Saying Goodbye to an Old Friend, or a Friends Old Friend...

 

 

It's incredibly heartbreaking when a horse passes away. No one quite understands just how painfully easy it is to choose between a potential life in pain or to end a life in pain, whether it be a young horse or an old horse.

Over the past month we have lost two horses at BCL (our agistment property) and it always feels like something is missing, even if we never see the horse, if it is right at the back of the property, the fact is that we might not think about it or see it everyday, but once it is gone something feels empty.

 

A friend of ours did the most courageous thing and got her 6 year old, 17 HH thoroughbred put to sleep after finding out he had chronic arthritis in his hocks at only 6. The saddest thing about this is not the fact that she had to have him euthanized, but the fact that she rescued him from the sales, where he could potentially have been sent to the doggers, spend loads of money on boarding fees, feed, vet bills and chiropractor bills (he was also a bucker) and in all that time she was spending all that money, she grew to love him and appreciate him. I can honestly say that I have never really seen anyone have that much dedication to a horse they hardly know, but then again, I don't really come across a lot of horsey people other than aggisters.

 

Another horse passed away on Monday morning, diagnosis...colic. In the end it takes them all, and it's sad that it comes down to that, but that's mother nature. If we could see it coming, I'm sure we could all do our best to prevent it*, but sometimes it is too late. Dotcom was the horses name, he was a 15 HH appy gelding, 24 years young. He was a SAINT, his owners had him since he was quite young and spoiled him to the point where he had too many rugs to count. He was still in good health, no problems with arthritis (that I know of?) and he was ridden often enough to keep him happy. He was owned by a family of four, mum, dad and two 15 (I think?) and 17 year old girls. I can only imagine how hard it is for them at the moment, he was their first horse, he did the good yards and its sad that he didn't get the retirement he deserved.

 

Both Lisa and I lost our first horses to colic. I was thinking about both of their deaths last night after a song came on the radio that reminded me of the day I had to have Anira put down. It's that song by Newton Faulkner, Dream Catch me I think it is called. That song played while I was driving out to see her (speeding to get there as soon as I could) and also on the way home from saying goodbye (this time Lisa was driving, I wasn't up for it, I left my car there until that night), listening to it then made both Lisa and I cry our eyes out, and it still does for me, its difficult to listen to it as it just makes me feel what I felt back then.

 

That was one of the worst days of my life, but in saying that it was one of the easiest days of my life, making that decision when the vet gives you the stats and tells you the chances of a healthy survival (if possible), is the easiest decision I have ever had to make. I could say goodbye to my first pony because I loved her enough to put her before myself and give her the quiet passing she deserved. The only thing I regret is that I didn't get to do that earlier, it still gets to me that while I was asleep, she was going through a whole lot of pain. I miss her everyday.

 

I would tell you about Pom (Lisa's first horse), only that it is not my story to tell. All I can do is leave you with a diary entry that Lisa wrote a few days after poms death. I hope she doesn't mind.

 

"The death of a horse is strange to define.

It's not quite like loosing a friend or relative. It's definitely not like loosing a pet cat or dog.

It's loosing that special bond that can only be described as "horse and rider".

And boy, does it hurt like hell.

Pom was put to sleep at approximately 3pm on Thursday the 20th May, 2004, after a night and half a day of extreme abdominal pains diagnosed as Colic. His intestines were dead.

I had ridden him on monday, over the cross country course and in front of a bunch of my sister Natalie's friends, jumping a maximum height of a metre, Up and down ditches, over creeks, acting so full of himself, on the bit and collected up doing a very good impersonation of a lippizzaner stallion, he thought he was so cool. So did I.

The last time I saw him his eyes were swollen so badly from thrashing around on the ground he was following me around blind. He Kept laying down and thrashing about. The last time he layed down after I agreed with the vet, he laid as still as a mouse. I talked to him, saying "I love you", "be good", "You'll be ok soon". Then he was gone from my life forever. Just like that.

And I'll never get pissed off at him for stirring the other horses up when I'm trying to catch him.

I'll never gather the feed out of the corners of his bucket that he couldn't get to.

I'll never shape those perfect, dainty little hooves ever again.

I'll never yell at him when he scratches his mane/tail/any possible body part against a tree/fence/other horse again.

