Sunshine babes

March 25th-My bday

I turned 34 and played hookie for part of the day to go and see my Laz Star 

(and though not legally mine, but mine through pony luv-Little Chief)

Even though Spring is trying to come, it's still in the 30's but in the sun, it feels like 50's.

It's bright and warm.

I got to the barn shortly after their breakfast, and during nap time part I of I'm sure IIII

Spoiled babies, and rightfully so

 Even wicked ponies are cuddly cute when laying down

 Laz was filthy...always. I swear he's only clean the few hours I'm with him.

He was a sleeeepy man and thoroughly enjoyed his grooming session.

He's been a bit off lately with his RR and showing signs of 'ouch' so I rode him only at the walk.

We did some arena work, and then trail rode around the farm property and out on the road for a few house's length and back.  I wanted a nice bday hack and he gave it to me.

 When I dismounted, he was much more alert so I decided to hand walk him some more.

I figured he could handle it, the road was soft and squishy footing and I wasn't on his back.

Mason: "anyone need a tire?"

 Glamor shot.

This was as clean as I could get him.
He's dusty...DUSTY. Needs a bath so badly.

 After our 1 mile walk, he came back and decided he wasn't going to miss out on nap time. The whole barn was quiet and it was peaceful.

He quickly went into a REM state, where his chin dropped on the ground and he started quivering.

Awww

 And then playful Sawyer went up to sniff and I think wanted to lay down next to him (b/c he plopped down one second later) but Laz didn't 100% trust him or his request and whipped himself up.

 And this...have you ever had a Valomilk?
They are from the early 1900's and I heard about it NPR and thus the craving and needing to find one to eat began...

 They are oooozing with marshmellowy liquidness of deliciousness.
SLURP!

Does not disappoint!

Messy and sticky and everything a good candy bar should be.

Eat.in.private.

Don't look at calories or fat...just eat and love it.

 ***

Saturday.  

Deja vu!

Obviously Laz has a fave napping area.

 Awww my humpless camel babe

 He is so comfortable with me walking up to him when laying down, it's awesome. It makes me feel I generate a trusting vibe to him.  He allowed me to rub rub rub his belly and laid flat out and stretched and moaned.

I walked back inside to grab his halter/lead and found the littlest inside rubbing his itchy spots on a water bucket holder

"ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh yes!!!!!"

 "What? I itz"

 So..I grabbed the mini first (who we now think has Shetland in him) and groomed the bejesus out of him.

And worked his fat little self.

I lunged him flat, and over a raised cavaletti and one on the ground.

He did great and is very careful about his little feet

 Future H/J poneeee

 He also had a mini-melt down and started rearing and decided he was DONE working and then went to galloping around like a mini maniac and trying to rip my arm out of socket.  I let him carry on and made him trot 3 circles in each direction nicely before we quit for the day. I hand walked him around the arena (b/c he needs manners when leading too) and re-groomed him again.  He ended it as a nice pony.

We want to train him to be child safe. 

Right now...he's a child killer, lol!

***

Next up...my sore??? limping all week, Laz?

Just when I'm about to pick up the phone in a panic and call Cliff  "He's SO sore!" Laz goes to a beautiful trot and wanting to play and looking amazing.

wtf?

Whatever, I'll take it.

Maybe he was muscle sore? Who knows but on Saturday he was moving beautifully.

We did ground work only b/c I didn't want to push it, but I had him trotting over ground poles to help with back/belly and stifle muscling.

He did great but he's not so graceful and likes to hit the poles with EVERY foot.

Come on...lazy! ;)

He had fun free lunging and would race around and then coming flying up to me, stop and nuzzle for a carrot. 

HA! 

Ok...he got it.

 The BO and I took the horses (Sawyer and Laz) down the road again (my new favorite b/c I get to exercise both Laz and myself) for a mile walk.

Mason doing is best mud otter impression.

Really?

He stinks...now I have 2 babies that are in need of a serious bath.

 Laz nibbling the spring grass.

Only a teeeeny tiny bit.

It's CHOCK full of sugars now so I can't allow it.....sigh

Only one major freak out when one of the neighbors was raking up by his garage.
Laz swore it was Freddy Krueger and wanted NOTHING to do with him.

We walked the horses up so they could meet the man and Laz horn snorted the entire time and grew to be 19h's tall.  He ended up calming down but not entirely.

My goal is to continue ride/hand walk him down the road so it's as comfortable to him as the arena is.

