The Ramblings of an Artistic Equestrian

First thanks for the condolences on Appy's passing. When I get a few spare minutes I plan on posting the pictures Chris took of us last week. One thought that I have found comforting, as odd and possibly morbid as it is, is that had Appy been a "wild" dog she would have been gone a long time ago. Our pets and animal companions get such good care that they live a lot longer than they would, and longer than they did even a few decades ago. I am glad she had a long life. I am sad I had to make the choice, I would have preferred not to, but for her sake I did.

I have been very busy with lessons. I had five cancellations last week and still taught 19! That does not include working Bud either. I also finally caught up with my books (I was almost a month behind) and input all my new clients since the end of November. I have about 30 active clients. CRAZY.

Speaking of Bud I rode him three times this week. Tuesday I rode him out and worked him past a semi with a flatbed trailer. He was a little leery of it, but he worked through it fairly quickly. Thursday I rode him in his turnout and reviewed a bending counter-bending exercise and he did so well the first time through each direction I called it quits. Saturday Sue had things she needed to accomplish so I picked him up during a break and then rode him after my last lesson. I had a sense he'd be a bit full of himself as he srarted whinnying his head off as I led him over to the property.

I had a moment's though of lungeing him before I got on, but went ahead and swung up inside the dressage arena. He was certainly distracted in the warm-up and kept hollering for I-don't-know-who and trying to look this way and that. Bud's big issue is distraction. He does pretty well driving, but he also works in blinders. Riding him in an open bridle can be a chore as he just has a hard time focusing on the task at hand.

I started him in the trot and worked some serpentines. He kept speeding up as we headed North and I would check him and not quite get a full response and could feel him binding up a bit. I guess I should have really sat him on his butt rather than moderating his speed politely (because he wasn't politely increasing it, but being a bit chargey), but hindsight is 20-20. He finally threw a buck and charged off, which twisted the saddle out of place and took me a moment before I could properly engage my aids to stop him. When I got him stopped I had a pretty good stitch in my right side and the saddle was about six inches off center with me still sitting in the middle of his back. I dismounted, gingerly stretched my side and marched him to the roundpen where we did some trot-canter transitions from the ground and changes of direction until he realized I was more imortant to pay attention to me than whatever else was going on. When he looked like he was listening I asked him to walk, if it took more than five seconds he got to canter some more, then we'd trot and try again.

He was puffing pretty good when he finally decided listening was easier than blowing me off. I took him back to the arena and climbed on again. We walked a bit and then tried the trot again. As soon as he sped up I slammed the breaks and made him back up. Each time he increased speed unasked it was the same immediate shut down. He stopped speeding up pretty quickly and started trotting like a somewhat normal horse. I cooled him out and it was still warm enough to hose him down before returning him home.

I do need to remind myself I have only been riding him for about 10 months and to our knowledge that's pretty much the extent of his saddle training (not sure you count his brief stint as a therapy horse dragging people hither and yon). He still has a bit of stuff to work through as his previous owner(s) who let him get away with murder, but a far cry from my firat experiences with him!

He's still a knucklehead.

Appy will be 16 years old on February 14th. I know dogs can live longer and do live longer, but the last year I have been watching her more closely. The past six months I have been noticing things that have disturbed me, but they haven't seemed THAT bad. I know her time is short compared to the sixteen years that are behind her. When I first brought her back she had a raging mouth infection and her liver enzymes were off. At a well exam a few months later we ran blood again to see if it had returned to normal or if something else was going on. It was still high so we started her on a liver medicine. Last year she was tested again and the enzymes were still really high, but the medicine did appear to make a difference in her overall attitude and energy levels. The next step would have been ultrasound, but then what? You don'y operate on a 15 year old dog. The negatives far outweigh the benefits when you consider the stress on the dog and the chance of them not waking up at all after surgery. So I have kept her on the liver medication, knowing that it wouldn't fix the problemn but at least made it easier for her to bear.

I have noticed her hind end slipping out from underneath her more. She is running into things and takes very specific tracks to navigate the house. I took her to the groomer last week and trimmed her up hoping that would help as her hair gets in her eyes, but she is still occasionally bumping into things. Two or three weeks ago she had her first wet accident in the house. She has had more since and with greater frequency. It seems like her bladder isn't holding as it should. These are quality of life issues.

Part of me fears that if I make a decision now it might seem as a decision of convenience for me. Part of me wants to see how she is come her birthday, but that would be for the shallow reason of saying she made it to sixteen and nothing more. She isn't going to get better, she is only going to get worse because she is old. There's no fixing this.

It is a matter of when and part of me hopes she takes that choice from me because didn't I already do this? It hasn't even been five months.

She's losing her hair too. Her tail has been half-naked for a while and after this trim it was noticable how thin her coat has gotten. Chris took pictures of us over the weekend.