I'll never ride behind those perfect, hairy little ears again.

Or kiss his little nose, or sit underneath him and kick his belly gently, or fall off and have him put his head down close and sniff me, or hear that deep, throaty whinny when I'm making his feed, or ride that little bouncy trot, or have him give me filthy looks when I do up his girth, or any of the hundred million billion things that make up one individual horse, my horse, my baby, my meaning.

It's feels strange to be horseless.I don't know what to do. I have no one to go feed, brush, worry about too many or too little rugs, jump on and ride whenever I wish, show people and say "That's my pony".

I've started to keep my room really clean. I'm even doing my bed of a morning.

I'll be getting another horse soon. I just have to pay Pom's vet bills first. Then save.

But I wish I didn't have to.

What am I going to do? I'll figure something out. It's just hard to be alone"

Its hard for me to read this, I'm fine with being upset myself but when its my family it kills me. I miss Pom everyday, I'm sure Lisa does just as much

I just remembered I have a blog! I may as well have forgotten about it, even when I log in EVERY day to read the latest on FHOTD or Cakewrecks I still manage to let it slip by that I have one of my own.

In the past month the sentence "write a blog about Grace and Becks" has been clumsily thrown around the house, mostly commonly from my mouth, but it seems it has still be untouched up until now. Very lazy of us. I promise we don't forget about our horses the way we forget about our blog :|.

So moving on to the more important stuff!

Since the last post we have ridden grace a few times, equip with saddle and bridle. She is a quick learner. Naturally we used leg aids automatically without thinking, this proved to be quite a good move as she learnt within the first proper ride what leg on means and how it works in conduction with what's going on in her mouth. Lisa and I were very proud of her.

Since that first legit ride we have ridden her a total of about 4 or 5 times. Lisa has had a total of 2 kick-offs and me nil (well that's probably because I am the one with no guts, and have only ridden her once). I wouldn't call them a fall, since Lisa landed on her feet both times (she is pretty switched on when it comes to Grace, no sneaky manoeuvres there), but she was kicked off. The first time just because we stretched our expectations to far and asked for a trot, so Grace wanted to know "What the hell is bouncing on my back! Buck!", the second time because she was super fresh and spunky that day and decided she wanted to test Lisa...it didn't work, she still got back on.

So all in all we are very proud of our little grace when it come to her first few rides, she listens, she pays attention, she is yet to freak out (minus the trotting thing) and she is learning very fast!

We have given the ridding thing a rest for the past couple of weeks as Grace has some kind of lumps (about 6 all up, all in a row ,3 on each side) just sitting before her nipples. The lumps are squishy, not hard, they are all the same size and haven't grown or shrunk and she gets annoyed when you touch them, not as though they hurt but as though they are irritating her. We are hoping it is just a problem with the glands or some kind of mild hormone condition that can be fixed, please don't hesitate to inform me if you have had a similar condition with your horse. We will know what they are on Friday, our vet is coming out to float the pony's teeth and check her up. Fingers crossed! Watch this space.

Lunging is a success, FINALLY, it took a while for her to perfect it, but she has it, she even canters almost a full circle without too much encouragement. And we don't need to use a lunge whip anymore! SUPER happy about that, there's nothing worse then a lazy horse when it comes to lunging. My first pony Anira used to HATE lunging, she wouldn't go faster then a slow trot no matter how much you forced her too, she just wouldn't. She got away with it because she was so sweet and old, woops!

Leading = success also. We take Grace on rides with us when we go out in the back 1000 acre paddock now, leading or ponying, depending on how lazy we feel. She likes it because it is interesting to her, seeing all the cows, foxes and machines (they do some kind of turf farming or something in the back paddock, so there is always machines doing something out there) keeps her interested and distracted from being a young bratty horse.

I'm glad to say that she will finally trot beside me on the lead now also. Thumbs up for improving ground manners, there's no point in a well behaved horse under saddle if its ground manners suck!

So in conclusion I am super proud of my little growing filly! She is doing well, very well :).

Contains a little rant.

Grace is improving, as always. We have almost solved the halter problem, by spending quite a lot of time with her when we turn her back out in her yard, holding the halter on her until she lowers her head, and repeating the exercise if she flips her nose up when the halter slides over the end of her nose. She is getting better with her food too, being less aggressive and standing patiently until you walk away from her bucket. Not 100%, but better, safer.

