Today was the first day I've found time for a session with Gambler in over a week. The light was fading fast, so everything was a bit rushed. Gambler was attentive and relaxed, which was impressive given the circumstances. He's always a little squirrely when I haven't seen him in a while.
I started out by playing the Parelli games with him just to see where we were. Horses live in the moment. They remember everything, but they don't live for yesterday, or tomorrow; they live today. So every time I see Gambler I run over the basics to see what horse I have for the day.
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| Circling at the walk. |
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| Yielding the forequarters |
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| Yielding the hindquarters |
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| Lateral flexion |
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| Lateral flexion |
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| Flipping the reins over Gambler's neck to get him used to the motion. |
One thing I have been focusing on Gambler's right side. He is not comfortable seeing me out of his right eye. He prefers to be led from the left, and whenever I groom him on the right he wants to turn his head and look at me from the left eye. I've spent enough time on the circling game that he is comfortable going both directions, but the friendly game is scarier on the right. Not to mention when I play the driving game to move his forequarters on the right he will swing his hindquarters at me threateningly. Today I spent some time on the right side and it paid off. He started licking and chewing and yawning, releasing a lot of nervous energy.
Then I did some mounting prep. He still isn't acting spooky, but he is grumpy. I've had the chiropractor come out, so I know everything is okay, but he's acting like he is in pain. I hope that it's a ptsd sort of thing, and he is just remembering a past injury. I'm afraid the damage is deeper. For now I'm going to continue. I've sat on him before without any grunting so maybe he just had a belly ache today. Fingers crossed.
While my mom and I were trying to put weight on him without head tossing, biting, and grunting, a new situation arose. Kezi is apparently no longer herd-bound to Gambler. Gambler, on the other hand, is definitely attached to Kezi. So Kez just walked away into the other pasture and Gambler went bananas. I'm talking full-out cantering in circles, bucking, kicking, you name it. For the most part he listened to my cues and stayed out of my space (he needed a few reminders), which was impressive. Needless to say, it's just one more thing we'll have to address at a later date.
By this point the sun had nearly set, so we brought the horses in to feed them. We gave Gambler an extra dose of Metamucil in case his grumpiness was caused by a sand colic flare-up. Then I spent some time grooming him in the cross-ties.
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ReplyDeleteI was going to wait to mention this until I've caught up because you might have already done this, but have you considered ulcers? The grunting, biting things while being girthed, mood swings, etc. could all be ulcers. You could try aloe vera juice or alfalfa to coat the stomach. A lot of people use human ulcer meds first to see if there is an improvement before they go to the expensive horse drugs, but I can't remember what it's called. You like to research like I do, so I'm sure you can find it if you look up ulcers. I hope this is all irrelevant and that the problem has already been solved, but I wanted to mention it just in case, because I might forget later on hehe.
ReplyDeleteI never even though of that. For the most part, the issue has gone away, but every now and then he acts a little sore or throw in a grunt. If it becomes a big issue again I will definitely look into that!
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