The Owls Approve: 2016

Archie

My trail buddy has been giving me jump lessons on Ox over the past couple of weeks. We used to do it on Sundays after we went on a trail ride, but then our trail rides got bigger and we ran out of time. We've met twice before the trail ride to do a quick jump school, which I find is just as effective as a longer one.

She's a retired h/j trainer. We don't see eye-to-eye on the same things, exactly, like chipping versus the long spot (chipping makes me want to barf), but her knowledge and confidence and eye on the ground has been invaluable in my path to becoming a jumper* again.

*not like, literal jumper.

These mini lessons tend to start out the same way, which, though it sucks because it's work, is fucking awesome:
↣ getting the big orange booty moving that big orange booty forward, without his shoulders popping
↣ going from a working trot to a collected, sit-trot and back to a working trot. I'm okay at this, but recent visits to the tattoo parlor have made this exercise particularly ouchie.
↣ some dressage, like leg yielding and shoulder-in. we work on this by ourselves when it's too dark to jump, too.
↣ and canter stride work, which has lately been adjusting between 4 and 6 strides in a five-stride trot pole set up, and counting out five strides before the fence, because it gives me something else to focus on other than my imminent death.

I gotta say, busting my leg did absolutely nothing for my confidence. I will jump everything she sets up, but I am seriously so much more comfortable trotting into a line and cantering out or trotting up to singles. This is ironic because the line that I crashed on was a trot in-canter out line, but the brain makes no sense.

Here's a 43 second video in which she tells me to keep my eyes up seven times.

Over fences, we've been working on courses and getting my body and eye better. I love to curl up on myself with my knees squeezing for dear life when something is scary. This is not a safe position. Brain makes no sense. So we work on getting my tatas out, lengthening my leg and getting my heels down, and sitting up and back to the base of the fence. I forgot for a while that I had hands and should release, but my heels were certainly pretty. We're getting there.

Latest course started with the most horrifying fences. Did not die.

Achilles

Ten & Tink

12:47 PM
By Beka Burke
9 Comments

birgette

The Struggle Bus

11:24 AM
By Beka Burke
9 Comments

Things I will eventually write about, promise:

D's birthday/our anniversary weekend (a month ago!)
riding the ponies

So I took Birgette, our recently-adopted GSD, to her first vet visit ~~yesterday~~ last Monday, five days after we adopted her. The foster had mentioned that she'd been putting drops in her eyes, but couldn't tell me what the medication was or what it was treating. And didn't, you know, give me the medication.

As the days progressed, her eyes started looking like shit. Gunky buildup in the morning and squinting. So I moved our appointment up. Then D played a game of fetch with her for about twenty minutes and she spent the rest of the night limping. We attract special-needs pets.

The derp is normally not this strong in this one.

The foster also didn't bring her records to the adoption and was supposed to have mailed both the records and her already-late dose of heartworm prevention to me. When I went into the vet visit last Monday, I told the receptionist that I was having a hard time getting the records, who the rescue and foster were, at which vet hospital the foster worked, and she managed to retrieve everything from a surprisingly unaffiliated additional vet. The only information the foster was really able to give me was that her eyes had looked like crap for five months (poor treatment or chronic illness?), that she had "scratches" on her eyes, but that they didn't stain them. (so how'd they know they were scratched?)

The records from the vet actually indicated that she'd had a tear duct test and had her eyes stained, which we repeated last Monday. She's got poor tear production in both eyes, which is a permanent condition. The time that she was being neglected prior to rescue resulted in scarring of her right eye. She's partially blind in that eye. She'll need eye drops for the rest of her life.

By the time of the visit, she was no longer limping, but I asked my vet to check her hind end regardless. She's got hips but no butt. The vet said that her hips were in excellent condition (woo!), but that her knees already have crepitus. I already planned on starting her on a joint supplement for preventative measures, but I want her to be on her new food for a solid week before I introduce more changes. So next week, we'll start tapering in the joint stuff. Hopefully my OTC stuff is sufficient and she feels more comfortable and starts filling in her atrophied muscles. If not, we'll pursue prescription food to see if that helps.

Finally, my vet felt that she was being judged too harshly on her horrible teeth. She demolished her incisors and bottom canines by chewing on her chain, but her back molars look great. She adjusted the projected age from 5-7 to 3-5, which means we hopefully get to have her around longer.

Her little canines should be poking on the edges of that tongue.

Since the visit, we've seen improvement in both her physical ability, as in we keep the exercise limited but she's still not limping, and in the condition of her eyes. I had to talk to D about high-value treats and that the hot dogs only came out for eye drops and were immediately dispensed after eye drops, but this girl has been a champ for them. Next up for her is a recheck and scheduling a visit for a dental specialist. I want to get her eyes settled first.