SMOOSH VET

In addition to loaning me an entire pile of saddles to play with, Roxie's mom came to visit the other day. 

10/10 sharing this photo because my hair looks randomly amazing

Annnnnd while she was patting my beautiful Zoebird, she nearly got a chunk taken out of her. Which reminded me I'd been meaning to schedule the chiro vet.

So I did that.

and then we went through the magical light tunnel
it's a thing here ok

Anyways. Zoe is a fantastic lady but her entire life has undergone drastic changes in the last few months and her body doesn't really even look the same. It makes sense to me that she'd need a little support. 

she just wanted to play with the awesome giant horse lego

My chiro vet LOVED Zoe, haha. With Courage, you always had to be on your toes a little bit because he tended to launch in various directions to express himself. With Zoe, we just had to make sure she didn't get a chance to play too hard with the handy dandy standing block. 

Because it looked SO FUN. 

ugh fun police

Aside from being a little bit cranky to tack up, Zoe has been great. I appreciated the vet taking the time to talk about managing draftie type horses. Vet also took her time going over Zoe. She described everything she found as pretty basic stuff given the level of work Zoe is in and her overall training development.

tongue stretch!

You wouldn't think I could find a way to brag about how my baby mare is the best at chiro adjustments, but this is me we're talking about. It was so fun to watch Zoe's brain work. This was her first bodywork appointment, so a lot of what we were doing was unfamiliar. She just sort of let the vet mess with her and then relaxed when she figured out it didn't hurt. 

I wasn't expecting any surprises, but it was nice to have a trusted vet sign off and say "yup everything looks great" after a few basic adjustments. 

NQR, Responsibility, and Budgets: An Honest Look

You may have noticed that actual Courage-related content on the blog is sort of disjointed and infrequent.

bridle game strong

That is intentional.

Homeboy is developing well and his muscling looks great and he's getting pretty solid on the ground and blah blah blah. Lunging makes me want to gouge my eyes out with a rusty spoon.

But something isn't right.

He'd get bodywork and then a week or two later, be just as bad as he was before. Under saddle, he'd walk for about 10-15 minutes and then it was just tension, Tension, TENSION AND SIDEWAYS INTO THE WALL. Didn't matter if I rode or my trainer rode. Didn't matter if we adjusted a number of variables. He wasn't "naughty" per se, but he'd get more and more and more upset.

Which is weird.

A+ there captain obvious

But hey. I get anxiety and pain and wanting to murder everyone in the room or running out the door and never coming back. I really do.

And all those things scream I'M NOT OK. Language transcends species.

And thus we begin down the NQR rabbit hole.

Step One:

Routine teeth + sheath with our regular vet and talk over options.
Cost: $150 (but also it's just routine maintenance so whatevs)

I know all the manuals say you should have a relationship with your vet, which is a scary idea if you're broke ass and avoid seeing them. But. Our vet is fantastic and was more than willing to answer questions and educate.

Step Two: 

Chiropractic appointment with acupuncture vet
Cost: $80

This step isn't required, but I wanted another set of eyes on Courage. I'm still so so on acupuncture, but the most valuable thing that came out of this for me was thoughts on where to look for issues. She said front feet and hocks lit up with pain markers.

Step Three:

X-rays and Hock Injections with regular vet
Cost: $290

Initially, I was all "must change one variable at a time like good scientist". But like. If there's pain in one part of the body, the other parts are compensating for it. I decided to do the 1-2 punch and go for it. My vet is consulting with our farrier. Vet also recommended adding in a vitamin E supplement for muscle recovery and Cosequin for joint support. (We can have a separate post for me kvetching about how much I hate feed throughs, but vet said try it, so damnit we will use it.)

Step Four:

Regularly Scheduled Farrier Appointment, now with X-rays
Cost: $80 (standard maintenance)

Once we knew what was going on inside Courage's feet and front legs, we were able to make some informed choices to change his shoeing. This is the great thing about having a solid team in place--the farrier listened to the vet recommendations, looked at the X-rays, and made the changes. He also brings a wealth of experience and presented me with some more options. Basically, we can try this, but if it doesn't work/is not enough, there are other things on the table without getting too expensive or crazy.

Step Five

See what happens.
Cost: free

The nice thing with this process so far is it's not like "OMG LEG HANGING OFF AT FUNNY ANGLE MUST FIX NAOW". We do something, see if it made a difference, and then try something else. Everyone I've worked with has been very upfront about costs and willing to work with me. I'm building my own knowledge base and learning to make educated guesses about my horse.

At the end of the day, I know my horse. I even like him. I know that the way he's acting isn't right for him and I want to know what's up. I get money problems (omg trust me on that), but with the ability to space things out and know prices in advance, I can plan for costs and mitigate them.