Overall, they did great though.

Back home-lunch time

 The two besties eat together

 Laz was soooo sleepy, he kept yawning, and eating.

His eyes are so expressive...I can basically tell his mood just from his eyes.

I'm sure he had a great nap after I left.

Easy day

Pulling up and seeing your horse happy, turned out and grazing on strewn hay with his buddies?

Worth every penny paid

Worth every mile driven

Up close on Laz's fur as I arrived

 His sores are getting MUCH better, with today being his 3rd treatment on the Animax

 That stuff seems to work pretty fast and little goes a long way

We did ground work today, with a solid 15 minutes of trot work.

He looked better from Sunday, but still not as great as he's been.

I did notice after about a minute of trotting, he did loosen up and start stretching his neck down, lifting his tail, and his trot improved some.

I've been doing his ground work at liberty lately to test out how it goes.

Pretty darn good...but it also shows where we need to work, which is nice to gage.

Teaching Laz the command for "Come" is something I'm doing.

I wave my hand at him (like curling my fingers towards me, as a come motion) to give him a physical cue along with the word "come" and when he arrives, he gets a treat.  

Yes, a carrot nib.  

I know a lot of people poo poo the idea of treat training. 

I don't. 

I like treats.  

Laz likes treats and why not have a little fun and reward during training?

 Worked for my dogs. 

Working for my pony.

So.....Come!

"Gimmez thiss stix"

 "Now I tetch youz some Puralleeeez Mom"

 After our 1/2 hour workings at liberty, he had been asking during the whole time to roll again
It's cute...the head dragging down, while he's 'working' and a quick paw, like "Oh herez lookz goooods to roullll"
So, at the end, I allowed it
That sounds so controlling.
At the end, he just asked and I didn't give him a working command so I guess he decided it was ok.

 There is something SO damn cute about rolling horses

 I would like to tickle or rub his belly but I think the four hooves flaying around will keep me away
;)

 So, the spoiled pony, after a good roll in the cool sand, promptly walked back to the mounting block where I keep my grooming brushes and stood.
"Ok, getz me cleanz again"
LOL!

Oh, and Laz is WORM free according to vet and the latest fecal test : 

"fecal results were negative. the test using sugar solution does test for tapeworms.  

Small strongyles that are adults producing eggs are tested for there is not a test for encysted larva."

Relief for now that I don't have to worry about wormer and what type to use since his laminitis.
I like time with my options as I research some more.

Weekend play

Little Chief watching over Laz and Sawyer during nap time, sent via BO

These three continue to get along, play, sometimes bully and fight each other, but it's great for all of them to be in their little herd.

Sat, I clearly came during nap time.

Can you blame me? 

Horse Frogger?

 So, the next second, Sawyer came up to Laz and Laz decided "Allley oooop" and up I went with him.

Fun fun fun.

He just stood up within one second, and walked away with me on his back. 

Thankfully, we were just in his paddock and the pasture wasn't open other wise I'd be gone on a bit of a ride Indian style.

 Sweet boy

 A view from above on my naked horse

 The remaining of the day was great. 

Rode in the arena, had some minor spooking, and bratty head snaking shoulder bucking (more like his humping up his shoulder while arching his neck and totally pushing into bridle and being a brat) but we rode through it.  I can compare the feeling to riding a dolphin (or what I imagine it would be)..the hump action on their backs and the up and down, while forward. 

He was bothered by the wind, shaking pine trees (I think) and kept reacting to it.  Or who knows...but something made him annoyed.

 I kept him trotting in figure 8's and then brought him back down to a walk. I wanted to 'reset' his mind.  When he gets frustrated or fearful, he AMPS its up, so I always want to attempt to bring him down.  Sometimes the trotting works, other times, if we cool it and walk through it, he is able to absorb things better mentally.

Re-set

We picked up our work again, did some pole trot work, and then walked around the property a little.

He calmed down.

We joined up with another boarder and her senior horse, for a hand walk down the dirt road.

It was so great, I wanted to come back Sunday and do it again.

Sunday-Laz was a bit sore.  

(I don't think it's connected to his ointment..I think it's weather related and possibly he hurt himself a bit, during his bucking episode?)

His trot was awful, totally off and I couldn't bear asking him to do it.

I decided no riding, just work on some Parelli mental games, keep it at the walk and see where it took us.

He was great.  He enjoys his little Parelli-ish stuff.

