A deal on Delia

Well, that didn't take long.....
Talking to Delia's former owner, and he arranged a good deal for me.
There is a lady who owns one of Delia's sons who is sentimentally attached to Delia, and will buy her for what I paid for her.
But wait, that's not all.....
Former owner, who is getting on in years and infirmity, is trying hard to rehome some of his horses. He is giving me Delia's 3/4 sister, nicknamed Snoopy. She is a solid bay, 10 years old and never broke or bred. With the money from Delia, I can, if I choose, send her to a trainer for 3 months. Or, I can do the ground work on her, and flip her. Or, I can just keep her as a brood mare if she tests 5 panel negative. Lots of options!
I will be getting her on the 27th or 28th. I have seen photos and a video of her, and she is really pretty. (as far as I could tell). Her feet have been neglected, but Shayla will work on them for me. I'll have my round pen set up in a couple of days, so it will be perfect to assess her and do some ground work to see what I am dealing with.
There is a bit of a story to her; she was sold as a 2 yr old for $4500, but the lady came with a tiny 2 horse trailer to haul her on a 10 hour trip, and Snoopy got a little worried when she felt the butt chain and ended going down and under it, so they unloaded her and the lady bought  different horse. It's going to be interesting to have an untouched, mature horse from impeccable bloodlines to play with. And I've always liked the bays. :0)

Parting ways

Delia is up for sale. The reason for her sale is , well, because we parted ways, literally.
I went to ride her on Saturday, did my usual pre-ride checks, like leading her to and around any new items in the yard, sent her out a couple of times around on the line, but when it was time to mount she wouldn't stand still, so I worked her a little more until she relaxed and was licking and chewing, then she did stand still for mounting. I stepped her forward to do a little bit of circling before heading out, and she humped her hind end up... so I brought her nose around, took her hip out of gear, and asked again. Once more, up with the hind end, and same treatment from me. At that point, I should have stepped off and made her work her butt off until she had absolutely no doubt that yes, she did have to work today. But what I did was ask her to step forward.....
 Next thing I knew, it felt like I was on the receiving end of a stick of dynamite. Her head went between her knees, I couldn't pull it up, and she went rodeo on me. I think I lasted 2 jumps.... I hit the ground hard on my right side, and my head bounced off the ground at least twice- thank God I was wearing my helmet- I had the get down rope tucked into my belt, so she didn't go anywhere, but my brains were so scrambled I couldn't focus and could hardly coordinate my limbs to move if I had to get out of the way, fortunately she just stood still. I managed to call for Ted to help me get up.
My overwhelming feeling is disappointment. I was really enjoying this mare, but now I will never get on her again. I can't trust that this won't happen again, as she had no reason that I can find- nothing to be afraid of, and nothing causing her enough pain to do that- I had ridden her out down the road and through the fields a few days ago and she came through that just fine. I think she was just crabby that I wasn't turning her out to pasture.
No, I didn't cowgirl up and get back on- I'm too old for that. In my younger days, I would have made her work so hard she would beg me to get back on and ride, but I just don't need that crap anymore. So I put her away, looked at her and told her we were done.
She does have 2 nice colts that have nice dispositions, so she has potential to continue to be a brood mare. There might be some cowboy out there that is willing to ride the buck out of her, but it isn't me.
I'm sure there is a nice mare out there that will be a better match for me. Meanwhile, I have a cracked rib, and an awful lot of sore muscles and still feel a bit woozy, but no concussion.

It's a cryin' shame.

Striding out and a big wind

This weekend I didn't get as much saddle time as I had hoped for, as we attended a memorial wake for the dad of a friend of ours on Saturday, and Sunday turned out just beautiful - perfect for Mother's Day. Thanks to my daughter for the lovely bouquet of roses and carnations, my two favourite flowers, and the phone call and FB message- I felt loved! The best thing about being a mom is having an amazing daughter that is the light of my life.
I saddled up Delia, and decided to step it up a bit- limited the review work to a couple of minutes and didn't go into the training pen, just stepped on in the yard, did a couple of pre-trip checks to see where she was at, and headed down the road and into the hayfields that I rode through on Beamer the other day.
She was awesome.