I don't know where that leaves us--round one of injections, X-rays, and shoeing is done. Let's see what happens.

Reality Bites

If you've read this blog for any length of time, you know that Courage is a reactive, opinionated, sensitive thoroughbred. He survived on the track for a long time by taking care of himself. He's slow to trust and quick to get defensive.

and he rocks the hell out of this browband

For a lot of people, he's a hard horse to read. I've had more than one trainer dismiss him out of hand because while there are some cool things about him, his defensiveness makes him seem like quite an asshole. Which. I mean. Yeah.

BUT.

At the same time, the opposite response is to always assume he's a dumb horse with a pure, reactive pain response, which is also missing the boat a little. Sometimes he hurts and that's the behavior and sometimes he's protecting himself and that's the behavior.

and sometimes he's just adorable

The magic to Courage is learning how to understand him enough to know the difference. What do you ride through and say "you will" and when do you get off and look for other answers?

Obviously, an integral part of this is understand how his brain works--the "average" horse gets tired and doesn't particularly want to work, if you will. So if you up the work load and ask for more, you're going to get some resistance because prey animals like to conserve energy so that they can run away from predators.

Whereas Courage is a result of hundreds of years of domesticated, specialized breeding. He'd never last two minutes in the wild (where's my grain bitches) but he will 100% work his tail off and has never understood the word "tired".

def understands "fabulous" tho

And the hard part of riding him isn't "kicking enough to keep him going". It's the mental gymnastics of "why is he offering this behavior at this time". It's the ability to divorce my pride as a rider and trainer from his behavior and keep the conversation about the horse. It's letting go of artificial expectations and listening to what this horse has to say right now.

the only moment that matters

Please don't read this as "I'm perfect and sooooo good at everything", because I'm not. I definitely let myself get too wrapped up in goals/expectations/ideas about performance and then need a good, hard reality check.

What's more, Courage is a damn complicated horse and it's not worth it to everyone to sort him out. But. I got him straight off the track. I took his prime resale years. He's now a twelve year old horse with no particular accomplishments to his name, which is not an overly great track record. I owe it to him to do my absolute best by him because I chose to bring him into my life.

high proficiency at the velcro game tho

There's no guarantee that if I stick it out with Courage, that he'll be the next great show phenom or whatever. The odds are definitely against us.

I'm an amateur. I'm not here to win all the things and make myself look good. Horses are the part of my life that help me make sense of the rest of the world.

sometimes you can't help yourself

That doesn't mean barely scraping by and doing the bare minimums and complaining if I don't get the max payout. It means putting in the time and the money. It means effort, energy, dedication. It means looking past the surface for answers underneath, listening to my intuition, and challenging myself to be a better and stronger person.

Courage is reactive, opinionated, sensitive, and defensive. He's not for everyone.

But he's mine.

this

And because of him, I will learn to do better.

Wherein SB Spends ALL the Money (not including tack)

It's been slow on the horse front lately. Two weekends ago, Courage was on a field trip and got a (metaphorical) bee up his (figurative) bonnet. He generally ties like a champion, but he pulled back HARD and SEVERAL TIMES.

And of course, all that had to be like four days post-bodywork by his usual lady.

I gave him a couple days off, then tried riding again.

We mostly went sideways and in a hurry.

carefully cherry-picked nice moment

Apparently, trying to rip one's own head off is not recommended for the body sore horse. But also apparently, the week before leaving town is a FANTASTIC time to hemorrhage money straight into your horse.

We did vaccinations and then a few days later, standard spring "teeth and sheath" funsies.

spent all my booze money on getting him drunk wtf

I had a good chat with the vet about Courage's proclivities and maintenance. He was a model patient, even though his teeny tiny dose of sedation made him too drunk to walk back to his stall and we got stuck in the parking lot for a while.

not actually a joke

The following day, we had another vet out for bodywork stuff. I say "stuff" in the most technical sense of the word which means that I'm not 100% sure what to call what they do, but it does make a huge difference for Courage. What I can say is his normal lady does more muscle manipulation/therapy and couples it with cool high tech tools. This lady is more focused on spinal type stuff. Hard to say. They compliment each other well and I value having multiple eyes on my #wildmustangdressagestallion and hey, always fun to try new things.

ears like this the whole time. watching her and his body.

There used to be this super cool older gentleman who came to our area and while he was a vet with a scientific explanation for everything he did, there was this soothing force field around him that horses really responded to and he made huge differences with simple things. This lady trained with him and Courage responded to her similarly to how I used to see horses act with the older guy.

I have never seen Courage be so calm, relaxed, and focused during an adjustment.

not murdering anyone #winning

She found all the same problems spots that we normally have, plus a few others. We talked about his history, his lifestyle, and the other vet's comments on him. He's been just not... great... in terms of movement lately. I mean, he's not unsound that I can see or feel, but he's not holding adjustments well and he doesn't look as good as I think he should when he's moving freely.

