Real Life

Well, I'm about 12 weeks out from graduation and I've been working at an amazing clinic for the last couple months. It's been a huge change from school. I can't be happier at where I ended up - it was a massive source of stress for me that I didn't have a job offer until a few weeks before school ended. Then I ended up with two offers from two amazing local clinics, both of which were my dream jobs. I had the hardest time deciding between the two, but now I'm working at such a great place. It's still an internship, which I didn't want to do in the first place, but it's been great and I'm glad I chose it. I have a pretty good support system at the clinic. I'm riding with other doctors part of the week, and going solo the other part of the week.

On one hand it's been amazing, on the other hand it's been overwhelming, exhausting, and terrifying. But, I'm glad I chose this career path - it's the best!

The horses are doing well. My baby is officially two years old! She's looking pretty good most days, but very awkward others. She wore her bridle for the first time without incidence. The lunging training is slowly progressing.

2 year old glamour shots

Love this face

Saddle pads are not concerning. Lunge whips are definitely concerning.

Rose gold everything

Loving how she's developing

Real life is a tough balancing act. I can't wait to do more with this girl and get more training and adventures going!

Update Overload

I'm not even sure where to begin, it's been a while.

First off, most importantly... I passed my boards!!! In less than 5 short months I will actually be a DVM. It's crazy that it's finally almost here - exciting, but mostly terrifying. But that's another post. It's been a really long 4 years!

Lots of things have happened the last couple months:

Jetta did this. Because she's an idiot. Apparently her neck cover came off partially and when the BO called the horses in for dinner, she started running with the other horses, then obviously her neck cover was flapping around and "chasing" her. So the logical thing to do would be to run through the fence, right?

Such a dumb dumb

Luckily she ended up with no serious injuries, just a few superficial scrapes. The next day her legs were swollen, but she's a delicate flower and was never actually lame. A couple doses of bute and she was back to normal!

We went on a frosty New Years day ride which was lovely. But very very cold.

 I've been working with Maisie on groundwork and she's occasionally looking like a real horse a times. An awkward moose calf at other times.

Maisie got to go on another field trip to the barn. She got to hang out in the cross ties, where she's mostly trustworthy. And she got her first full bath! She was MAD about it, or as mad as a little baby horse can get. Lots of pinned ears and tail swishing, but that was it.

Finally getting almost trustworthy in the crossties

My two favorite nicknames for her: my baby string bean or baby noodle

Wearing Jetta's cooler

And then I had a bad day where I euthanized several horses in a row at school, so we did this:

And I didn't die. I never thought I would ride Jetta tackless simply because she's the kind of horse that likes to go-go-go and getting her to slow down is not her favorite. She's been a tough horse to train so while she's very responsive, she also doesn't have the most eager-to-please personality so I just resigned myself to not trusting her without tack, despite the fact that I love liberty work.

Speaking of liberty work, I do a lot of that on the ground with Jetta when I'm too lazy to ride and I've been having a ton of fun with it lately - Jetta is learning how to collect her trot and canter, in addition to changing the size of her circles while free lunging. I'm hopeful it'll translate to better transitions in the saddle!

How's that for a disjointed, overwhelming update post?!

Decisions Decisions

So many decisions lately. A bunch of people have already been clipping their horses and I'm trying to decide when I should do Jetta. It's a little early for me to clip, but then again I have time this week before my schedule gets crazy... so that leaves the decision for what design do I want to do?

I miss her tail!

My favorite

I'm probably going to do something similar to the year before last (my favorite one). She didn't get done last year because of baby, but even if I don't ride her a whole lot this winter she just has too much hair. She's been getting pretty sweaty during our rides lately. She has a super dense winter coat, but there's not a whole lot of length. Still too much hair!

Baby horse hasn't been doing too many exciting things, though she did finally get some boots of her own! I had a pair of medium Veredus splint boots that are a hair too small for Jetta and I haven't been able to get anyone to buy them off me. They're the perfect size for Maisie so I decided to keep them. Then at WEG I looked at a bunch of different boots and decided I liked the Horseware Amigo Air Flow boots. I would've liked some Majyk Equipe boots but I needed to stay under $50 a pair and these were half that price. I'm trying really hard not to buy lots of things for her, especially ones that she will grow out of. I think at this point she has a handful of halters, a cob sized bridle that I used for Trask, a baby blanket, and now boots (one pair of which was a hand-me-down).

Ugly but free!

A friend that used to breed warmbloods gave me a blanket for her this spring. I measured her at around a 62-64" (I was being lazy and trying to measure a moving target). Luckily the blanket fits perfectly, unluckily it fits perfectly so she's going to grow out of it shortly. So now I need to hunt for a cheap blanket that will last the winter! I was thinking maybe a 68" or 70".

She could have cared less about the boots and took a couple funny steps before getting over it and walking a few laps around the round pen. Such a good baby!

Best baby

I made the decision not to go to the dressage show this weekend which is a bummer, especially since I am so ready to start showing at second level and this was going to be out debut. But, we need some more time to polish everything and I have other plans this weekend, so we'll have to wait until spring. The good news is that I really like the new second level tests for next year, so I'm excited to start riding them!

Birthday Girl

I can't believe that one year ago (on the 27th officially) I got to welcome my sweet bouncing baby buckskin girl into the world! I had been wanting to breed FOREVER and still somewhat regret not breeding my amazing appendix QH mare years ago (I recently saw a 4 year old with almost the same cross - same stallion that I wanted at the time with the same breed of mare - and I swooned!)