I say Parelli-ish, because that's how I roll...it's always 'ish. I can't following anything exactly or to a "t" and I like to have it be somewhat our own thing with a backbone of some structure.

We walked off line, together around the arena, over the cavaletti's, worked on circles, backing up, follow the leader (moi) and just played. 

He was calm and happy to walk around and follow and listen freely.

He kept hesitating at this spot and pawed, so I stopped to offer up a roll for him.

I know rolling is a great release for their muscles and mind.

And, below I took a picture from our road walk...

My calm ottb going for a nice hand walk down our dirt road off our barn.

We've walked it before but not in at least a year, up until this weekend.

So, we walked it both Saturday and Sunday. 

I clocked it with my car, and it is .8 mile round trip.

So, next time, I'm going to have us go a little further so it's at least a mile walk.

Great for us both.

Mason joined us, and we walked with other boarders and their horses.

It's a beautiful walk. Quiet, dirt road, not many cars but enough to keep him exposed and learn to not panic, which he's been great.  We even walked by a neighbor on his lawn mower/tractor thing raking up his lawn with NO reaction. 

Awesomeness!

Laz seems to enjoy it and it has to help build his confidence and exposure to different things daily. 

It's fun to find something different to do, when the original plan needs to be altered.

He got his beet pulp slurpee today, and I put some of his holistic medicine in it for anti-swelling for his soreness.  

I treated his hock spots and that ointment seems to be working pretty fast...so far so good.

Spring is coming....the chirping birds don't lie!

Treatment of mystery spots

Somewhat inconclusive.

Vet thinks it could be some fungal, allergy related something.

He didn't do a scrape because it said it would just show yeast, bacteria, etc and he already knew that was there. 

So, gave me a tube of this and I'm supposed to treat until it's gone.

You can read some info here regarding Animax Ointment

It's the constant struggle of "Is this OK to put on my horse?" 

"Does it trigger any complications to his laminitis?"

Per my Vet, he says it's OK to use but always watch and if I see anything different, discontinue use and call him.  So far, he's totally fine with his 1st treatment, which I'm going to put on every other day instead of everyday, which Vet ok'ed as well.  

As it progressively heals, he said to use Aloe and Vit E to repair skin tissue. 

Cool. THAT I like.

In other words, I just ordered some products from Zephyr's Garden, to see how they will work in the future.

Fly spray, healing balm, and anti itch spray. 

Couldn't resist the Free Shipping today and coupon code for $10 OFF is "Friend"

So treat yourselves too! :)

Zephyr is a beautiful barefoot Bay....hmmmm....looks sorta like someone else I know!

We'll see how our treatment goes, and how our new ZG products are (I wont mix my ZG products while using the Animax..they are for future use).

Georgette at Zephyr's did get me started with great info and was amazingly sweet to chat with via email...says a lot about a company :)

Side note, I still struggle with vaccines. My vet and I talked about the EEE vaccine again.

My gut says NO.  I worry I'm exposing Laz to too much, but on the other hand, I KNOW that he doesn't respond well to the vaccines.  

What's a horse Mom to do....

I guess...go with my gut for now and hope it's the right choice for him.

I have my holistic remedy for EEE and will do that again and hope it actually works.

Your guess is as good as mine

Skin irritations.

These are not hock sores.

These are some sort of skin irritation/allergic something that Laz has dealt with every Spring.

They appear and he rub, rub, rubs them on everything to itch them.

I figured out in this post that they iiiiiiiiitched instead of hurt.

On Saturday, they took on a new look...just from Thursday. 

They went from small scabs (I thought I had them under control by putting cortisol anti itch cream on them all winter) to HUGE, pussy, hairless marks of about 6" inches long on his left hind and about half the size on his right hind and itchy.

Vet's coming Thursday to do a scrape.

It's about time I figure out what it is and treat it properly.

Any guesses??

I'm thinking possibly mites? gross...I know.

Or some allergy to seasonal changes? A fungus??

Why there? Don't know

No changes in diet, or products, etc.

The photos below are from last June..

And from this week

Before it's scrubbed clean, because Laz insists on being covered in mud from ear tip to toe

 After I clean it out

 A zoom on it

 My weapons

 He could care less when I treat the 'wounds'

He's more interested in pulling out everything in my bucket one at a time

 Far pic but look at his trot!

Yay!

 And I brought these out..time to work on his belly

So....any guesses???

