Weekly Update

Oops, I thought I had this scheduled to post on Wednesday but it didn't go! It's just a little bit late...

Wednesday the 9th - Spent the evening at the barn riding with MS avoiding all political news. It's pretty sad that it's so dark out early, I'm not ready for the next 4 months of riding in the dark. This barn seriously has the weakest lights both in the arena and in the aisleways so basically I don't get to see my horse in the light all winter...

Thursday the 10th - Our morning lab got cancelled so I didn't have to be at school until 1pm. Talk about the best way to start my day, I wish every Thursday could be that way! I got to the barn a little after 9am and since it wasn't raining out we went into the outdoor arena. The footing is a lot nicer in the outdoor, but it's got pretty bad drainage - there's basically a stream running through the middle of the arena and Jetta has to try and jump it every single time we go over it. Definitely makes for an interesting ride. Jetta was pretty well behaved minus trying to be a little quick especially when on the slight downhill portion of the arena but I thought it was a really great ride, definitely needed that day!

Chunk

Model status

My poor legs are just dead

Saturday the 12th - This weekend was basically the least horse-y weekend ever unfortunately. Our entire class got blindsided by some surprise assignments due this week, in addition to our 2 worst midterms coming up so most of the time was spent doing homework and studying. But I got to do some pregnancy palpations on some dairy cattle! I miss doing repro stuff - I was very involved in undergrad doing preg checks and AI for cows, but it's been a couple years. The school's palpation team restarted this year which is really exciting, there may be an opportunity to compete against other vet students at a national competition. I was pretty rusty, but I found a cow that had twins, got to feel a little fetus and found a cystic ovary. Pretty awesome!

Sunday the 13th - Also very little horses, since I ended up running away to go hiking. It was a super nice day (for November) and it was perfect for a 2 hour hike along a gorgeous trail. Don't think I could have spent the day any better unless I was riding a horse instead of walking that trail!

When I got back, ML and I went to see Snowman! I didn't think I was going to be able to see this movie since when it was first released, there was only one showing planned for my entire state and it was a couple hours away. Luckily a little independent theater in town picked it up for the week so we jumped at the chance to go see it. I really enjoyed the book and the movie was just about as good. It was a lot more depressing than I thought and Harry de Leyer's kids talked a lot throughout the movie and they seemed extremely bitter, which was sad. But I loved all of the video footage of Harry riding - he was so terrifying to watch! His heels almost touched over the back of the horse over every single jump. After he won the Madison Square Garden's Open Jumpers for the second time (not on Snowman), he immediately fell off and was dragged for a while. Just crazy. I highly recommend going to see it though! Also read the book :)

Monday the 14th - Had a fairly good ride in the indoor, Jetta was especially good (for her) for having 3 days off, with one exception. I was lunging her and someone came to deliver some bedding pellets. He didn't even peek around the corner to see if there was anyone in the arena and he just slid the huge sliding door open right as Jetta was trotting past it and she just about lost her mind. The closed door is now very terrifying. I was pretty annoyed at the guy for it, good manners dictate that you warn people before driving your large truck through an arena where someone is riding. Anyways, she handled him tossing bags into the loft extremely well since she is notoriously bad when people are in the loft, to the point that if we are riding at feeding time, the barn manager will go feed the upper or middle barn first so Jetta doesn't freak out. But we got some good work done even with that mishap, plus all the horses on that side of the barn were very upset about being inside - one horse was violently weaving, another was pawing and kicking the wall, another was squealing and rearing up in her stall. It was quite the environment for a ride, but I was pretty pleased with how Jetta handled it.

We also received this cool prize from Deco Pony! I've been wanting to buy a stall guard from her basically since she started making them (extra bonus is that she's a local-to-me company!) but I still need to wait for the perfect photo or design to use... She has started to make stall plates and I love how this one turned out! I just gave her Jetta's show name and our colors and this was the result! It's exactly what I would have chosen if I had gotten to design it myself. It's plastic so it's going to be really durable, the colors are bright and pretty (this picture doesn't do it justice, the barn lighting sucks) plus it's at an affordable price point so it would make a perfect gift for the holidays. I can't wait to use it at shows!

Tuesday the 15th - I ended up not going to the barn even though it was a day that I got out of class early, instead running errands and such. But I did get to go to a neat lunch talk on equine chiropractics (though with his certification program, it is called Veterinary Spinal Manipulative Therapy). I wasn't really thinking I'd get much out of it - I know the basics of what chiropractics does, I've seen in done on horses before, I know of it's benefits, both for myself and for horses... it seemed more geared towards people who didn't know anything about it. But I went anyways and actually really enjoyed it. He talked more on the certification part which was very interesting. There's multiple different programs you can go to get certified, he went to the Healing Oasis Center in Wisconsin. It sounded pretty intense - several hundred hours over 5 months of studying and practicing, including 5 different modules where he went to Wisconsin for a four-day teaching program. What's interesting is that this school is for Licensed Chiropractors (humans!) and Veterinarians. From what he said, human chiropractors are actually legally allowed to practice on animals, even if they don't have the training which I found very interesting. I'm not sure if that's true for every state, but it is here. It made me start thinking about if that's something I would want to do in the future because I can see how beneficial it would be for a veterinarian to also be a chiropractor and combine it with other more traditional therapies... I would definitely like to learn more on the topic of chiropractics at the very least! He thinks it is beneficial for a lot of things, and while it has never fixed a lameness in his experience, it can definitely help the horse be more comfortable.

So that was my week!