some really nice half pass work, although he was a bit fussy in the bridle in the beginning when I took up the connection. We then went to canter. And.. it's not great, but it's not as bad as yesterday. He fell out of the left lead a little bit, but not as much and it wasn't as hard to keep him in it. And now I'm wondering if he's just weak from actually using himself. ??? So anyways.. we did both canters and just focused on getting him straight in the connection. Then I had Kelli watch me and she pointed out that my arms are getting a little stiff and locked. Oops.. I think some of that is side effect of trying to not knit and instead close my fingers on the reins. She also said that my left hand is sneaking back and down again, and I needed to lift it to help lift that left shoulder of his. But we got a fairly nice canter actually.... so... maybe he's not broken??? It's so frustrating... 

So then we went for a long hack. And we started in the XC field and we were talking and... I decided that maybe I should hop over a log or two and just see... since he felt game and not sluggish. I mean, I'm in my dressage saddle, but... whatever. So.. I got a nice canter... circled and got a nicer canter.. and then we popped over a log. It was okay, but I didn't go straight to the coop because.. I can't remember... we either drifted or... something. So I circled, got my nice canter and we did the small log to the small coop. We're talking tadpole here. And he was game. So then we went the other direction and did a different small log to the novice cabin. And... he was going and was game and popped the log.. and then the very last stride at the cabin... right at takeoff, he hesitated. He went... and he was game up to it.. but right at take off, he hesitated. I praised him on landing and we quit with that. Partly because it's awkward jumping in a dressage saddle and I didn't want to punish him accidentally... and partly because.. he tried! And maybe.. I'm getting greedy. But he tried... and clearly... something made him hesitate. And.. I don't think it's me. I mean... I don't think it's confidence necessarily. It almost feels like he wants to do it and then gets there and is like... "I can't! or.. It's gonna hurt". I don't know...  Kelli saw it too and sort of agreed with me. She said that she thought he looked very game and happy to go the entire time other than that last stride. So... ??? Oh, but she did say that at least over the last jump she saw my left hand come back and down. Which, could be shutting him down. So... He does still drift hard right, so I've been closing the right rein up against his neck, closing my right leg on his barrel, and then opening my left rein. But maybe I'm not opening it like I think I am and maybe I'm actually shutting him down?? Which could be the whole problem jumping... except... he did it to Lexi too and I'm not sure she did that with her hand either. So... ??? Yeah.... We continued on our hack and had a great ride. We chatted the whole time so I didn't get any photos other than this one.