I could not be happier with my little mini Jetta filly - she is the prettiest little thing with a great brain and I can't wait to see where the future takes us! Of course I had to give my baby a ridiculous birthday party. I made her a cake by putting water in her normal grain, dicing up a couple apples into it and then squishing it into the shape of a cake. I drizzled a tiny bit of molasses on it and then stuck some more apples on it. Maisie LOVES apples but hasn't quite figured out carrots yet so it was just apple-flavored this year and she thought the cake was delicious! (she can be really picky)

It was cute but also looked like a pile of dirt

<3

Marge the sheep is a party crasher

She didn't even care about the party hat!

Sparkles the goat was polite about sharing the cake

I have the most tolerant boyfriend!

Our new roommate even participated! (Hopefully she didn't judge me too much lol)

This girl is the best

Can't believe I already have a yearling on my hands!

Friday Field Trip

My truck is finally fixed!! I'm so happy to be mobile again! To celebrate, I decided that it was time to take Maisie on another field trip to Jetta's barn. The plan was to start teaching her how to pony, but it didn't quite work out...

Maisie loaded up and hauled perfectly. When we got to the barn, I left her in the trailer while I got Jetta out of the field. I tied Jetta to the trailer and unloaded and tied Maisie next to her. I was starting to tack up Jetta when she untied herself and took off, high tailing it back to the pasture. I was about to go after her when a GIANT horse fly started buzzing around Maisie. I couldn't decide what to do first, but I decided that Jetta wasn't going anywhere now that she was grazing back by her pasture and I really didn't want Maisie to get bit and freak out, so I stuck Maisie in her stall and retrieved Jetta. Stinker - you'd think the 12 year old would act better behaved than the 12 month old...

That side eye though

I tacked Jetta up and lunged her really quickly and discovered we had a problem - the sprinkler was going in the arena and I didn't know how to dismantle it so I could shut the arena door. I definitely wasn't going to try ponying for the first time in a space where Maisie could take off and make a run for it out of the arena. So I stuck Jetta in the cross ties and played with Maisie a bit. We walked around the property and eventually made it out to the field where the jumps were set.

Discovering how cool fans are

Maisie didn't even glance at the poles, but walked over them calmly and easily. I was so proud! We did that a few times and ended with walking over a tiny crossrail jump - baby's first jump!

NBD

By the time we finished walking around it was super hot (almost in the 90's) and the sprinkler in the arena still wasn't done. So I decided that this was a good opportunity for Maisie's first bath and then I stuck her in the cross ties while I untacked Jetta. She was great! She did not like the bath at all (shocker), but stood fairly nicely while I sprayed her neck and shoulders.

Still not sure about cross ties

Overall, I was super proud of my little nugget and next time we will definitely try ponying!

I tried to take a confo pic because she's finally starting to look like a horse! But nope- llama baby

Living the Baby Horse Life

Baby horse has mostly been living the life, just hanging out in the pasture. But we've been working on some basic life skills on occasion.

Tying champion

Whenever I clean the barn she gets to be tied and learn about standing. We have worked a little bit on cross tying, which she definitely was not sure about. I haven't actually tied her yet, just run the lead ropes through her halter/the cross tie rings to get her used to use to how it looked/felt. She was quite unsure and kept eyeballing the lead ropes, but we ended on a good note with her snoozing, though I wasn't able to walk away quite yet.

Not really sure what's going on

She also has gotten her vaccinations (complete with booster) and is up to date on her worming. She was initially pretty offended about getting poked with a needle, but didn't give me too much trouble. She's a champion about being dewormed which I really appreciate!

SO FLUFFY

Other than that, I'm hoping to haul her to the barn that Jetta's at one evening for a field trip. I was going to do it last week, being spring break and all, but when I hooked up my truck and trailer, the truck started leaking a large amount of antifreeze so the BF worked on it this weekend and hopefully it'll be as good as new soon!

Trying on her big girl halter... she's too big for yearling size, but still too small for horse size!

Maisie hasn't hauled alone yet, but we've practiced loading and she doesn't hesitate. She is not a fan of me tying her and threw a bit of a tantrum, but we worked through it and she ended up being (sullenly) ok in the trailer. Hopefully she'll be quiet to haul!

And lastly, she got her first acupuncture session on Friday. My friend PR just got certified so she came out and tried a few points. No results yet (in terms of cribbing) though I have definitely never seen Maisie that relaxed! Her lower lip was droopy and she was having a hard time keeping her eyes open. But maybe we'll try a couple more sessions and see how it goes.

Model status

Most excitingly... She jumped an almost 5 foot fence about a week ago. This is the second time in her 8 months of life that she has jumped a large pasture fence. I am not amused. She better grow up to be a great jumper! I think what happened is that she was turned out with Kestrel, my roommate's 3 year old Appy mare. Kestrel is very submissive towards the roommate's other horse, hence why we turned her out with Maisie. Unfortunately, Kestrel quickly figured out how easy Maisie is to boss around, resulting in Kestrel chasing, cornering and trying to double barrel Maisie. So they lost their turn out privileges together which is a huge bummer. Luckily Maisie only ended up with a small scrape on her right knee and stifle which I cleaned and examined. I was worried she had a puncture wound, but it's really just a scratch on her knee.

Naughty babies

So that is the exciting life of a baby horse! I can't wait to take her on her field trip next week, so I will keep you updated on what happens!

Derpy run