We have had a couple of sit-ons on Grace now, as it is really hard not to. She is really very quiet and takes it in her stride. I had a 3 minute walk around the yard on her, and I will leave it at that for now. We will revisit when the winter is over. She is still too immature and I am afraid that we will get carried away because she is so willing to please that we will do too much for her (fairly) immature body. I have been getting comments from fellow agisters telling me that I should be breaking her in now, to help with her attitude problem, and that I am leaving it too long. Humph. We can work on her 'attitude' from the ground, thankyouverymuch, and even my very-un-horsey fiance can tell that she is still immature in the body. One of the agisters there told me about a little filly she broke in, then took on a 20km endurance type ride when the horse was only rising 2!!!!! Holy-broken-down-6-year-old batman! I'm sorry, but we intend on keeping this horse, and to wait 6 months to a year at this end of her working life will add on years to her working life at the other end. And you know what? She doesn't have an attitude problem around me. Funny that, huh? She is spunky and cheeky and I do have to watch what I am doing around her, but she is a freaking rising 3 year old!! That was totally unhandled and wild last september!! I don't think people realise that I have done this before. Harmph again.

We need to work on mouthing her a bit more, as she is reluctant to move forward. The recent rain doesn't help either, as there is almost no undercover places to work with her.

Grace was unrugged, but fed extra hay over the last wet week, but managed to catch a mild cold anyway. She is now rugged at night when it rains. She just fits into the 5'3'' lightly lined canvas we bought for her. Length ways it fits fine, just her chest is a little wide. The chest strap needs to be on the biggest hole, but it won't rub. She is looking more and more like a horse every day. She has a wither now!

I got hoof boots for Beckham for my birthday! I love love love them. I got a pair of Easyboot Edges from the Easycare Downunder website. I have only ridden in them twice (due to being rained out, and no daylight savings) but they were great for the short ride I did take them on, out on the road (he was forward over gravel!) and through the muddy dam, and a couple of big canters through the back paddock. He found them a little clunky at first, but it took almost no time to get him used to the feel and thinking about his feet. I cannot wait to ride in them again! They are super easy to put on, and I got a pair of comfort pads to go in them to simulate ground pressure. The pads actually molded to the shape of his sole, which is pretty cool. I can't believe I waited this long to get a pair of boots. :D

Pics? Ok.

I know that these are small pics, but do you agree that she is still too immature? She is 14.2hh. I look freaking huge.

New Addition

I forgot to mention the new addition to the money sucking clan. A little Domestic long hair kitty called Alice, this is the first* one we have PAID for, as in, she wasn’t rescued (well sort of, since there are so many cats these days most of the healthy ones get put down anyway).

She is a crazy, SOOKY, fluffy, bouncy, lazyyyyyyy, underwear eating (yes you read right, she eats our undies! Even when they are clean! Its disgusting!) monster. But she is so cute! She loves sleeping in the bed under the covers and doesn’t want to get up in the morning, so she just sort of stays in bed and watched me get ready for work :p.

I will put a picture up over the weekend of her.

*Actually the second. We paid for Leah, my kitten before this one but she passed away L. Very sad indeed. RIP Little Leah, I still miss you!

It has been a while since the last update. I really shouldn't let the whole blogging thing slip from my hands because I just dig myself into a deep whole that takes a whole lot of typing and updating to get out of. So here goes!

Goodbye warm days!

Since the last blog day light savings has finished (=[) and the freezing cold weather has crept up on us.

This will be Gracie's first winter out from the sticks, so I am assuming it's going to be a little more comfortable for her then what she is used to up at Putty. That's not to say it's not going to be freezing cold! I intend on getting her some kind of synthetic or unlined canvas rug before winter actually starts (she is usually quite warm as it is so I don’t really want to put too much on her, and only for the nights, she can go nakey during the day),the only problem is that we don’t know how much more she is gong to grow, I don’t exactly want to spend too much on a rug and have her grow out of it, although I doubt she will get any longer, so I suppose I could take the chance.

