Dr Appt = Good News!

Well, tonight was Tia's vet appointment!! I have to gloat before I go any farther...She is such a good girl! I am just so proud of her!!

Ahem. Ok. Sorry. Lets start over! :)

I found out today that my REAL camera (as opposed to my cell phone camera) actually has some pretty cool features and therefore, will make my picture taking life a whole lot easier! That being said, I kinda played around with the settings a bit to see if I could get some decent grazing shots before Dr. P showed up.

Dr. P showed up right on time! I know! A vet that shows up on time! Holy Wow! (I do so love my vet!!) Ok. Sorry. Side tracked!

Anywho, Dr. P showed up right on time. We talked for a minute about her history and about the changes I have made to her diet and turn out schedule. We then walked to her pasture to get a "fecal sample". Yep! Poop. Oddly enough, we think she is pooping all the way at the other end of the riding ring...probably just to giggle at us trying to find said "fecal sample". 

With no poop pile in the close vacinity to be found, we headed up to the barn. Once up at the barn, Dr. P took his time and went over Tia. Listening to her lungs, heart and gut sounds. Everything sounds great! He checked her teeth and they confirm that she is in fact 6 years old, coming 7. We decided against giving her her shots due to her weight and the fact that her immune system still may not be up to parr. We are gonna give her 3 weeks and see if we can get her the shots then. 

I did ask to have a coggins drawn, which I figured we might get a little reaction out of Tia about because of the needle. Nope. Nada. None. Needle in, needle out, no movement. What a good girl. 

Dr. P then checked her teeth again and took a more in depth look. She had some pretty good points on the back upper and lower teeth, so we decided to go ahead and float them down. 

I have to tell you...this mare is a cheap date! One shot and boom! Out like a light! Poor thing! 

After her teeth were all floated, we put her in her nice stall (now with fan!) to let the sedative wear off. Dr. P suggested we Pancure Pack her this weekend to make sure we get all the worms if there are any and to call him in 3 weeks. 

And in even more exciting news, he has given us the all clear to take her out of QT! Yay for Tia! Starting Saturday morning, she will still be going out in the riding ring, but Ber and Mia will be able to go out in the pasture right next to her! I am so excited for this! She already talks to the other girls constantly. It will be so nice for her to have some interaction with the other horses. 

So I went in to check on Tia after Dr. P left. Poor thing. No hay or feed for an hour after sedation. She was so miserable!

I let Tia relax and come out of the sedation while I turned the other two out and cleaned stalls. I fiddled with the camera settings some more. Tried to get a good picture of a hippity hoppity frog, but he was being a brat and wouldn't sit still for his 10 seconds of fame! Darn Frog!

By the time I was done with chores and fiddling with cameras and yelling at frogs, Tia was steady telling me that her hay was definitely missing from her stall...as was her food. I opened her stall door a bit to talk to her and see how much farther she needed to come out of the sedation before I could give her her food. She took the opportunity to show me no more time was needed.

I took the time to sit and talk to her a bit before putting her hay in her room. She even stopped eating long enough to show me a little love. 

She tried so hard not to look to perturbed that I was making this a photo opp! :) 

All in all, a good day. Vet visit proved that nothing medically was wrong with her, we got her teeth floated, got a new coggins drawn and got QT clearance! 

In the span of just 7 days, this wonderful little pony now has a new fresh outlook on life. It can only get better from here on out. 

Pedicure....I think so!

9/25/12

Tonight was the appointment with the farrier. I just have to say how impressed I am with Jennifer Hurry. She did an amazing job and Tia really seemed to like her.

Gwen and I got to the barn a little before 6:30pm, because traffic sucks, to put it nicely! Jennifer was already there ready and waiting. I went down and grabbed Tia and came right up. No dinner before getting her feet done. We were fighting daylight and quite honestly, I am hoping she will connect getting her feet done with a nice meal.

We went straight to work. Tia was a bit panicky about leaving her foot in the air for any amount of time longer than say 10 seconds, but Jennifer just talked her through it and got her standing nicely. We only had a few times on the first foot where we ended up in a different spot of the barn area. By the second foot, the left back foot, we had pretty much figured out that her reactions were not only reactions of fear/pain but also because she had obviously been let to get away with these shenanigans before. Ha! Not anymore. If Jennifer was hanging on, so was I!

All in all, Tia did wonderfully. I can not thank Jennifer enough! She really took the time to make sure her feet were correct and even showed me what she was looking at. I love learning and tonight really helped me!

It took about 45 minutes I believe to do all four feet. Of all of her feet, her right front was the worst. She never kicked out or offered to be mean or nasty. Her answer is to just go backwards....our answer was to simply go with her.

We DID NOT have to use Ace, chains, or twitches on her! I swatted her belly a time or two to try to keep her from going backwards as much. All in all, what seemed to work the best, was a good ole head rub!

Here are her before and after feet pictures. I am sorry the afters are so grainy. My cell phone takes horrible night pictures.

The vet is now scheduled to come out on Thursday night. We are going to go over her with a fine tooth comb, check her teeth, draw a new coggins, update her shots, and get her de-wormed if she can handle it.

Until then, here is my smiley girl being loved on by my Mom - who just happened to swing into the barn for her pedicure!

A Shave and A Haircut

9/24/12

Just trying to catch up a little on the blog. I started it a bit late, but thats ok.

After Tia came home Thursday night, I left her in the capable hands of my students, Becca and Gabbi, and two other good friends at the barn, Nikki and Emily. Before evening knowing about Tia, my husband and I had planned a weekend getaway for our 6th Anniversary!

