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Horses and Birthdays and no schedule

It was my birthday on October 18th. I turned 40. I called it doomsday...tongue in cheek, of course, but it was the first birthday I actually dreaded. Oh, my husband surprised me with a wonderful spa day and dinner, but I still felt a little sad.

I'm in another age category. Those mountain bike climbs are getting harder. And the greys are coming in faster.

Now, before I turn this into a whinge-fest, the subject of this post is I had this crazy notion to get on Jasper for the first time in order to celebrate the dreaded b-day.

I've been getting him comfortable with the saddle for a couple of months now. I walk him all over the ranch, longe him with it, and stand on the mounting block beside him and lean my weight on it. He's been wonderful about it. It's been soooooo tempting.

But as I've become more attuned to Jasper, I feel the tightness in his neck, the slight wariness in his eyes. He looks relaxed...but...he is still a little worried about what's going on back there. If I were to try getting on him too soon, it could backfire. Knowing Jasper and how sensitive he is, it would take awhile to get him back on track.

Although it would have made that day a whole lot better, he just wasn't ready. Why would I waste months of training to push him into something so that I could feel good?

So I didn't get on Jasper on my birthday. I'm not sure when I am going to get on Jasper. He doesn't have a schedule and neither do I. But I will know when he is ready.

And I feel a whole lot better knowing that.

Progress - the long road does pay off in the long run

It has been 10 months since Jasper arrived on that long haul from Alberta. It's been a very long journey but it has paid off. Sometimes I think we have gotten absolutely nowhere, other times I am amazed how far we have come! For this reason, I thought it would be prudent to make note of all of the things we have accomplished together thus far.

At this point in time, I work with Jasper 3 times a week, and a lesson once a week with the owner of the ranch. Michelle has helped me inmmensely with bringing Jasper along.

10 months ago, Jasper could barely be caught, he would usually run away. Following is a list of what Jasper can now do after many months of patient gentle ground training:

• Easily caught and haltered. Usually comes up to the gate looking for a treat. Lowers his head to put the halter on. (In the past he would stick his head up like a giraffe and I would have to reach up to halter him. Now he gives to pressure and lowers his head.)




• Stands still for grooming. I usually brush him in the paddock untied. He will stand pretty motionless for brushing and application of the fly spray. Even lets me brush his mane and tail now. In the past he thought the brushes were evil devices and would run away. He also hated the smell of the fly spray and would back up from it. I think he has finally realized fly spray = no flies.




• Leading. This is still an area that needs some work but has greatly improved from the beginning. Jasper can be lead anywhere around the property, even down the road. He will back up if he gets too ahead. He still zigzags and tries to eat, we are working on that. He used to stop dead and refuse to move any further, especially when approaching the willow tree as he likes to stop and munch on some branches. This has been happening less and less as I back him up whenever he refuses to go forward.
  



• Tying Up. Jasper will stand quietly when tied. I can groom, him brush, him, work on his feet




• Moving off of pressure. When we first started working with Jasper he had no idea of moving off of pressure, in fact quite the opposite. I would put pressure on his hindquarter to move off of it, slowly increasing it, and he would just stand there and lean on me. Eventually, I would get a muscle twitch. Then eventually a leg. Then finally his hind end. Thankfully, he responds to a lighter touch now and responds much more quickly than he used to.Jasper can now move off of pressure, just from pointing or gently waving the stick at the part of the body I want to move off. He will disengage his hindquarters both directions. Moving his front end around has been a challenge to say the least. He still does not like the stick waving anywhere near his face so I try to be very subtle as he will very quickly become irritated. His confidence has been gaining in this area, I just have to be very careful in applying pressure.



• Driving/Lunging - When we first started to get Jasper to move around in a circle on a line, he was very tense and defensive about it. He did not want to be told where to go, and he would decide when he stopped! It took a lot of gentle coaxing and a number of hissy fits to get him to come around. We take things very slow. Now Jasper is being lunged both directions with a saddle on his back.



• Farrier - Jasper would take an hour to do because he would snatch his hoof away from Linda, the barefoot trimmer. I worked endlessly on him lifting his leg and keeping it there for longer and longer periods of time. Also clicker training to put his leg on a step and keep it there.

A collection of Jasper pics can be found on flickr here

Jasper Gets His Hooves Trimmed!

It was a long time coming, but Jasper had finally become comfortable enough to have his feet trimmed! . As you will see from the photos, he was great!

Worms, the icky subject

I should mention that we have just finished an intensive worm treatment.
I had a fecal test done and as I had suspected, his worm count was through the roof. I had a feeling that he had probably come down from Alberta with worms as he had not been checked and he had only been wormed in September with Ivermectin.

If you have a horse that has an unknown deworming history or is in poor condition possibly having a high load of intestinal parasites, they should first be dewormed with Fenbendazole or a Panacur power pak as this produces a slower parasite kill-off than a dewormer such as ivermectin. A fast kill-off may possibly irritate the GI tract and causes abdominal discomfort or colic.

Although I want to try to maintain an herbal wormer diet for him, I had to get rid of the worm infestation he already had.
He had large strongyles and small. I don't imagine it was making him feel very good at all, although his coat looked fine and he certainly wasn't losing weight! I'm so glad it's over. He had a 5 day treatment with Panacur. We started him off with a 1/4 syringe for 4 days, then the full syringe. His first day of the full syringe, he was laying down for most of the day. But he was ok after that, thank goodness. I can't imagine those chemicals feel very good either!

Xmas Photos

I bought Jasper a pretty plaid halter for Xmas photos and he actually let me put it on him and take some shots! I was quite proud of him, as the halter jangled and clanked and he could have said' lady, you're crazy if you think I'm putting that thing on'! Yet, he stood perfectly still and let me clumsily get it over his big head. It JUST fit!