My focus was to make this an enjoyable ride for both of us, and to see how she reacts to different things. She's pretty sensible and other than a few trot steps that were unasked for, she didn't put a foot wrong.
She trucked right along, looking at everything....

I did ask for a few things, like bridling up a bit if she was getting too looky, and some lateral moves, walk/trot transitions and changes of speed at the trot, all of which she did just fine. So that means.... we are ready for some real trail rides! I want to haul her to a local outdoor arena today, if I can pry the pick-up truck away from my husband; he's delivering loads of composted manure for gardens today.
About 7 PM the wind started howling here, coming from the east. It went on until dark- I looked out the window when it started to check on the horses, and there was Beamer, standing head on to the wind, when he could have been in one of his 2 shelters, silly boy!  He did go in after a bit.
This morning I surveyed the yard for damage, all of which was minor except for this:

Good thing those chutes were built solid or this granary would have been about a half mile away!
No other damage, other than a bit to some of my plants when a little decorative lighthouse got slammed into one of my oak barrel planters, and pails and chairs scattered around. The horses have good shelter on all sides except the mares when the wind is from due south.
Nice and calm today- time to ride on!

More saddle fit pics

Here are some photos I took before my ride yesterday; I previously showed the way it doesn't fit those wide shoulders of hers- this shows the rear view.

That's a substantial gap, and here is why:

My finger is laid along the bar, and the pink arrow shows (more or less) the shape of Delia's back at that point. So you can see how the angle of the bar is steeper than the angle of her back, which means that the bottom edge of the bar will dig into her back and cause discomfort  and soreness. I can get away with short rides in this saddle- which is actually quite a wide saddle- but I don't think it's fair to her to go on long rides. I'm hoping that fit kit will be here today- it was mailed over a week ago.....

Yesterday's ride went really well; started out leading through the Formerly Scary Areas, got in the pen and mounted up (she stood still, yay!) and  the focus of the work after review was on trot work. We are getting nice lateral work going forward at the trot, and nice changes of tempo. She did get a little sticky when I asked for more sideways reach, so we went back to the walk and worked on the sidepass. I find that she loves praise and every time I praised her for getting it right, she tried a little more the next time. Good girl! I had left the gate open, it's a narrow 4 ft. gate, so when it was time to head out into the yard, we rode through it. I thought she might scoot through such a confined space, but she didn't, just walked calmly through. We cruised through the yard, and I really wanted to go down the road, but the traffic was horrendous- they were doing the sturgeon release at the end of the road which is a boat launch area, and there were non stop cars going by. So I called it a day, and was happy with our progress.

Delia delights

You know you are having a good day when you don't want to get off your horse.
Today's session started out with leading Delia through the pole shed with all its (previously) Fearsome Objects.

Once she had navigated- calmly- through everything and had a good look at it all, we went into the pen I ride her in. At first, she had an issue with moving when I wanted to get my foot in the stirrup- I have trouble lifting my leg high enough, so she has to keep her front feet in a specific hole so that I don't have to reach too much- good thing she is only 14.2 hh! But with her round flat back, the saddle is a bit tippy so I need all the advantages I can find to make a nice smooth mount. She steps her hind end to the right. I kept patiently putting her back in position, and she kept stepping away. So I resorted to a vigorous back up that woke her up and got her attention, and then she was good- well, one more try just to see if I meant it, and she found out that yes ma'am I certainly did mean stand still!
Anyway after that we reviewed all of yesterday's work, and I'm happy to say that she keeps getting lighter and lighter to my aids. She is very sensitive to weight distribution. We did some really nice trot work where I only had to think about an extended trot and send just a bit more energy into my body and she would take a nice longer stride, and then I'd just think about a nice easy jog and exhale and she would come right back down- had to be careful that she didn't break to a walk with that though.
Since she was being so good, I took her out of the pen, and over to that pile of timbers that she wouldn't let me mount from yesterday... today, no problem! So we rode around the yard a bit, and then out onto the road. I wanted to work on an exercise to build her confidence and take away her herd bound issues. I rode a ways, not far, and then back to the driveway- but continued on in the new direction past the driveway, and then back. Kept doing this for a while, increasing the distance each time and she was nice and relaxed. I was keeping an eye out for traffic though, there were some yahoos cruising by yelling out the window a little earlier.