I mean, I was willing to admit it might just be me being hypersensitive, but something isn't quite right. Plus, Courage and I have been doing a lot of simple ground work and not pushing the riding and hard work lately and he's turning back into the horse I remember him being and less of the overreactive lunatic I've seen the past six+ months.

at long last, lady

And because Courage is a horse that doesn't mind the hard work as long as it isn't hurting him... that's something to think about.

Before starting on Courage, chiro vet just just checked him out and all the indicators for pain in his front feet and hocks lit up. After working on him, we talked about a plan of action. I was already tossing around hock injections as an idea because high-mileage 12 year old warhorse. She wants to give him a couple weeks to see where we're at. Some of the adjustments she did are things she only has to do 1-2 times on a horse to see a permanent change.

soft eyes

We also discussed doing front feet xrays to see if they will help my farrier out. She's all "might help see angles/some horses do better with non-standard angles so i dunno" and I'm like BITCH PLEASE IM AN AMMY TAKE MY $$$. So yeah those will be scheduled here shortly.

She also said that he's the type of horse who either does AMAZINGLY well with acupuncture or who will have NOTHING to do with it. Imho, the horse gives zero shits about needles and was fine with her connecting acupressure points with her hands, so he'll be great. Also imho acupuncture is hookum, but I'll gladly shell out for hookum to see what it does for my horse. #adultammystrong

yup

(And now that I think about it, proprioception is something Courage and I both struggle with and logically it actually kind of makes sense to stick needles in shit so you feel it moving.)

Annnnnnd that's where we're at. To me, it's worth it to spend the money to look for answers because dammit. I like this horse.

Trouble in Paradise

Lest you think I've reached this new, happy zen status and everything is peachy, well, it's not. 

Last week, I had a lesson. In true Alyssa fashion, Alyssa took gorgeous pictures of it and you'd never guess that any attempt to turn right had us flailing sideways into the fence. That was not awesome. Then I showed up on Thursday (admittedly in the middle of a giant storm) and C-rage wouldn't let him touch him in his stall.

Because wild mustang.

pictured: not Thursday

I snapped. I'm not proud of it, but there is only so much a person can take and I've been hanging out dangerously close to that line lately. 

And by "snapped", I mean I texted a few friends that I was selling his stupid bay ass. And had a full-on meltdown at the barn. And my barn friends were like "whoa um here try riding some other horses". 

i steal her

So I did, over the next few days. The lovely painty mare in the picture above is freaking perfect. Tries so hard. Super well trained. Admittedly, her owner has put years and years into getting her that way and has the patience of an absolute saint.

And then another friend let me play with an OTTB she has for sale. He's a cute mover and a nice horse and a little needy and unsure of new people and yeah, I realized all my years with C have done a lot to make him the way he is (easy on the ground) and that yeah, the asshole thing is where it's at for me (dammit). 

oh and this one year progress hot kinda blew my mind

One thing that has been very upsetting for me is realizing that showing Courage doesn't even sound fun to me right now. But showing last year was pretty traumatic and abruptly cut short and never resolved and now I'm not in a good place physically, so yeah. A show would be overwhelming. 

But you know what's not overwhelming? 

A field trip to a friend's house.

So we did that. And you know what? Courage was great. I felt like steamed poo so I didn't ride, but I could have. Courage was brave and uncomplicated and yeah, he was a little up, but he settled and put in some quality work on the lunge and then he just hung out and looked around calmly while our friend rode. 

He wasn't obnoxious or insecure or annoying. He got on and off the trailer with no fuss. He stood tied like a champion.

And really. If I'm thinking clearly, I know that Courage's big tell for pain is that he quits turning right. And I know that he really does best with monthly body work and I know that I've kinda skimped on that lately because I don't think he's working that hard, but since it's his body, I guess he gets to make that call. 

consider it made

His body work is scheduled. I'm not riding him, not even to loose-rein-toodle, until after that. I'm actively pursuing other horses to ride. I need some time to breathe and I need to not be a jerk to my horse, especially since I'm the one who got him in to this situation. It is my responsibility to make it right. 

After all, it takes a special horse to rock the hell out of this browband. And that matters to me.

Sympathy

We all know I'll spend money on Courage without so much as the drop of a hat. Tack, blankets, bodywork, random herbal shit when I'm hormonal, basically anything I think might make his life 0.1% better, he gets.

spoiled and he knows it

He gets bodywork a lot. His bodywork lady always says 24 hours off, which I meticulously count off. If he gets worked on 3pm Saturday, I'm in the saddle 3.15pm Sunday. Plus I always call him a persnickety pain pussy because he's so reactive about the process that clearly makes him feel better. C'mon dumbass. Show a little gratitude, amiright?

trying to figure out where to bite her

Cough.