We have been pumping the both of them full of feed and lots of hay, which is working in our favour so far since they both look really good. Grace holds her weight quite well, and she eats all the grass hay (unlike someone who just nibbles a bit then decides its fun to stomp on it and use it as a horsey litter/comfy bed! Weeeeeee*). Becks holds his weight fairly well too (after a few years of Lisa spending mounds of money experimenting on what does and doesn’t work for him) and with the feed he is on now he should hold up quite well during winter, he is a spoiled sooky big old thoroughbred so he gets rugged with one of his 50,000 rugs of a night and usually naked during the day.

Progress

With much frustration and annoyance with baby horses (on my part) we have taught Grace to lunge almost perfectly on her left side and we are getting there with the right side. She doesn’t quite understand what we want from her, then she gets annoyed because it's taking too long and starts being a brat (she gets bored very easy with things so we have to keep it interesting). She has a problem with turning in on her right side when she reaches a certain corner, no matter how much you get up behind her she still tries to turn in and run the other way. I am thinking that maybe she has difficulty on her right side because of her old injury on her back right leg making her a little uncomfortable. That being said, she will sometimes go perfectly on that side and not turn in once, and then other times it is nearly impossible to get her going without turning in (Lisa likes it when a horse turns in, I have grown upon HATING it since having a filly :), and the worst part is that she acts completely oblivious like its the first time we are lunging her and she is like "well what are you asking? I have no idea what you mean, just let me run the other way" and then the next time she goes perfect. Gah! Babies! So we are working on that every now and then, being careful not to do too much and ruin her little legs, just walk and trot for now.

Grace observes and listens really well when it comes to anything people are doing, I like this, I like that she is inquisitive and has an interest in people and what we are all about. She knows what "back back back back" means and also the clicking of the tongue thing gets her listening and she doesn’t seem to have trouble understanding that it's directed at her (I think this is going to be really helpful once we finally start riding her). She understands that when she is being a shit, she will be put out of her comfort zone until she understands what we want from her (we usually back her far away from where she was being a shit then start again and she generally understands this.

Pet Peeves

One thing that is just a really really really annoying pain in the neck thing is that Grace has issues with feedings time, or anything to do with feed. She turns into a completely different horse and tries to bully people into just chucking her feed in the yard and running for dear life out of there so she gets to eat in peace. Its really quite bad, she has pulled the wool over some people who feed up at the properties eyes, and I am pretty sure Lisa and myself are the only ones who go in and make her stay away from her bucket until we are ready for her to eat, then she gets to be scratched and hugged and smothered ;).

The attack of the clicking fences! Oh no! They will eat me! I can't possibly walk past them without bowling someone over or running for dear life!.....No, she isn’t QUITE that bad anymore, but she does have issues with walking past a clicking electric fence. She either rushes past the fence or plants her feet on the ground and refuses to budge (the Grace technique, other horses should try it, it really works! When you have one person that is, that cant direct you in front AND push you on from behind at the same time). I think this is just one of those things that she needs to deal with herself, its good in a way that she wont go near it in her yard, but a pain in the neck in other ways when we cant walk her up the isle past other yards that are clicking, when that's the only way to get her out. It's a 2 man job.

The Halter issue. Grace has no problems at ALL when putting on a halter, in fact she loves it! She would shove her nose in there and attempt the straps herself (if she could), but when it comes to taking the halter off it's a different story. She will get quite arrogant and try to hurry you when you undo the straps to the halter, she stands still until she feels a bit of leverage from the side (when we have JUST unclipped it) and then she throw her head in an attempt to rush you into letting her go so she can get her feed. She is getting better with this though, we don’t allow her to do it what so ever, we usually put the strap right back up when she even moves her head slightly and start all over again. Sometimes it takes 15 tries until she lets us take it off without her throwing her head, sometimes 2 goes. In the end I think this is another thing that needs work.

With all that being said, I think most of my pet peeves of Grace are based on that fact that she is young, a little silly, a little cocky and a little moody. It can all be fixed with time and dedication.

So that is it for now, I will surely update when I remember something that I have forgotten ( I know there is a lot missing), and I will update with some pictures over the weekend.

Ciao!!

My Favourite (most discreet) things about Grace!

We have had our ups and downs with Grace the past week or so. She had Spasmodic Colic last Monday night and throughout the rest of the week she was not really herself.