I felt like I could have just hit the trails and gone for an hour or two.....but as usual, my truck and trailer need work before I can haul anywhere. Hopefully by next weekend we'll be able to go on a real trail ride.

Advancing through issues

I've been riding Delia every day, I not only need to get her in shape, but first I need to work through some of her issues.
1. She is green- but she learns fairly quickly; she is really making headway on the lateral work; today I was able to sidepass the box with her (5 steps forward, 5 steps right sidepass, 5 steps reverse, 5 steps left sidepass). Also got shoulder in and hip in.
2. When she is uncertain about something, she stops. A very quick stop. As in all 4 feet stop moving NOW.
In this video, she does that stop, and I ask her to keep going. It's a little discombobulated because she isn't ready for one hand on the reins yet.

When you are expecting forward momentum and she does this, I tend to tip forward, so this is where those big ole spurs of mine come into pay; a squeeze with my calf and spur and she carries on.

Those rowels are large and blunt, which gives a good area to diffuse the pressure.

3. Delia lacks confidence. I wanted to ride outside the pen to start with today, but she was giving everything the hairy eyeball. So back into the pen for our session, and then out at the end of it. We did some advance and retreat work, as well as incorporating the movements we had been working on in the pen. 

All in all, it was a satisfactory day. I got some nice soft work , barely had to touch the rein sometimes, and she is really light to my leg now; pretty much the only time I touched her with the spurs was on those sudden stops and at the beginning of our lateral work- she picked it up quickly and worked nicely off only leg.
I think tomorrow I'll do a bit more ground work and introduce her to everything she looked sideways at today; vehicles parked in the pole shed, a pile of timbers, in and out through all the parked vehicles, etc. She was much better on the trail the day I bought her than she is in my yard!

Dappled Delia (edited to include a link)

Still waiting for that saddle fit kit to come in the mail....
Be sure to check out this link on wither conformation : Wither Conformation- seeing damage
Rode Delia in the Wade saddle, only for about a half hour, and here is what the sweat marks looked like after- I made sure to have the saddle as far back as I could to keep it behind her shoulder blades.

You can see the dry spot just to the right of her mane on this left side;

And a bigger area on her right side. Also, the back of the saddle is too rounded for her and doesn't sit right back there.

 I kind of feel bad putting a saddle on her that doesn't fit, so I might have to do like I did with Beamer and ride bareback until I can get her a good fitting saddle; only Beamer is really well broke... Delia not so much! But she is pretty easy to get along with so I shouldn't get into too much trouble riding bareback.
I put my spurs on last time I rode her, to help her get over her tendency to just stop suddenly when she doesn't know what the heck I want or just doesn't want to pay attention (like when she hears Josie call). I use my spurs judiciously - if you look where my stirrups hang in the photo above, you'll see that my foot hangs low, so I don't have the spur against her all the time. It worked well, and she started paying attention when I put a leg on her to ask for lateral movement or to get her  crossing over in front, and for turns on the forehand. Before, she was pretty much ignoring me. I have big blunt spurs, with a wide pressure area, and I don't do sudden jabs, just apply pressure after I apply leg pressure. She's learning! She does still have issues to the right, and I was reminded of something I read on Kates blog, where she said that she had to think about opening her hip when turning to the right, and I visualized that and it really made a difference. I thought I had no leg pressure on the right when I asked for a turn to the right using my left leg, but as soon as I tried that visualization. I could feel that I was lighter with that leg and my horse turned better. Thanks Kate!
Still don't have her teeth done, and Delia is getting much better in the bosal, I only have to use a leading rein now and rarely have to bump her. She's also starting to move off the neck rein/same side leg combo nicely.

