Frustrated Again

I am not going to recap the Jimmy Wofford clinic today. I had every intention of doing so, but something else came up. To prove I was actually there, here is a picture from it.

Jimmy is the guy in the foreground, obviously.

Sorry. I will do it this week, but I'm just really frustrated right now. Izzy's follow-up chiro/acupressure appointment was yesterday morning. She reacted so poorly to the last one that we added a magnesium supplement and a vitamin/mineral supplement, let her take it pretty easy for two weeks, and decided to try again.

Fail.

Izzy was WAY worse yesterday than she was the first time. We got less reactions as far as rearing and leaping just because she was even easier to read. She normally stands quietly. Not so yesterday--as soon as Toni would touch her, Izzy would start pawing and shaking her head and stress-biting the lead rope. She was fussy about everything and wouldn't let Toni get anywhere near her rear end. Period. Forget it.

Izzy didn't even want to stand still. If Toni moved, Izzy moved away from her. So weird.

I just want to scream. Something is obviously wrong. Izzy doesn't even like to take her right lead when she's loose and she fusses about either lead under saddle. She doesn't want to go forward under saddle. At all. The saddle is fine--I'm pretty in tune with her 'I hate this saddle' reaction and that's not what she's giving me. Instead, it's a total reluctance to push off her hind end at all. Something is wonky and she doesn't want to aggravate it.

I'd say she's just being pushy except, as I mentioned, she's the same when she's loose. She doesn't want to go forward, doesn't engage her hind end, and she's a horse that's pretty happy in her work most of the time.

She isn't lame. She isn't off. She isn't even short. All legs are functioning well. She's not really an arthritis candidate, and even if she were, she's not acting like an arthritic horse. Her back under the saddle is fine--the problem is in her lower back somewhere. Over the kidneys, basically. Her hips are fine. She likes a good, hard curry.

Every time I groom her, she scootches over to the left, pushes her right hind leg as far forward as possible and reaches back with her nose to indicate it. I've tried undoing the crossties to let her scratch something--no. She just wanders off to eat. She wants me to fix something and I don't even know what it is.

We tried cross tying her to see what would happen. She showed the same response she's been giving me (something's wrong, mom. fix it), but still didn't want Toni anywhere close to her. Toni stepped back and handed me a soft brush out of my grooming kit. Under her instructions, I worked up and down Izzy whole leg, which she really seemed to like, complete with licking and chewing. Then Toni tried to have me set my hand on Izzy's lower back with my other hand on her stifle. Izzy tried to cow kick me. We tried just using the soft brush. Same response. I stepped back and looked at Toni. We just stood there for a couple minutes, trying to give Izzy a break.

Finally, Toni looked at Izzy and said, "If you want to be done, you need to start licking and chewing."

Izzy started licking and chewing almost as if on cue. I swear that horse understands english. We decided to be done. I stood by Izzy's head and was talking to Toni, who patted Izzy on the neck. That was fine--Izzy doesn't mind Toni touching her as long as she isn't doing anything. We Toni started to rub her neck, Izzy pinned her ears and started pawing.

So. What now? Toni is just as confused as I am. She's never hurt Izzy in any way. Izzy does not usually act like this AT ALL. I can curry pretty much her entire body and get no negative reaction. She likes it. I guess now I can brush her right hind leg more and see if that does anything but otherwise I'm totally baffled.

I could call the vet out and say, "Hey, my horse is totally sound and in fabulous condition. I have no reason to suspect anything is wrong but something isn't right. Will you please charge me several thousand dollars to tell me that she's fine?"

Seriously. No heat, no pain, no swelling, no unsoundness. She doesn't even stock up in her stall. A fellow boarder mentioned that she's a mare in spring and maybe it's hormonal and she needs more magnesium. I could go for that, except that she's been on magnesium for two weeks and nothing has changed.

So... any ideas for the completely clueless owner? Really. If you have ever owned a mare, please contribute an idea. Even a dumb one--it's more than I've got right now.

Wondermare's Opinions, V 2.0

I made it out to the barn before Toni, our lovely chiro, showed up. I quickly turned Izzy out in the arena to get any silliness out and let her roll, then gave her a thorough grooming so Toni would get minimal mud-and-shed on her while she was working.

Izzy was pretty laid back and happy. No inclination of what was to come from either side.

All went well at first. Toni started at Izzy's head and worked back towards her tail. She had some issues with her head/face (anyone else not surprised?) and a little bit in her neck. So far, reasonably good. As Kate suggested, Izzy did have a rib out on her right side, which definitely contributed to her unwillingness to do anything to the right.

Then we hit Izzy's lower back.

The area marked by the red arrow.

Izzy took a flying cow kick at Toni, who scrambled back and commented, "I knew that was coming."

Now, here's a visual for you. Izzy is 16.0 hh. I am 5'8". Toni is not as tall as I am.

The red line indicates how tall Toni is.

Not tall.

Anyways, there are various challenges to working around large, athletic horses, as Izzy was demonstrating for us. Toni commented that if we weren't careful, Izzy would punt-kick us to Pluto.

"Actually," I informed her, "due to the size differential, you'd go slightly beyond Pluto."

We laughed, but we talked about the problem we were presented with. Izzy did not want us handling her lower back, period. Toni tried going very slowly and lightly, and Izzy gave us another big reaction.

Sigh. Mare.

This is directly above her kidneys, so Toni asked if I'd wormed lately. The wormer can cause pain in the kidneys. I hadn't. However, she did get her teeth done while sedated, so part of the problem is most likely the sedation working it's way out of her body. Oh, and also her hind legs have been a little messy the past two days, which means she's coming into her first heat of the year. Yay hormones!!

Ok, plan B. There is still something wrong up front. Maybe we can work on that while we think about how to address the back end. Toni goes to Izzy's side and we get ready to move sideways. First time--ok. Need to do it again.

Izzy rears up and plunges forward as we leap out of her way. She doesn't continue being upset after that. She let us know that it was definitely not ok to do that, then stood quietly.

At least she's honest, right? We turned her out to see if she had any issues to work out. Nope, just stood around eating. Hmmm. Toni doesn't want to push her anymore. We take her to the indoor. She does seem to be moving better--not so tight and slow as she has been. She also gets in a very thorough roll, going over several times.

While she wanders around, we decide to try a new approach. Izzy now has a vitamin/mineral supplement and a mare/hormonal one (with oodles of magnesium) to help sort her out. Oh, and Toni didn't think we made enough progress, so she didn't charge me for the session.

Izzy wandered over to us to demand that Toni scratch her. No hard feelings, apparently.