Tuesday, March 18, 2008

In general...

It's funny, the work today was rather grueling, to say the least, with a doctor who had a cold and couldn't seem to think straight because of it, and another who kept saying really weird things that I thought MIGHT be headings, and then throwing in random "sub-bullets," so that editing the reports took me forever. But, as soon as I finished up, I started feeling totally bouncy. I guess the relief of having finished gave me a rush. :-D

Anyway, the horses are both well. I just had a good conversation with the vet, updating him on Mira's progress. He was very, very glad to hear how well she is doing. After I finish these tubes of antibiotic ointment, then we won't treat her any more, and just keep watching it. I'm hoping, hoping....

Andolu is doing well. Now that I have more time, I am working on an issue he has. When I got him, I was pretty sure he had either fungus or thrush (or both) in all 4 feet, and RIGHT BEFORE Mira had her oh so fun incident, I had gotten the necessary medication. That unfortunately fell by the wayside until a couple days ago, when I dug it up and refreshed my memory on the treatment protocol. I can't wait until this problem is taken care of, because he has some heel pain that is quite obviously due to the infection(s), and his heels are not growing very much at all, either. The toes grow and the trimmer takes care of those, but the trimmer basically doesn't even have enough to work with on the back. In case you are interested, here are a couple links on this type of issue:

Look in More Topics
Case study

Also, on a different subject, I don't think I have yet posted about this blog: Saving Argus is an absolutely heartwarming story of a rescued horse. Very, very highly recommended. Just get some kleenex first.

I took a little time the other to change the horse paddock a bit, in the process giving the horses a few hundred feet of new green grass - it was of course all gone by the next morning! My next project with them is to start rotation grazing the rest of the property. Those of you who remember a certain episode from last year might share my relief that Mira has a companion this year, and will thus hopefully not have nearly as much angst about different pastures...

I am focussing a little more lately on training the horses to come when I whistle, and it is working amazingly well. Andolu really does pay much better attention to voice cues than Mira, and once he starts over she does too. I can now stand across the road, where they know there is no food, and whistle and they'll come over to the fence. Very cool! For now though, I make sure food always follows, because I want to really imprint it in their brains that coming=food.

OK, I know I'm too talkative. Thanks for reading this, and TTFN.


L

2 comments:

Rising Rainbow said...

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed too. Good luck with the hoof issue. I hate that kind of stuff especially this time of year. It's so hard to get healed up when the ground is icky.

Anonymous said...

Ah, the horse rescue stories were beautiful... But I've seen a few similar case in Niger. A mare a few years ago and then a young colt at the market of Mirriah last year - my eyes hurt just looking at him...