How do you like those dapples? Pretty cool markings on her back legs above the hocks too.
Gotta trim those feet again though! No I didn't turn her loose with a halter on, there is a lead rope around that post behind her.
I am all paid up for the Buck Brannaman clinic now, pretty excited for that, but want to get her in better shape. Guess I'll have to suck it up and do a lot of bareback riding!

What's happening here

This last week has been busy around here. During the week, I was helping my sister with her job search, did a lot of yardwork including thinning the dead canes out of the raspberries, and this last weekend made a trip up to Janice's to pick up some flowers for all my baskets- today I planted most of them; it's hot here and no frost in the forecast for a while! Yay!
Ted rototilled the garden for me, as well as fixing the little 1942 tractor so we can clean the horse pens now and move compost to the flower gardens.
We worked an auction on Saturday, a fundraiser for a local church. Sunday I laid out a pen with electric tape for the mares- the lawn, which takes me an hour to mow with a riding lawn mower is now repurposed into two horse pens which use up over half the space- might as well let the horses eat it, as I have no pasture here any more.
Today I took Delia out for a ride, I wanted to go bareback and in the sidepull, but she wouldn't even leave the yard.... so I saddled her up and put the snaffle bridle on her and away we went. I wanted to know how she would do riding out by herself but still within sight of her buddies- she is kinda herdbound. She walked out real good at first, keen and interested.

We turned down a road that runs through the fields, parallel to our place, so she could see Josie in the distance. She called a bit but not too bad. I asked for lateral flexion a few times and got absolutely nothing! She's iron jawed in a snaffle- I get better flexion in the bosal so that's what I'll use next time. My dentist apparently doesn't want to come to Creston for a few more months so I am going to have to get a vet to do her teeth. Which makes me a little cranky because the vets here are not exactly good at horse dentistry, but hopefully will do a good enough job.
On the way back she was really doing the quickstep, focused on Josie who was galloping around the pen calling, but she did stay in the walk as I asked. I've got a long way to go with this mare before I can remotely call her broke! Wish I had my round pen up, it's a shame on my landlord that I had to take it down and use it for fencing.
On the plus side, nothing bothered her, there was traffic and strange things in the ditches, and one guy hauling a boat that made a lot of rattling and banging as it went over bumps.  When we got back I worked her for about 5 minutes on circles, and watched Josie as she ran hard and tried to stop but wiped out and slid into the panel fence... could have been a wreck but it wasn't.
Tomorrow is plant the garden and hopefully another ride, this time in the bosal. I have decided that I am going to either have to get a saddle custom made for Delia or sell her- both my saddles leave dry spots on her very wide withers. Since I like her, I will probably get a saddle made.... (grin).

She is "double backed" which means that the muscles on either side of her spine rise up above her backbone, and although she has a high enough wither, her shoulders are really wide. Even setting my Wade saddle behind the shoulder blades it still leaves dry spots. So I have ordered a Dennis Lane fit kit from a saddle maker in Alberta, it should be here in a few days. Once I have her profile figured out, I'll get the right tree ordered from Rod Nikkel and have the saddle made at Top Hand Western Shop in Claresholm Alberta.
In other news, I had my collie Tess bred at the end of February, and her due date is May 1st- but I am doubting that she caught, sure doesn't look or feel like she is carrying any puppies. If I'm lucky, there will be a couple. I have orders for 5 pups, so it's disappointing! Tess is going to be 9 this fall, and unless she comes back into heat this year, she won't get bred again. I really wanted a female to keep, as grandma Reba is really starting to go downhill, she will be 14 this September.

A good Easter weekend

Hope you all had a good Easter, however you celebrate it. I had family over- yes, the minions and their mama, my sister, are here. We attended Good Friday Services, and Sunday Mass, and the kids got lots of horse time in. They rode both Delia and Beamer, but I think I'll have them ride Delia the most as she is the horse they will eventually be able to trail ride and go to little shows on.

They made lots of progress, learning how to ride in a bosal instead of the curb bit that they use on Beamer. It required some effort too, as Delia is nowhere near as broke as Beamer! It was a really good learning weekend for them, and it showed me that Delia will someday become a good kids horse.