At this point, I should possibly mention that never in my life have I had any form of massage, chiropractic adjustment, or physical therapy. Other than a myofascial release class through pilates here and there, I haven't bothered to spend that money on me.

But in the aftermath of the car accident, I finally did get a massage because I hurt so much.

Ummmmm yeah have any of you ever had one?

DEAR GOD THEY HURT SO MUCH.

And then not only do they hurt in the moment, they hurt hella more later.

pets don't mind. pets just cuddle.

So uh.

From here on out when poor C gets bodywork, he's also getting AT LEAST a full day off (maybe a week) and an entire bowl of bute.

THE POOR HORSE OMG.

Magna Wave Meets Reactivity Personified: A Magna Wave Maxx Review

I'm skeptical about alternative therapy for horses. I think new technology is super cool and I love living in the future, but I also think it's dumb to spend money on untested tech that may or may not do anything.

this pic is never not appropriate

Good news: my bodywork lady totally gets that.

(Aside: people like to ask what bodywork is. It's some combination of massage and chiro and I can't 100% tell you what she does, but when she works on C, we go from not going forward and not turning right to going forward and turning right, so it's worth the $ to me.)

our specialty

Bodywork lady also runs an equine rehab center and she usually lets us play with the new toys when they come in to see if it's something we're interested in doing on our horses. Courage has gotten laser treatment and ultrasound stuff, I gave Alyssa  Courage's turn on a Theraplate to see what happens (answer: made her nauseous), and I think we've done a couple other things. To this point, I haven't noticed that anything outside of the usual hands-on body manipulation was doing anything for Courage.

getting started

And then bodywork lady shows up with a thing called a "magna wave". It looked like a glorified hose lasso attached to a suitcase or tiny R2D2 droid and it popped like an electric fence. It has little wheels on the body so it's easy to move and it plugs into a normal outlet, so pretty straightforward. (research tells me this is the Maxx model).

Given Courage's extreme reactions to ropes/hoses (DO NOT LIKE) and hearty respect for electric fence (won't step over a single strand 1' off the ground), I figured this would be another failed experiment where I might get some good NOPE pictures but would achieve nothing useful.

Bodywork lady walked into his stall with the weird heavy popping droid suitcase hose thingy. I was SHOCKED that Courage gave it minor side eye, then was 100% ok without even moving his feet.

And then I was completely floored.

Not only did he like the treatment (I'd already tried it on myself--feels weird, doesn't hurt, did feel good after), he literally dropped his head below his poll and completely relaxed his entire body. Apparently, the machine/hose combo uses electro-magnetic pulses to essentially give a deep tissue massage. I don't know how I feel about any of those words in particular, but the change in Courage was remarkable.

This is the horse who leaps around, rears, paws the air, bolts away, and generally has a meltdown in his overreactions to pain when we do bodywork. He relaxes afterwards when he feels better, but it's borderline dangerous (at best) for myself or our practitioner and I never feel comfortable asking someone to hold him for me.

After a nice long session with the Magna Wave, Courage stood there like a sleepy old school horse, eyes closed, ears floppy, poll below his withers, and was completely passive and cooperative for the entire length of the adjustment.

and gave big releases

Which was less than a third the normal amount of time because there were no flying hooves to dodge or trooping around the barn trying to catch him after yet another escapade. (Yeah he possibly has a reputation...)

Um. Sign. Me. Up.

Courage is a special snowflake for sure and I try to do anything I can to keep people around him safe and happy. This was worth it for the increase in personal safety for myself and our bodyworker alone. I mean, we both kept repeating "I don't even recognize him" and "do you think we killed him"? I also asked her if I could get my own, and she said sure but pointed out they cost a tidy 20k so yeah, not happening here.

Per our bodywork lady, you can actually get on and ride immediately vs the usual 24-48 hours off after stuff like this, but I had somewhere to be so I didn't get to see the after-effects until I pulled him out the next day.

I threw him on the lunge line and then scraped my jaw off the floor--dayum.

don't even know this horse

Homeboy floated around like I've never seen him move. I ended up not riding, because he also felt super good, which entailed grunting oddly every few strides and periodically leaving the ground ways I just didn't care to ride.

eh no thanks

He wasn't naughty or bolting or any number of previous lunge line shenanigans. He just looked like he felt amazing and he was expressing himself. Nothing was sustained or idiotic.

Even without the after pictures though, I'm a believer. The change in him was mind blowing for me and regardless of how well it holds long term, the sheer fact that he was able to let us work on him without the big reactions makes it worthwhile to me at this point. I will say I watched our lady use it on several horses and there were a variety of responses, but for Courage and one of his girlfriends, this nifty tool could be a game changer.

10/10 will use again. Definitely recommend.