Here are some shots of myself and Jasper as well as my scaredy cat husband who now calls Jasper 'the gentle giant'!

Haltering 101

Over the past several weeks, the owner of the ranch and I have been working with Jasper. Michelle is an animal communicator and does reiki on horses as well. After a brief session with him, she got from him that he felt the halter meant he would be taken away. That is why he was so afraid of it. She tried to communicate to him that we just wanted to put the halter on him, not take him away and she felt he understood what she was telling him. She also felt his loneliness. I feel that too from him and I feel terrible about it. We are going to solve that soon, with getting him a friend but first things first. Ever since Michelle's 'talk' with him he had made a complete turnaround. I can stand by his head, touch him and take the halter on and off! Little morsels of his beet pulp help, but I would eventually run out of treats and he would still stick around. Last week I was able to brush half of him. Quite an accomplishment from just a few weeks ago!

It's been a long month and a half....

I have not written in quite some time. The reason being that we have been through so much.

Firstly, Jasper did arrive safe and sound....and scared out of his wits. The hauler did not make frequent stops as he was supposed to and only came by himself. Poor Jasper didn't know what was going on. Then the place where I was to board him turned out to be run by a hostile witch who labelled Jasper as untrained and dangerous as soon as he got off of the trailer.

I was devastated...and worried about Jaspers care.

The long version of this story involves me running around a pasture with a tranvestite (not kidding) - the short version is we moved him out of there quickly and

Jasper in the willows with his butt to me, a view
I was becoming very accustomed to.

to a much nicer place further north. A bit more of a drive but worth the peace of mind knowing he was going to get very good care. The owner has a number of rescues and trains with natural horsemanship. The one disadvantage was he would not have a large pasture to roam around in but he did have a nice large paddock.

Now I was left with a very sad horse who had not had as much training as I was led to believe and had come to equate a halter and myself with something scary. I could barely touch him without him running away. My lifelong dream of owning a horse was starting to look like a complete disaster. Over the next several weeks, I spent almost every day coming to the ranch and just sitting in the paddock reading a book, minding my own business. The goal was to let him know that I wasn't there to do anything to him and to let him come up to me. Curiosity would eventually win out and he would approach and give me a good sniff, then walk off again. During this time, I got my hands on any video and books on natural horsemanship I could find to educate myself as much as I could. I am so used to being the best at everything I do - programming, sewing....but this horse had me flummoxed. I would go home feeling so dejected because no matter how much I tried to be non-threatening he was still very much afraid of me.

At the point I was feeling utterly despondent about the situation, I saw a glimmer of hope.

I went to the ranch with my regular pail of beet pulp as an afternoon treat for Jasper. As I got out of my car Jasper put his head over the fenceline and let out a large whinny. Could he be happy to see me? That day, Jasper actually came up to me and we played in the water trough together. He loves to splash the water so I would lean down and do the same, which he seemed to like. As I left that day as my car wheeled out of the driveway and past Jaspers paddock, he saw me and walked down to the end to watch me leave. Right then and there, I knew there was some hope and maybe we could make it down this long road together....

Hauling - it's never easy

The owner had already gone through several haulers when she tried to transport several sold yearlings to the U.S. . One hauler from the US who was turned back at the border because he tried to bring a gun into Canada! DUH! Another who turned up with one driver (they had specified there must be two) and the wrong size truck.
I knew what I would be faced with. But as luck would have it one hauler had worked out well and he just happened to be going on a haul to California on the 20th - yippee! The problem was, the price tag was a little steep. We decided to shop around before we booked. This is probably different than most horse sales, because rather than allowing the new owner to sort out their hauling, my seller was to choose the hauler and they had to meet certain criteria. I could understand this because I knew her main concern was a smooth journey. They had to have a box stall and make frequent stops.
I learned that larger commercial horse haulers make frequent stops, to pick up and drop off horses and most do not offer box stalls. We thought we might have better luck if we could haul Jasper across the border ourselves and have him picked up in Butte, Montana as a lot of U.S. haulers are not licensed to cross the border. When I started calling around I also discovered that most haulers do not do North - South trips, but rather East - West.
Time was starting to run out so we decided to go with the original hauler. I was a little frustrated because he would not come down in price AT ALL...and he was going to California anyway. I think he knew he had us between a rock and a hard place. It turned out Jasper would be arriving on the 19th - a day after my birthday!
Then the news came this week that the hauler had just come back from a haul to Texas and the truck needed to be 'serviced' so they would not be able to leave until Thursday. Urrrrrrrrr. I have learned enough about haulers to know that this sort of stuff happens all the time and haulings get delayed. What can you do. At least I know that Jasper will be comfortable in a box stall and will get taken off frequently on his long journey.
But I am getting impatient to see him!

Insurance - Shop Around

I finally settled on an insurance carrier for Jasper. I decided to not take any risks my first year owning him. No matter how healthy he is, something can always go wrong, and vet bills cost the same no matter how much you paid for your horse. Hallmark Equine seemed to me to be the most straightforward and they advertise in Dressage Today. I shopped around enough to realize that all policies are basically the same - you purchase a mortality policy for your horse and, if you desire, purchase add-ons to it - such as medical.
I learned that most policies only cover one colic surgery and your horse will be difficult to insure after that. Which is why diet and GOOD hay is so important. Another criteria of selecting a boarding facility was - do they feed good quality hay? Believe me, about a month ago hay was hay to me. I learned quickly that there are different types and different mixtures - oat, alfalfa, first cut - what the hell? Timothy hay is about the best quality hay you can get and if you can get other grass mixtures thrown in, such as rye,that is doubly great. Another new thing I have learned!