This is the youngest minion, she will be 7 next month. Her favourite thing is trotting on Delia! She did a little bit of steering today. The other two, who are older, did a lot of learning how to steer and stop and progressed to the point where they got to ride her solo for a bit today.
As for big girl stuff: What I need to work on with Delia- Overcoming herd bound, learning how to move individual parts of her body, turns on the forehand and haunches which are rudimentary right now, sidepass which is barely there. Once she gets lighter in response to my leg aids ( I may need to put my spurs on, she is pretty dead sided) I will be able to get her performing nicely in lateral moves too. On the ground, I am working on teaching her not to crowd me, and not to dive for grass when she is being led. She has a bit of un-learning to do in that department! Once I have all those elements at a walk and trot, then I will see how she does at the lope.
Over all, I am pleased with this mare, she isn't a fancy show horse or a speedy games horse, but if I can develop her into a steady mount for me for trails and Cowboy Dressage, and be able to put kids on her for fun shows, she will earn her keep.

Getting to know Delia

Monday, I hauled Delia to the indoor arena. I had both the bosal and sidepull with me. I started out in the bosal, and decided that I would just stick to that until I get more acquainted with her- the sidepull is quite soft and she could easily ignore it if she chose.
I lead her both ways around the arena, and was pleased that she didn't find any monsters lurking. She was interested in looking out the windows, but no other issues. I worked her on the ground for a few minutes to get her used to the action of the bosal. Here is how it fits her now that it is shaped:

It's still a little loose on the sides, so I put it back in the wraps after riding. This is a fairly heavy bosal, good for the initial teaching as it has a bit of authority if you have to bump it.

I could probably get away without using the throatlach, but that's the way Al made it and I am loathe to change anything he did.
The horsehair mecate was a gift from Shayla when she came back from California. Love it!
At first, when I was working her on the ground, every time she took her head away and gawked somewhere else, I brought her into the circle in the opposite direction from where she was looking. She caught on fairly quickly that losing attention meant having to pay attention. Then I took her to the mounting block, and we had a lesson on exactly where she was supposed to stand for mounting. That took a bit, she always wanted to give 2 or 3 steps when I was just visualizing one.
After getting on, she started gawking around again, and I had to bump her back into the circle quite a few times. Her trick when she isn't sure if she wants to do something is to stop her feet. She does sometimes try to take control of her head, the way she would do if a kid was leading her in a halter and she decided that it was time to stop for a bite of grass- which I am positive happened a lot in her lifetime!!!! This is where the authority of the heavy bosal came in handy. One bump and release, or 2 if necessary, and on we would go. She seemed a bit uncertain about the whole process- she is quite green and I think is not used to being alone at all. Another horse came into the arena about halfway through our session, I got off while he came in, then we had another- and much shorter- session at the mounting block. It was interesting that she was much more relaxed with another horse in sight- they were just grooming him- and I started to get much more softness in her. Just a suggestion of my hand out to the side and she would give me nice turns, and she has a wonderful whoa and back up. I worked a bit on turns on the haunches and serpentines. Overall I was pretty happy with our first real session. I do need to do a bunch more arena work with her before I hit the trails, to make sure we really understand each other, and I'll keep her in the bosal until she is really nice and soft in everything I ask of her.

 Good girl Delia!

Delia's follow up body work

Melissa came over yesterday to do another session on Delia. The first session was all about the things that were going on with her head and neck, some of which were affecting her vision. The preliminary testing yesterday showed that that is pretty well cleared up, just a little tweaking was all that was needed there. I guess that layer needed to be done first before moving on to the next issue. What Delia wanted worked on yesterday was her hind quarters. Her sacrum was sore, and a lot of muscles associated with it needed massage. We had a really good session, Delia made it really plain where she wanted to be worked on and exactly how long too!

Another thing about Delia- she really loves the essential oils and will sniff the bottle from each nostril. The ones she doesn't want she will turn away from, and the ones she wants get a good sniff and soft eye.

