I Hate Monday, says Camilla
Nov. 8th, 2004 04:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseI'm glad people like my horse-neep posts. Having grown up surrounded by blank stares and "Oh. How nice. /subject," I find this a bit disconcerting. But in a very pleasant way.
So, all together now, in chorus:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! HORSIES!
No riding today. Da Pook is still the Shoeless Wonder. However Mike the Wonder Vet did arrive for Fall Shots. Horses, you see, get two checkups-with-shots a year. The big whammy is in the spring before the summer sick season--all the different forms of encephalitis (to which horses are terribly susceptible--West Nile is pretty much an all-fatal disease for them) plus flu and a couple of other nasties. In the fall we get flu and rabies and the annual "better do assorted sets of teeth over the winter" check, plus overall checkups and health questions.
Capria has sand--somehow she's managed to rake up enough to be significant. She needs to go on psyllium (i.e. metamucil) and have her grass hay upped a Lot. She'll love that part. Carrma and Gaudia need psyllium--very minor but they need it. Boys and Camilla need teeth done this winter. Carrma may make another baby in the spring--so we talked about that. Dr. Mike approved. Dr. Mike (whose specialty is repro) loves Carrma. I also told him about Pandora, who it seems will be living with us for a while this winter. Pandora is Ephiny's older sister--from Favory Bonasera's first foal crop. (Ephiny is from FB's next to last.) She's the same age as Carrma--17. A friend is buying her and needs a place to keep her while friend moves to Arizona. That will be interesting as she's been pasture-wild for seven years up at White Horse Vale (in WA, not England, but I do love the name). But she's as sweet as her baby sister and should be a pleasure to have around.
Shot Day is always an interesting study in personalities. When I got out there after the vet arrived with his big white truck and traveling dispensary and vet clinic (which opens up in the back like a boxy DeLorean and is full of fascinating drawers and cabinets and faucets and hoses and lord-knows-whats), the whole crew was lined up at the fence, ears at the alert. Coooooool! they said. I have the only herd in creation that lines up for the vet.
Ephiny Had To Be First. Since Ephiny is now, give or take an inch, the tallest, and outweighs keed by about a third, and can Loom very effectively, she got the first exam and shots. Keed was right behind her. Keed loves Vet Days. Keed is weird.
I knew Camilla was going to be a problem. She's Going Through Some Stuff. And vets with needles are right up there. Took a while to catch her, then we had to put her in the closed barn after she gave me my first case of rope burn in years--she never blows up backwards like that, but she did. However once we got in there and she got into the vet's calm zone--he's almost as good at it as a Lipp--she settled down enough to get the job done. Though she blew up again promptly and took off swearing. Camilla and I will have to have some quality time, I see.
But I'm not worried. Pook was just as hinky at her age. It's a phase.
No problems with the rest of them, even Gaudia who was apprehensive and wiggly and went in the stall but handled it OK in general. She's a baby, she's normal.
The funny part was the total absence of trauma in the Girlz. Camilla was lowering and sulking, but Ephiny wanted to keep the vet as a pet, and Gaudia liked his stethoscope. Shiny! Mostly they were large furry velcro.
Pooka made me proud. He's always been hinky about vets ever since the goat tried to gore his eye out when he was a yearling. That required over 50 stitches in three layers just above his eyelid, by miner's lamp at midnight. Then it all had to be done in reverse when the stitches got pulled.
I guess he's finally over it. He was a good pooka, which impressed the vet because the vet (being a repro guy with Too Much Experience) is not terribly fond of stallions and he doesn't trust them one little bit. Pooka gives stallions a good name.
The spa will be there for him in the spring. He's going to need it.
And that was Our Day, With Vet--or as Camilla-the-War-Mare would have it, Black Monday.
Poor Camilla. Life's a grand opera, and she's Tosca.
So, all together now, in chorus:
SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! HORSIES!
No riding today. Da Pook is still the Shoeless Wonder. However Mike the Wonder Vet did arrive for Fall Shots. Horses, you see, get two checkups-with-shots a year. The big whammy is in the spring before the summer sick season--all the different forms of encephalitis (to which horses are terribly susceptible--West Nile is pretty much an all-fatal disease for them) plus flu and a couple of other nasties. In the fall we get flu and rabies and the annual "better do assorted sets of teeth over the winter" check, plus overall checkups and health questions.
Capria has sand--somehow she's managed to rake up enough to be significant. She needs to go on psyllium (i.e. metamucil) and have her grass hay upped a Lot. She'll love that part. Carrma and Gaudia need psyllium--very minor but they need it. Boys and Camilla need teeth done this winter. Carrma may make another baby in the spring--so we talked about that. Dr. Mike approved. Dr. Mike (whose specialty is repro) loves Carrma. I also told him about Pandora, who it seems will be living with us for a while this winter. Pandora is Ephiny's older sister--from Favory Bonasera's first foal crop. (Ephiny is from FB's next to last.) She's the same age as Carrma--17. A friend is buying her and needs a place to keep her while friend moves to Arizona. That will be interesting as she's been pasture-wild for seven years up at White Horse Vale (in WA, not England, but I do love the name). But she's as sweet as her baby sister and should be a pleasure to have around.
Shot Day is always an interesting study in personalities. When I got out there after the vet arrived with his big white truck and traveling dispensary and vet clinic (which opens up in the back like a boxy DeLorean and is full of fascinating drawers and cabinets and faucets and hoses and lord-knows-whats), the whole crew was lined up at the fence, ears at the alert. Coooooool! they said. I have the only herd in creation that lines up for the vet.
Ephiny Had To Be First. Since Ephiny is now, give or take an inch, the tallest, and outweighs keed by about a third, and can Loom very effectively, she got the first exam and shots. Keed was right behind her. Keed loves Vet Days. Keed is weird.
I knew Camilla was going to be a problem. She's Going Through Some Stuff. And vets with needles are right up there. Took a while to catch her, then we had to put her in the closed barn after she gave me my first case of rope burn in years--she never blows up backwards like that, but she did. However once we got in there and she got into the vet's calm zone--he's almost as good at it as a Lipp--she settled down enough to get the job done. Though she blew up again promptly and took off swearing. Camilla and I will have to have some quality time, I see.
But I'm not worried. Pook was just as hinky at her age. It's a phase.
No problems with the rest of them, even Gaudia who was apprehensive and wiggly and went in the stall but handled it OK in general. She's a baby, she's normal.
The funny part was the total absence of trauma in the Girlz. Camilla was lowering and sulking, but Ephiny wanted to keep the vet as a pet, and Gaudia liked his stethoscope. Shiny! Mostly they were large furry velcro.
Pooka made me proud. He's always been hinky about vets ever since the goat tried to gore his eye out when he was a yearling. That required over 50 stitches in three layers just above his eyelid, by miner's lamp at midnight. Then it all had to be done in reverse when the stitches got pulled.
I guess he's finally over it. He was a good pooka, which impressed the vet because the vet (being a repro guy with Too Much Experience) is not terribly fond of stallions and he doesn't trust them one little bit. Pooka gives stallions a good name.
The spa will be there for him in the spring. He's going to need it.
And that was Our Day, With Vet--or as Camilla-the-War-Mare would have it, Black Monday.
Poor Camilla. Life's a grand opera, and she's Tosca.
