Busy? Moi?
May. 18th, 2004 08:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseI think I'm operating at capacity here. Or something like that. Taminy barfed for three days, did not barf today but is still on hunger strike. This is not a cat who handles being sick well. I am very tired. He's supposed to see the vet on Friday, but if he isn't better by tomorrow, he's going in sooner than that.
Yesterday was mostly about cat barf. And washing towels with cat barf on them. Also, ponying ze keed, which made both him and Capria happy. And the shoer not showing up, so Pooka got another day in jail. He took it well. Did not further destroy his foot, which was the point of the exercise.
And I wrote pages. This is a good thing.
Today tended toward hectic. The shoer finally showed up. This meant a lot of really cool stories (the Italian gay version of "Some Like It Hot" with the ten-horse hitch was a classic), and not much work done. Capria and ze keed have new feet. So, rather more to the point, does a very relieved Pooka. His foot did not get trashed--the quarters chunked out but the toe and heel held, and he is now in "boxy feet"--four-point or "natural" shoeing with the breakover moved well back--to get his heels back up and get his feet growing as they should. He is not helped by the usual Lipp stallion problem, which is big, heavy front end (The Neck must be seen to be comprehended), massive bones, testosterone meaning greater need for calcium and protein, and feet getting last pick after the muscles, bones, and hormones get dibs on the fuel. Also, he's growing. His butt is currently bigger than the whole rest of him.
Even with all that, his feet aren't bad. And now he has shoes again. And can go out and run all night. He is a happy pooka.
After the shoer left, I got an hour's break before the vet showed up--a mere half-hour late, which is excellent in vet-land. Vet was cheerful, if gimpy--horse ripped a tendon in his shoulder last week--and not as quick as usual with the horses, so I had to do more holding and balancing than usual. Mostly they were good: they lined up in order of precedence, starting with ze keed, but Camilla wimped and left Ephiny in her spot. Gaudia was a bit fussy--she's just a baby--and Camilla was having Massive Issues, which they often do at age five in the spring with hormones. She revved herself into a panic, in fact. Luckily a Lipp panic, if not fed by human stupidity, doesn't last long. We got her into the stallion stall, took it slow, and then her head came down and her eyes stopped spinning and she was OK.
Pook wasn't perfect, either, but then he's hated vets ever since the goat nearly gored his eye out and he needed umpzillion stitches by miner's lamp at midnight. He also settled down quickly. The vet admired him lavishly, which didn't hurt. It's always fun to take the fly mask off and watch jaws drop. No one expects those great big oogly eyeballs.
And now they are protected against this, that, and West Nile, which is a big issue this year.
In the evening, when I went out to feed dinner, Camilla planted herself by the gate. "Out," she said. "Out Now." There was just enough time to oblige her, since she was being so firm about it. (Remember earlier observation on her current training philosophy, which is, Whatever she wants as long as it's Forward.) She barely got stoppy once she was out; stopped to talk to Capria (who did not attempt murder--wow), had a couple of brief pauses while she thought about whether she really wanted this, then walked on out very nicely indeed.
We were not following standard procedure--some of it was Do Not Try This At Home. Professional driver, closed course, all that. It is not recommended to walk ahead of your horse, still less your young, tricky, sometimes aggressive horse, and not on a lead so loose it nearly touches the ground. But this horse needs to follow me in order to develop her confidence, and she needs me to put minimal pressure on her. Pressure causes lockdown. Lockdown is not good. Lockdown means growing roots, then going splooie.
None of which we had. Sometimes I decided where we went. Other times, she did. When she started to hit overload, we moseyed on back toward the herd. Then--the best part in her opinion--she got turned loose in the hay storage while I moved da Pook and fed the troops. Then she decided she was going in First for dinner, and that made her very happy.
This is what we want. Happy, forward, demanding work. All very good. And she gets to say when she's had enough--which is crucial with this personality type. You can push, judiciously, but you have to know exactly when to stop, and at this point we're still establishing our mutual parameters. "Show her who's boss" is a really bad approach with her, and so is "She has to work until the human says it's time to stop." Both of which are standard trainer dicta, and both of which go a long way toward explaining why so many otherwise well-regarded trainers have produced badly fried Lipps.