There was one point during the hind end massage where she brought her head around to her side and self adjusted a bone in her neck- we could hear it pop. Very cool! When Delia decided that Mel had done enough, she walked away and began eating her hay, like "okay, thanks we're done now!" It was about a half hour session.
Josie was standing by watching, and it seemed that the good energy Delia was getting was reflecting in her.

After Mel was done with Delia, Josie stood right by Mel, almost begging for her to do a little work on her too- of course, she obliged with a little work on Josie's poll. She said that horses with a busy, inquisitive mind usually need work on their poll area, and Josie apparently agreed.

I got a side pull yesterday, and the bosal is shaped and ready to use, so today I haul to the arena and I'll try both of them out and see which one works best. Yay- saddle time!

Fun in the sun

Yesterday was so beautiful, you could almost hear the grass growing, the sun was hot, everything is growing like crazy. I have flowers! Only the violets are blooming right now, but the daffodils will pop soon.

All the horses got turn out time, I was hoping that Delia would roll and get rid of most of that mud on her but no, she was more interested in eating, and once in a while keeping up with Josie's wind sprints.



The bosal shaped up nicely, I'll rig it up today, and if the weather cooperates I'll ride her today. Sideways rain this morning! But I see blue sky peeking out.

Trying out bitless

This is a bitless bridle I tried out on Delia yesterday, I borrowed it from Janice to see if it would work for us. I believe it's a Dr. Cook style. 

I'm not sure of the function of that curb strap, it didn't seem to do anything other than keep the noseband in place. A pull with the rein will put pressure on the poll and the opposite side of the face.
So I climbed aboard..... and Delia promptly dropped her head to graze... "Oh look, I have nothing on my head, I can eat!" It took a bit to pull her head up and I promptly put her through turns, stops and backing, but after 2 minutes I got off- I don't like that there is very little release after you pull the rein. It seems that it is hard to be light with your hands with this rig.

Meanwhile, I decided to try shaping my bosal to fit better.

I researched on line on how to do it and all the sources pretty much said the same thing. I will take the ropes off tomorrow and see how it fits the mare. This bosal is pretty special to me, it was made by Master Rawhider Al Grandchamp from Montana when he was 93 years old, and given to me.
I also might have a side pull tomorrow to try out.
So since riding was out of the question, I worked Delia on the long line... and got a bit of attitude! She was quite sure she shouldn't have to work, and tried popping a crow hop when I asked for a lope, also tried to blow out of the circle- she did this both ways, silly girl! I think she was feeling pretty good! But she did quickly stop the nonsense and get back to work.

Poor pitiful horse, she had to work and get sweated up! After I untacked I let her have 5 minutes of grazing....

which, of course, is her preferred activity.... sorry, Delia, you life of leisure is coming to an end, you are going to have to work for a living now! Considering that she didn't have to do anything the first 9 years of her life except raise 2 foals, she is not  doing too bad. A little lazy, but I think if I find an activity that she really likes, we are going to have a lot of fun.
She made sure to find the muddiest spot she could to roll after I put her back in her pen!

Isn't that going to be fun to brush off!

Kids 'n horses

The girls had a great time yesterday- the rain stopped and the sun came out, so we saddled up Beamer and all 3 of them rode him. We reviewed all the things they learned last year. I kept them on the lead line until the last little bit of the ride. Beamer, as usual, was a perfect gentleman for them.

Then we got Delia out, got her all brushed up, white hair flying everywhere! 

They all rode her, on the leadline- I only had a halter on her as I don't have her teeth done yet- and she was so good for them. She is basically lazy, and they had to pay attention to keep her motivated sometimes, but once Delia figured out the program, she was really good. They all wanted to trot on her after the first rider found out just how smooth her trot is, she just glides along and it's so easy to sit. They all had big smiles!

I would love to post more pictures, as I took lots and some video, but  I'm not allowed to put their faces on the internet. 

I'm pretty sure this is going to be my kids horse. Once I put her through all her paces this year and get lots of miles on her, and get the kids riding lots more, I can see them having a lot of fun with her- going to the little open shows, and going on trail rides with me once I get Josie broke in a couple of years. 