She's there, she's hanging on, part of me wonders if she isn't still here because shevs with me. She hangs on because she was and is very much my dog. I may not have had her as intimately in my life for seven years between moving out and two years ago because I left her with her buddy Blaze, and then Blaze passed and she didn't come home then as my parents had acquired a young, neurotic dog that I didn't even want to leave alone in their house so I didn't bring her out as much for visits as I did before. And then she came home. She's had the last two years with me and I hope they were good years.

I don't know. I'm babbling at this point, but it's hard figuring out WHEN. If I act now is it too soon? I am so scared of too late.

Last night Marty brought the boys back and asked about letting Appy out as she was standing at the door. I said sure and promptly got engaged with the boys, finishing dinner, feeding them, and preparing for bed. I forgot about her until after Chris got home ... two hours later.

This wouldn't be an issue if our property was fully fenced. As it stands we have gaps, specifically the driveways and essentially the whole South property line.

She wasn't waiting at the door for me and it was dark. I had to turn on all the outside lights and wander about. If she didn't have hwr collar on I wouldn't have found her. She was down in the wash between our fence and the road between our and the Frazier's driveway. Her hair has gotten so long she has trouble seeing and her hearing isn't so good anymore. I had to pick her up at which point I discovered she had wandered through every weed on the property.

I spent over an hour trying to brush it out. There was still all too much left, but there wasn't much more I could do and she did have a grooming appointment today. I appologized to the groomers when I dropped her off and gave a tip. She was nice and trim and sticker-weed free when I picked her up.

Definitely won't be getting another dog until we have a fenced yard. Appy is very good, but after two hours I am sure any dog would wander!

Warning: Meandering rambling ahead.

I have greatly increased my scripture reading by replacing aimless net wandering with reading from the set that I have downloaded on my phone. I am currently well ahead of what is being read and discusded in Sunday School and have been wandering about rather pleasantly. Since I have read everything cover to cover (Bible Old and New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covemants, and The Pearl of Great Price) at this point I figure topical exploration and general meandering are in order.

You forget how much is in there when you plow through from cover to cover and how things interrelate.

I was supposed to work Z today, but I ran out of time between Bud and my evening lessons. I WILL work her tomorrow. I'm thinking of throwing the saddle on her, doing some lungeing, and seeing where it goes. If she's good I may just climb on and see how we've retained walk, halt and steering. Next week I hope to be a mix of riding and (ground) driving. I need to call Michelle and start up again with breaking her to drive fully. I think I'm going to bring the vudeo camera and set it up with my little voice recorder so I can revisit the process.

Bud was a bit of a knucklehead to start. He hasn't been outside of his turnout for two months and he was testing if he really had to do this thing. I brought my 200cm driving whip, which puts me at a nice distance behind him while still being able to touch him. I brought Jed's old bridle too, but couldn't find the Kimberwick Sue said she had for him. I really wanted his first reintroduction tonthe neighborhood to be in an open bridle, but no dice.

He pitched the biggest fit right at the start as we turned onto Palmas. He wanted to go forward, but didn't bat the same time and bounced between his forehand and haunches, threatening a pseudo rearband buck at the same time. He was then a bit jiggy for a hundres or so yards until he realized that was work and knocked itnoff. We went down and back. His halts were quite nice, though standing still after them required some work. His backing was a little meh, wanting to swing sideways, but he gave me some nice ones at the end.

We had a little goober as a pair of guys were fussing with a little generator. He was wanting to swing and suck back and I consistently asked him to look away and yield over. He gave it up and stood well as the people who had been watching across the street commented on my handling of him and asked a little about driving and soforth. And that's probably where I ran out of time to work Z.

Of course it didn't help that the horses were being silly when I went to put them up. Wednesday morning something goobered the whole herd really good. They were eyeballing the Ramos' property and when I went in I had a time getting Ruby into her stall. I opened the pass-through gate for the rest of the herd and everyone refused to go in. I think Chewy was the first one to brave it and then Charm-N. Charm-N didn't want to go in her stall and took Z's instead. I dragged her out and by that time Kitt had decided it was safe to enter, but Z and Kash remained in the arena. Z needed just a little extra encouragement, but I ended uo having to use a catch rope on Kash. Charm-N was weird about the Frazier's property that evening as well as yesterday and a bit better tonight. Ruby was weird aboit the Frazier's place tonight as well.

I don't know what happened, but it was apparently enough to spook the whole herd.

