Posted on 08/07/2007 7:33:14 AM PDT by HairOfTheDog
This is a horse chat thread where we share ideas, ask for input from other horsemen, and talk about our riding and horse-keeping. We have a lot of different kinds of riders and horses, and a lot to share, usually about our horses, sometimes about our dogs, gardens and other stuff we do. :~)
I have a ping list for horse threads that are of interest, and MissTargets will ping everyone most mornings. Let MissTargets and/or me know if you would like to be on the ping list.
So... like the previous threads, this is intended as fun place to come and share stories, pictures, questions and chit-chat, unguided and unmoderated and that we come together here as friends.
Previous threads:
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - thread ONE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread TWO!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread - Thread THREE!
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FOUR
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread FIVE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SIX
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread SEVEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread EIGHT
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread NINE
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread TEN
The FreeRepublic Saddle Club thread! - Thread 11
New folk and occasional posters, jump right in and introduce yourselves, tell us about your horses, and post pictures if you've got them!
There’s a few more bigger ticket items left that we’ve advertised separately today, so hopefully they’ll go.
Everything else is half off! We have a particular sale going on lamps this morning :~)
If there is anything left, donate it to a thrift shop and get a receipt, then take the value off of your taxes. It really adds up.
We are taking whatever’s left to Goodwill or something. There’s a drop box for the clothes right here in the store parking lot!
If you take it to the store, you can get a donation slip for it.
We could... but we hardly ever itemize stuff on our taxes.
Who is that fellow in the red shirt on the tiny little pony? I guess I'm just used to tall skinny hunters . . . . but it looks like if he let his stirrups down he'd have to wear roller skates.
Beautiful scenery all around - especially the old farm.
The little guys look pretty o.k. with it all (maybe they're just still groggy) but thank goodness that's over!
In other news, we found Miss Gracie a home with one of our retriever trainers who has a couple of lawn ornaments already . . . . they have a 10-acre pasture with a retired cutting horse and a little Appy, who get ridden hardly at all and basically are just house pets. I am going to pay for feed, shots, and a trim from the farrier every three months, and they are giving her house room (or pasture room, anyhow.) In the winter they let them out in the 40 acres around the house, and there's a run-in shelter for them in the upper field. The grass is very, very good.
My trainer trailered her down, and after we shooed the boys away from the gate we turned her out. Of course the boys came curvetting and snorting up to her, shoving each other out of the way. She greeted them politely, but when they started getting a little too pushy she pinned her ears and just picked up one hind leg slightly, and they backed right off . . . smart boys!
I'm going to go down and check on her after she's had a day or so to settle in. She was head mare at the old place and a master politician, so I'm not too worried about her getting along.
So how did Sunday’s yard sale go? Did you get everything hauled off that you didn’t sell?
We lucked out, we were boxing up stuff to go to Goodwill, and a guy pulled up (with about a 9 foot satellite dish he'd bought at the previous sale) who said he will take anything from resellable items to scrap metal and he took everything. He'll sort it out and donate the clothes and stuff he doesn't want to mess with.
AND, he'll come back and get some scrap metal that's stacked behind the barn. And he wants to buy my old laptop on Wednesday when he gets paid. So he'll be back Wed.
Nice couple, guy and his wife. I'm afraid to know what his yard looks like. :~)
We had to trailer 1 1/2 hrs. to go on that ride. We have great trails close and 3 hrs. of riding around my house, but it’s fun to go see different places.
I love your pictures and scenery. I just couldn’t take the snow and cold even though it is beautiful! We bundle up and ride anyway, but I look forward to Springtime every year.
Hey that’s great about Gracie! Sounds like a nice retirement home for her.
The guy in the big hat rides a small horse for him also. Elmo is tough as nails, but he does look a little top heavy with Waterhead on him.
Great news about Gracie. Sounds like a good solution.
It is good news about Gracie’s new home. That sounds great for everyone.
I’m sorry I didn’t respond last night. I’ve been so busy and today is no relief! I had to run Barkley into the vet this morning on an emergency call, he had his neck get stuck again and he was screaming bloody murder. By the time I got him in to see the vet, he was FINE.
He’s got some kind of an odd neck nerve pinch thing going on, that seems to be set off suddenly, is excruciating, but that passes.
He did this once before, but that time was still in pain at the vet, she treated it as a pinched nerve, gave him a shot for pain, some muscle relaxers, a few days crate rest.
This time, he couldn’t get a pain reaction at all... he was perfectly fine. He believes me that there was an episode, just wasn’t sure xrays would be a good way for me to spend money yet. If there is a next time, I’m going to try to see if I can relax him out of it again, like this time, or if he needs to go in, we’ll do xrays and see if there’s anything they can see.
Sounds like he needs a Doggy Chiropractor to me. He must be sleeping on it funny or something.
Could be! Though the vet thought everything felt OK all the way down his spine.
But here’s another interesting thing... we have all his medical records from his prior owner. We got them from the name on the Thyroid prescription he came with. The vet here wanted to confirm something and they faxed up this whole lengthy record.
The prior owners kept reporting that he had seizures. They did all kinds of testing on him to see why he might be having seizures. Not all the time, just once every several months. Now, he gets so stiff when his neck is like that I can see why these two old folks might think this neck thing is a seizure, when it’s not, I’m sure of it. He’s not out of it when this happens, he’s just in a lot of pain.
You know, some people get real bad leg cramps at night, and it may be something like that. He may need sodium or potassium or whatever it is that people need when they have that condition. I don’t know if dogs get that way or not. Just a thought.
Well that’s interesting.
And speaking of doggie chiropractors, I was telling my coworkers about this morning’s incident, and my boss said his chiropractor treats dogs too.
His neck may be out of joint and it hangs up occasionally. Mine does that sometimes and it’s miserable until I go get an adjustment. It might not hurt to have him adjusted, or at least checked out if you’ve got a veterinary chiropractor close by and it’s not too expensive.
I dunno! I’ve always been fairly skeptical of chiropractors, but I guess I’ll be open to the idea. The vet thought maybe if there were bony changes in his neck or something they could see, then something like a NSAID, Rimadyl, or something, might be helpful too.
Oh - and this is funny. He asked “What’s his normal diet? What do you feed him?”
I said “Well, what he ~eats~, and what I actually ~feed~ him, are two completely different answers!”
He laughed, and then we talked about all the things he’s pulled out of beagles, up to and including underwear.
“I feed him about a cup of Chicken and Rice dog food twice a day. He ~eats~ that, and whatever else he can scavenge or dig up, including bird seed, poop, dirt, horse grain, garbage, fish food”.
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