The Minions are here!

My 3 lovely nieces are here visiting this weekend. Beamer and Delia got the mud scrubbed off them- and Beamer remembered them and was quite pleased to have their attention!

Delia enjoyed the attention just as much as Beamer did....

She is shedding like crazy! She grew much more hair than Beamer and Josie- they hardly have any compared to her.
Tomorrow they ride! It's so fun having them here.

After the rain

A few days of heavy rain made a mess here. Mucky horse pens, squishy lawn and Lake Beamer is back.

That circle in the foreground is where the round pen used to be. The water receded today, but it's going to be muddy for a bit yet.

 No, I didn't load that photo upside down, that's Delia's reflection in the pond in her pen.
I gave them more turnout time today- the cows were in the pasture next to that pen, so I figured it would be a good chance for Delia to learn to get along with them.

 She was quite intrigued, didn't know if she should investigate or get outta Dodge!

The flight instinct took over I think!

I think lots of turnout next to the cows will be good for her- she'll figure them out someday. Hopefully before I'm riding her down a trail and we come across some!

After I brought the girls in, I gave Beamer some turnout time.

He was happy to get out and get a change of scenery and stretch his legs a bit.

You can see how soft the ground is, they tore it up a bit but it's better than keeping them cooped up in their pens.
Beamer found mare smells... Delia is in heat at the moment.

I've been watching to see if his arthritis bothers him, sure doesn't seem to so I might put him in regular riding, nothing too strenuous, just to get him in shape; he's kinda round!

Delia gets adjusted

Delia got her visit from Green Haven Therapy today, and it was pretty much as I called it. Her neck was out, at the axis and C1. Of course, there are connected issues to that, with her teeth needing doing and tightness in her jaw, also tight neck muscles and several other places.

Check out that lip.... Melissa hit the spot!

Throughout all the poking and prodding, Delia was really well behaved, never once offered any cranky behaviour- she was a lady. This video shows Mel trying to get her neck adjusted- she did finally get it a little later.

When we tried the upward stretch, she couldn't lift her head very high, and was limited side to side. Also when she yawned when she got release, at first she couldn't open her mouth very wide. By the end of the session, it was about an inch or two wider.
Next week we will have a follow up session. We are getting rain today and tomorrow, so once it dries up again I'll turn them out again and see if she still drops her head to see- I think she will behave much more normally. There was a lot of licking and chewing and yawning at the end of this session, so I think she is feeling much better.

The girls get turn out together

I think a chiro visit is in order for Delia. I'm pretty sure that her neck is out, she is really touchy especially behind the ears. The way I understand it, the optic nerve runs through the spinal column and if the axis is out, or the 1st vertabrae (correct me if I am wrong please) it puts pressure on the nerve and affects the eyesight. Case in point- we went back to visit the cows yesterday, and although she is much calmer around them she still gets snorty and worried. They are Herefords, so there is high contrast between their white heads and their brown bodies, and of course the brown blends in with the brown background.
After I turned her out with Josie in the turnout pen, I always encourage them to run to get some exercise, and Delia was not wanting to break into a lope- and when she finally did- it looked like this:

Oddest thing I've ever seen for a lope departure! She did this for a few strides and then picked up her head- it's a small pen so she couldn't lope more than a few strides.

Curious, I got them going again to see if she would repeat this behaviour.

Sure enough. It almost seemed that she was checking to make sure the ground was there- by lowering her head to see it more clearly? After a few strides, again, she loped normally, and after that she loped easily every time miss Josie got her going.

They had some fun for a while....

especially Josie, who was showing off come of her cutting horse moves- always when the camera wasn't pointed at her though! But boy o boy she can drop right down to the ground on that front end and switch directions like crazy! Did get some cool shots of her though.

Man she is a little powerhouse!

She will be  2 years old next Thursday. What a lot of fun she will be when she grows up!

Then they got down to the serious business of searching for the tender new shoots of grass coming up. I didn't leave them out for long on the fresh grass though.