She thankfully has improved since her vaccine reaction. She didn't really want to eat for a couple days and I was worried she just didn't like her new food. I gave her some probiotics and she bounced back a few days later and is now eating her new food! She is not food motivated in any way, so getting her to eat grain is difficult. I got her a ration balancer so she only needs to eat 2 pounds a day and she'll be set for everything she needs, but getting to 2 pounds might take a while. We finally moved up from 1/2 a pound twice a day, to one pound in a feeding so she's gradually learning to eat it!
She dropped a good amount of weight and looked terrible, but luckily gained it back. She still hasn't shed out her winter coat and it's been in the mid-80's a couple days here and she seemed uncomfortable and I was over it, so she got body clipped.
I usually think it's silly to body clip in the spring since they're going to shed anyways, but she was taking altogether way too long. All the other horses in the area were shed out except her. The surprise? She didn't care one bit about being clipped. She even let me do her bridle path and chin! She even stood super well for the whole thing since it took a while, letting the clippers cool off every few minutes. I'm kinda bummed - I got these fancy brushless motor clippers by Wahl thinking they'd be cooler but they get WAY hotter than my last pair of clippers.
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| Before clipping |
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| So much hair! |
Anyways, I was impressed by the clipping. I didn't attempt doing her muzzle since I know that's a really ticklish area and we did plenty for one day. But we have found her new nemesis: fly spray. She does not like it one bit and dances around, bolts and just generally hates it. So I bought a spray bottle and now we get to practice with water every day after she eats her food! Very unhappy baby, she would like you to know she is being cruelly mistreated over here.
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| Naked!! |
She is 9 months old now and just hit 14 hands at the shoulder! She weighs a little under 600 pounds. We are getting better at being caught (she tends to walk towards me now in the pasture instead of immediately walking away), she is a pro at tying and loading in the trailer. She hates fly spray, clippers are acceptable, treats are still very meh. We need to continue working on trailering away from home, tying in the cross ties, and our new adventures will include ponying and a bath as soon as I have time!
That's pretty much a complete update on little Miss Maisie.
Jetta continues much the same. Our trot work seems fairly good and we had a great ride yesterday. The canter continues to be a mystery as to why on earth we seem to be flailing around. I waffle back and forth on "it's all me" to "my horse is being a resistant idiot" and I'm pretty sure it's 50/50. We are playing around with different exercises, stirrup lengths, and bits or lack of bits to try and find SOMETHING that works. I'm pretty bummed that this is the place in our current training that I'll be taking her to see the clinician this weekend since I'd love to work on stuff more towards preparing us for 2nd level, vs. "how to canter" like we haven't been doing it forever. But oh well, at least she keeps me humble!
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| At least our outfits are matchy |
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| She's getting pudgy! We just cut her grain back finally |
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| She's lucky she's pretty |
Getting her started early on that clipping!
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