Of course I was a worry wart, but all of the girls handled my insanity quite well with frequent updates and lots of love for the new pony!

My husband and I decided to leave the hotel early to get home and see Tia and do midday chores. She was happily munching on hay in her room when we arrived. I pulled the other two horses in from the field so that Tia could go out for the afternoon. She was extremely polite and respectful, finished all of her lunch and was led outside to graze in the sunshine. I cleaned her stall and made sure everyone was good for the evening before heading home.

Monday, 9/24, was the first night of taking my daughter with me to the barn for chores. When we got to the barn, Tia was grazing in the riding ring while the other two were inside waiting for dinner. Here she is enjoying the sunshine...

After feeding the horses inside and placing her feed in her room, Gwen and I headed down to get Tia.

Gwen helped me walk her up to the barn and into her stall for dinner. While she ate, we let the other two out and did evening chores. Then we pulled her out and put her on cross ties to do some much needed brushing...

She wasnt to thrilled about the cross ties. She def seems to be a panicky little thing and when she feels trapped with go backwards. Although, I am not really sure if it was that she felt trapped or if it was because there was a pile of hay in the aisle way right next to the cross ties. So, just to be sure no one got hurt, I left her on one cross tie and let her eat hay while I brushed. And brushed. And brushed some more. The rainrot on her back seems to be healing nicely. She really needs a bath to get all of the dirt and gunk out of her coat, but I am waiting on the temp to rise a bit above 80.

So we brushed and combed and cut her mane. It was terrible. I couldnt handle the stringy mess of it anymore and chopped the entire thing off. There had to have been small woodland creatures living in there at some point! Ugh! She stood quietly eating hay while I accosted her with brushes and combs and scissors. At one point, she gave me a tail swish with an ears laid back attitude, which at first I was excited about and then I told her to cut it out. If horses could shrug I believe she would have at the moment. She had that look of "Oh. Sorry mom. My bad!"

After working on her coat and mane, I moved onto her feet. Knowing that she has had to be aced every time she has had her feet done does not thrill me in the least and it most certainly is not a safe practice. So, to her feet we went. Gwen was the keeper of the treats. Each time Tia picked up her feet and let me play with them, Gwen would bring me a treat for me to give Tia. On the fourth foot, when I asked for a treat, instead of coming to me, she went straight to Tia. Now I know I should have said No and stopped her, but quite frankly, she has to learn sometime and Tia was being exceptionally well behaved. I reminded her to keep her fingers flat, which they werent and before I could get to her hand, Tia had accidentally pinched the tip of Gwens finger between her teeth. Once she realized she had Gwen and not the treat she immediately let go and backed away. I checked to make sure she still had a finger, poor kid. We cleaned it up. No stitches needed. Only broke a little of the skin. Im sure it hurts like the Dickens, but I doubt she will forget about flat fingers again. (Yep, enroll me for Mother of the Year - I am that guy!)

Tia went back into her stall for the night to get some much needed rest and hay. Stay Tuned...Farrier appointment at 6:30pm on 9/25!

And just because, here is my little helper cleaning stalls with me!

The New Girl

First off, I would like to introduce myself. My name is Erin. I work as a receptionist in a small office in PG County by day and by ... well any other time I am awake, I am with either my family, which includes my wonderful husband and daughter, or I am with my horse family. Right now I am currently taking a break from accepting new students to take time to work on my newest project.

The Introduction to Treasure...
I received a note from a friend of mine last Wed, the 19th of September. She told me she had a pony mare that needed a new home. The mare was not hers, but someone she knew had it. She had ridden the mare 6-10 months before and it just needed some training. She also said she has a slight kicking problem, but thats pretty fixable. The more I heard about the mare, the more I liked her and thought she could make a decent 4H prospect with a few months training. So, we set it up to go see her.

Myself and two of my students went over to see her, her name was Treasure at this time, after lessons for the evening. The friend who had contacted me about her met us over there..in the dark. Yes, I really wanted to see the mare. She told me she was a little under weight when we had talked earlier so I knew I wouldnt be riding her. What we were all met with when we got there was not what we expected.

Please be warned, some of these photos may be hard to handle.

 I immediately called my husband, who immediately told me to make arrangements to bring her home. I love that man! I made arrangements right then and there to bring her home. One of my students that was with me would trailer her to her barn the next night.

Thursday night we met at the barn at 6:30pm. The trailer was already hooked up, so we finished evening chores and away we went.

We got to the location where Treasure was being kept around 7:15pm. I got to speak with the owner for the first time. She explained her kicking habit, which really doesnt seem much like a habit, more like she does it because she can. She explained why/how she fell off the last time she rode her. And she told me the mare was getting 5-6 quarts of a 17% fat feed....we will let that go.

We loaded the mare in the dark. The only light was from a friends headlights of her car. 5 minutes and alot of laughing later, the mare was on the trailer. And away we went.

She unloaded beautifully from the trailer when we got home. She walked very politely up to the barn. It took her only a few minutes to figure out that going into her stall wouldnt harm her. She drank from the fresh water, ate from the fresh hay, licked her new mineral block, sighed contently and then laid down and took a nice roll in her fresh new sawdust. We let her relax for a little while before pulling her out for better pictures and giving her dinner.

Again, these may be hard to look at.

 She then went into her stall for the night to eat her dinner and sleep comfortably.

More updates to come. So far so good. Her registered name is One Mans Trash. I will be changing her name as soon as I can. She is NO MANS TRASH. She is my Tia, and I believe she thinks that deserves a Thanks In Advance.