Lucky #6

He ended up winning First!!!

Lycius Two, aka Lazarus....aka my baby!

Race was at Calder on July 6th, 2003

He was only 2 yrs old.

His last race was 5/19/08, I met him in June of 2008 and officially rescued him in November of 2008 when he was the only horse I would ride/think about after June.

I had then, no idea, how fresh off the track he was.

I just knew he was kind and awesome.

What fun to find a piece of his history....now I'm on the hunt for a Foal picture. 

Romper Room

Yesterday was so crappy out, all I did was groom Laz and Mini.

Laz was favoring his RR so I wasn't going to push it by riding, or working him in the arena where the footing is squishy but still icy right now.  

So, he was just loved on and left to play.

Play they did!

They literally were hams and putting on a show. I could have made 10 of these videos for how much they play and romped around. 

So sweet!

Listen for the Mini's delightful squeal. 

The barn is a complete mud mess with all the snow melting, the rain,rain,rain, more snow..YUCK. 

The barn is typically so mud free and there is nothing we can do other than wait for wind and sun to dry it out.

I know the sucking action of the deep mud sometimes puts Laz in a little discomfort but overall he seems ok.

Spring-get here!

We like our future and enjoy it presently

"Gurgle, hiss, snort, grumble

Wake up..I'mz hungree"

How bad can a day be when it starts out with this wrinkly face?

Ooops.

No, not a rescue on Craigslist.

Just Laz treating his skin to a mud mask

One good thing about snow, is there's no mud.

Damn...but I'm NOT going to say anything bad about a 40 degree day!

Laz standing quietly while I attempted to remove the mud.

As I was currying, he flinched at one spot and gently swung his head at me.  I stopped and looked, and sure enough he had a dollar sized patch of hair missing from a love bite.  The skin wasn't broken but he obviously didn't want my rubber curry going over that now bruised part.  How sweet for him to gently tell me and not try to bite, balk, kick.  He is kind.

Playful too, as he kept rummaging through his grooming bucket and picking out each brush one at a time.

"Use this one...now this one...I hatz that one"

Lately instead of lunging only to begin, we do some Parelli games.

If he needs to run around and buck, I allow him too but he has been so calm for a long while and not showing  want/need to run around like a crazy man.

(of course I just cursed that)

I try to introduce some new things at least once a week.

Today, I worked on cracking my carrot stick (whip thing) on the ground to try and desensitize him to the sound and action of it.  It's been a while since we've worked on this.  At first, he was a little worried and starting trotting around me in a circle, not frantic but he definitely wasn't confident. I stood there, looking down at the ground, body relaxed while repeating to crack the whip enough to get a sound on the ground, over and over and over.  After a few minutes he came towards me asking to come in.  I stopped and allowed him too. I always want him to think I'm a safe zone for him.  I ended it there and moved on to other games and praised him for being brave. I know it may sound trivial but it's not. I see our progress and where we need work. It's nice having sight on that.

We end those mental games with a nice ride where we translate some of the ground work, through riding.

It's helped our riding and our partnership.

Another wonderful thing about blogging is I get to go back and compare notes from our past, to our present.

This post was from last March, a year to the day

A lot has changed for the better.

March 2010 was when I decided to fight one last time, get a barefoot trimmer and try a more holistic approach to healing his laminitis.  What a leap of faith but luckily I had a lot of readers that helped us down this path, and we are so so so so happy to still be heading in a positive direction. 

Physically and mentally....for us both! lol

Laz's health continues to improve and his feet are growing and we are still trimming and allowing his horn grow at the rate it does with no severe rushing.

His stance has changed. He used to have his RR stand underneath him, not putting much weight on it.  Now he stands square and I catch him often resting his LR which was something he never did. Surely a good sign as he improves in his muscling and balance.

Some annoying things I noticed is it seemed warmer a year ago and drier.  Oh well, I needed that for him when he was healing, so thanks. ;)

I have to say, riding him today, was peaceful success.

He was peaceful, sighing and walking confidently on a loose rein, picking up a trot with my slightest cues of gathering up the reins and thinking of a 'Trot'

Our games/training have helped us improve our communication.

I am learning that the more I trust in him, the more I should.

What a lovely boy he is.  

How lucky I am to still have him!

Love you Laz!!!

And my sweet Mason...my little chocolate co-pilot.

Who snoozes in the sun on our way home, after walking around with us during our ride.