Wednesday I was talking to Mom and she actually mentioned the idea of investing in my business. She asked if the Ramos' woule be interested in leasing their back portion (which simply grows weeds and breeds ground squirrels) and I informed her they (I.e. Mr. Ramos) were not. Actually first she mentioned finding a little land where I could put an arena and maybe a few stalls and perhaps do sone boarding down the line, but primarily to give me space to expand my lessons because right now I am limited by my space. I have roughly a 70x85' area to work in. I get very inventive when it comes to working on jumping skills and the figures and patterns I use are also limited by the space (as well as the speed at which they can be done). Having even a small dressage arena would be awesome. My horses also live in the arena too so there are manure piles and wet spots to dodge as well. We do keep it mucked out, but the wet spots can't really be helped and in the winter, especially after a rain it can get quite problematic.

Anyway, I mentioned the property diagonally across the intersection from Marty's. I have eyeballed and sighed about that piece for a few years. It is three acres and three sides of it are already fenced with post-and-rail steel fencing. The side that runs along San Tan and about half the side along Hawes has mesh on it as well. Water and power run to the property line and there's a hydrant on the West side. The 20' gate is at the South end of it. It is essentially a blank slate. I don't know what fencing is running right now, but I think it is safe to assume that there is between 10 and $20,000 dollars worth in the fencing (postulating $10-20 a linear foot). Mom asked for the information, which I sent to her.

Yesterday I was quite the sight I'm sure as I had Kelhan in the Moby wrap and was lugging our 100' measuring tape, a 3lbs hammer, and a stake. I measured the two exposed sides of the fence to get an idea of thr dimensions. Chris knows how to access the county assessor's stuff online for exact information, but I could use the walk and didn't feel like fussing around on the computer and waiting for things to load. I pulled out some graph paper and dinked with some ideas and am postulating possible phases of development.

I know it's nothing more than a vague idea at this point, but if it happened it would be awesome, even if it took a little time to get things started having that potential there is exciting.

By the way, phase one would be installing a 15' gate on the north end, a dressage arena (or, rather dressage-sized arena), four temporary stalls, a set of crossties for four horses, and running water line.

Yeah it might be a slight hassle having to move horses over there in order to teach (they wouldn't stay there), but I think the benefit of the space, potential, not having to pick up everything when I use it (jumps, cones, poles), and best of all not having to maneuver around wet spots, will far out weigh that inconvenience.

I'm trying not to get excited about the prospect, but as you can probably guess it is hard not to.

Chris started not feeling well Saturday and is still under the weather. He thinks he might have a sinus infection at this point. He wasn't keen on my suggestion of going to the doctor if that is the case.

Speaking of which, Wednesday I had my six week postpartum appointment. Everything checks out well. I did manage a small cyst that she lanced and drained. Not the most comfortable thing. She aaid to give it a week and come in again if needed. Thankfully it appears to be healing rather nicely.

It has been windy as all get out the last week. Wednesday we were gusting past 30mph. It is still breezy, which means Chewy is on vacation until the wind stops.

Appy was a pill this morning. I fed Kelhan around 3am and lay him back down and snugged back into bwd around 3:30. Just as I was asleep at 4am Appy "woofed" to be let out. I put her out and then fuided her back to her kennel wheb she was done. Just as I was settling again at 4:30 another bark. Put her outside and back. Guess what happened at 5am? Yes, dog again. Put her out, she wandered the yard and came back in, no pee, no poop. Half hour later at 5:30? Yes, you guessed it! Appy barked again. I moved her kennel into the garage, shut the laundry room door as well as our door and went back to bed. Three doors quite effectively blocks the sound of a very disappointed dog.

I think she was simply wanting out of her kennel, but that's not happening more than three hours before I intend to get up. If she has to go out at 6am, yes I let her roam the house and don't put her back in, but 4? No way. I so admit she has gotten very good about going out, doing her thing, and returning nto the door. She has no desire to wander about if I am not out there with her.

Speaking of the fuzz-mutt she is due for a bath and a trim. People I should call tomorrow: Tristan's swim instructor, Michelle for starting Z's driving training, and the groomer. I think that is it.

Must work Z tomorrow. Number one priority!

And no time to say them in.

Appy went through her tooth ordeal quite well. She had about a dozen teeth pulled. She still has some molars, her canines, and all but two of her incisors. She's on softened food for a week before going back to the hard stuff. She's getting antibiotics twice a day and painkillers once a day until both are gone. Chris asked when she was going back and I said I don't really want her going back. He pointed out we don't really have a dog friendly yard (all fences are designed to keep horses in, not small dogs) so we have to step out with her and if it's anyone but me a leash is required.

We'll see if we've settled into a good routine come Wednesday when she'll be off of the soaked food and hopefully done with her medications.

Good news: she does not stink anymore!

Other news: we are getting tons of dirt, but still not quite enough. The dirt pad guy is saying the pad is going to end up at 4' at the North end, but Chris and I ran some twine and leveled it and weren't even close to that, a bit over 2'. We don't have a whole lot of confidence in their measurement as the guy had the stick upside down to start.

They should be starting on the pad sometime next week if all goes well.