So, a good horse day, if long and rather exhausting. And pages to write before I sleep.
Yesterday was mostly about cat barf. And washing towels with cat barf on them. Also, ponying ze keed, which made both him and Capria happy. And the shoer not showing up, so Pooka got another day in jail. He took it well. Did not further destroy his foot, which was the point of the exercise.
And I wrote pages. This is a good thing.
Today tended toward hectic. The shoer finally showed up. This meant a lot of really cool stories (the Italian gay version of "Some Like It Hot" with the ten-horse hitch was a classic), and not much work done. Capria and ze keed have new feet. So, rather more to the point, does a very relieved Pooka. His foot did not get trashed--the quarters chunked out but the toe and heel held, and he is now in "boxy feet"--four-point or "natural" shoeing with the breakover moved well back--to get his heels back up and get his feet growing as they should. He is not helped by the usual Lipp stallion problem, which is big, heavy front end (The Neck must be seen to be comprehended), massive bones, testosterone meaning greater need for calcium and protein, and feet getting last pick after the muscles, bones, and hormones get dibs on the fuel. Also, he's growing. His butt is currently bigger than the whole rest of him.
Even with all that, his feet aren't bad. And now he has shoes again. And can go out and run all night. He is a happy pooka.
After the shoer left, I got an hour's break before the vet showed up--a mere half-hour late, which is excellent in vet-land. Vet was cheerful, if gimpy--horse ripped a tendon in his shoulder last week--and not as quick as usual with the horses, so I had to do more holding and balancing than usual. Mostly they were good: they lined up in order of precedence, starting with ze keed, but Camilla wimped and left Ephiny in her spot. Gaudia was a bit fussy--she's just a baby--and Camilla was having Massive Issues, which they often do at age five in the spring with hormones. She revved herself into a panic, in fact. Luckily a Lipp panic, if not fed by human stupidity, doesn't last long. We got her into the stallion stall, took it slow, and then her head came down and her eyes stopped spinning and she was OK.
Pook wasn't perfect, either, but then he's hated vets ever since the goat nearly gored his eye out and he needed umpzillion stitches by miner's lamp at midnight. He also settled down quickly. The vet admired him lavishly, which didn't hurt. It's always fun to take the fly mask off and watch jaws drop. No one expects those great big oogly eyeballs.
And now they are protected against this, that, and West Nile, which is a big issue this year.
In the evening, when I went out to feed dinner, Camilla planted herself by the gate. "Out," she said. "Out Now." There was just enough time to oblige her, since she was being so firm about it. (Remember earlier observation on her current training philosophy, which is, Whatever she wants as long as it's Forward.) She barely got stoppy once she was out; stopped to talk to Capria (who did not attempt murder--wow), had a couple of brief pauses while she thought about whether she really wanted this, then walked on out very nicely indeed.
We were not following standard procedure--some of it was Do Not Try This At Home. Professional driver, closed course, all that. It is not recommended to walk ahead of your horse, still less your young, tricky, sometimes aggressive horse, and not on a lead so loose it nearly touches the ground. But this horse needs to follow me in order to develop her confidence, and she needs me to put minimal pressure on her. Pressure causes lockdown. Lockdown is not good. Lockdown means growing roots, then going splooie.
None of which we had. Sometimes I decided where we went. Other times, she did. When she started to hit overload, we moseyed on back toward the herd. Then--the best part in her opinion--she got turned loose in the hay storage while I moved da Pook and fed the troops. Then she decided she was going in First for dinner, and that made her very happy.
This is what we want. Happy, forward, demanding work. All very good. And she gets to say when she's had enough--which is crucial with this personality type. You can push, judiciously, but you have to know exactly when to stop, and at this point we're still establishing our mutual parameters. "Show her who's boss" is a really bad approach with her, and so is "She has to work until the human says it's time to stop." Both of which are standard trainer dicta, and both of which go a long way toward explaining why so many otherwise well-regarded trainers have produced badly fried Lipps.
So, a good horse day, if long and rather exhausting. And pages to write before I sleep.
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Date: 2004-05-19 09:22 am (UTC)