We came out sat morning to find her laying down again in her yard and then rolling. So of course we sort of panicked a bit. She seemed fine, she was eating and drinking, she had a little bit of hyperactive gut sounds but not too bad, she ended up being fine. We let her into the grass arena with Beckam to graze for a while and she ran around like an idiot for a while stirring up the other horses (as she does). She settled down after a while and we watched her for about half an hour and realised shes in season.... joy ;). She was doing the whole look at me thing to Beckam and he really didn't give her anything to work with, which was frustrating her I think, it was interesting to watch the way she acts when shes in season.

So I though since I haven't put any pics up in a while that I would post some detailed pics on my favorite (not so noticeable) things about my pony :).

First and foremost, my absolute favorite thing is her quirkiness. This isn't so discreet as she LOVES people and has obvious strange habits thats she likes to make extremely evident (a la' picking up sticks and making random piles in her yard- "this one goes in this pile cause its short, this one goes in this pile cause its long!" - no, she isn't quite THAT smart). Grace has an unconditional love for people and finds comfort in their presence, this doesn't mean to say she wont kick you in the head though!

> "oh hi mum! watcha got in your hand there?"








Her fluffy ears! Well I know it is coming into winter (grrrr winter coat, grrrr!) but I can put up with the winter coat if it comes equip with hairy fluffy big ears!


>Don't you just want to sing into them? Cause I know how much she would LOVE that ;)







Her eye (this is the bad one too! - it is almost all healed up, you cant see the white spot in the photo - just don't stare too long, it will eat away at your soul!). She has the sweetest eye, it fits perfectly with her "i love you!" attitude towards people (unless theres food around, or souls too I suppose, eh eh eh ;)).







Her NOSE! Oh so scrumptious and soft and squishy! she has the cutest muzzle, don't you just want to kiss it? Go on, she will let you, she'll even kiss you back!

>nom nom nom!








Her random dark spot! Time will only tell what lies beneath. We will see once she is completly grey I spose. Without the dark sport, Gracie wouldnt be Gracie ;)


> notice the winter coat starting? No!!!








Now this is something I DONT like. Evertime shes inthe grass arena, she comes back covered in thick, sticky spidey webs.. God only knows what kind of ironman spiders make those indestrucable things but I can never seem to get them off her, and if I succed in doing that, I spend the next half hour trying to get them off myself! I hate those sticky spidey webs, HATE THEM!

>oooohhh I hate those flies too!!





Alas! I am done, but you are not! here are some photos form the weekend.
Ciao!

The weather has been horribly unpredictable lately. We went from a 4 day heat wave, to torrential rain and freezing temps for about a week after. Now I'm not quite sure how to explain today's weather but apparently its supposed to clear up and reach 31 degrees, somehow I don’t think that is going to happen given the look of the sky :.

Anyhow, since the weather has been so confusing, it's been hard to really do anything practical with the horses. We were supposed to go on a ride at Kurnell beach last Saturday but Becks had to have the Chiropractor out because he has been super sore all over lately, but that's a story for Lisa to tell, it ended up storming severely for about half an hour that afternoon anyway.

Grace has grown a lump on her left mandible, we started to get quite worried about it so we had the dentists next door have a look at it (as her baby teeth have started to fall out) and we were told it was not to do with her teeth and to get a vet out to X-ray her head as it could be an ulcer or a fracture. $300 later, I have just been informed by the vet that it IS in fact her teeth and it will go away with time as her baby teeth fall out. I asked the vet if I should get the dentist out to pull the teeth that are stoping the adult ones growing through but he insisted it wouldn’t be necessary! So there you go, $300 down the drain, sort of, although we do get to keep the X-rays which will be pretty interesting!

There is a lady at the property where we keep Becks and Grace that kind of looks at us like we are idiots for not breaking Grace in already, because apparently we should break her and then spell her for a year. Kapish to her, you can tell just by looking at Grace that she is not ready to have someone on her back, she is too gangly and still a bit bum high.

Unfortunately I don’t have any recent photos of the horses, but will post some up within the next week or so. Like I said the weather has been horrible so it's hard to do much when you combine one crippled sore horse, an unbroken horse, slushy muddy ground and sheets and sheets of rain.

We have come to the realisation that a free animal will almost ALWAYS cost you more then one you have paid for (well for us anyway). We have a new kitten to add to the addition, her name is Leah, we paid for her, so no vet bills as of yet (fingers crossed).

Nat