Slowly. But Surely

When I wrote this installment, it had been 14 days since we started treating Stella for ulcers. 

If you remember from my last post, we were hoping to see a little improvement by day three, and real improvement by day five.

You can imagine my disappointment when, on day three, there was no improvement whatsoever.

Day four? About the same. 

Day five brought a pony who was still too sensitive to be groomed, and couldn't even tolerate being in the indoor arena, let alone doing any work (her first trip back into the arena began with a series of rears, and when I let her off the leadline to see if she would play a little bit, she stood dejectedly by the door with her head down).

I was just about to give up hope.

Then, on day six, something changed.

Nothing big.

Nothing that anyone else would even really notice.

On day six, when I went out to her paddock to bring her in, she came over to the gate to greet me.

Which she hadn't done in... well... ever.

After that, there were some signals (obvious and not-so-obvious) that she was on the mend. She was a little bit of a happier pony. She was a little less reactive to every. single. thing. (although she still had moments where she seems very nervous in her stall, or coming in from the paddock).

In the arena, she was coming along. We "worked" her about every second day (and by "work" I mean a combination of free lungeing, lungeing and ground work, in a halter or her bridle, without a saddle). She was pretty tricky to bring along in those early days. Her first instinct was still to go up on her hind legs, although that seemed to now only happen right at the beginning of a lungeing session, and I don't think it was necessarily pain related, because once she got going, she seemed pretty happy to keep going.

Her stride had improved, and was almost back to where it was when I first got her. She stretched her head and neck down a lot, and really started to relax after she'd been working for a few minutes.

If you didn't know something was wrong, well, you'd never have known something was wrong.

The only real left-over from the stilted, painful 'ulcer-trot' was that she never really relaxed her tail. During the worst of the ulcer pain, she held her tail out stiffly and cocked off to the right. Now it was straighter, but it took a while for her to relax it, and it didn’t really "swing" the way it used to.

Of course at this point it was still very early days. We were only at day fourteen of treatment, and it actually ended up taking over fifty days of Gastrogard to get this ulcer gone. Which makes me think it was a bad one, and that it had been there for awhile.

I wasn’t even thinking about riding her at this point. Heck, I wasn’t even thinking about putting a saddle on her. I refused to do that until I was relatively certain that the pain was gone.

The thing that mattered most (scratch that. The only thing that mattered) was getting this pony pain-free.

The difference in demeanour between ulcer-pony and non-ulcer-pony would break your heart. For her to go from a pony who was standing at the back of her stall shaking with nervousness, to the sweet, loving pony that she is now... well, like I said, the only thing that mattered was getting pain-free.

I knew we weren’t out of the woods yet with Stella. And even once the physical pain was gone, a whole lot of re-training had to happen to get her back on the right track. Once she was pain free, we went right back to the basics to begin the long, slow process of starting over. 

But I knew that we would get there. And this pony would lead a calm, happy life. That was my promise to her.

A couple of things I learned from this whole blasted experience:

1. You can have all the big plans you want, but in the end, you need to do what's best for the horse. Period. I will never allow this pony to be in a position ever again where she is stressed to the point that it threatens her well-being. Her entire life, and all of my plans for her will now revolve around her being happy and healthy. She is too important to me to have it any other way.

2. Always look for a physical problem before you assume something is behavioural. It really worries me to think of all the horses out there who have been labelled "bad", but are probably just in pain. Horses are very good at telling us that something is wrong. We just really need to learn how to listen.

3. Young horses need exposure. Babies need to be allowed (or sometimes taught) to be curious by being quietly introduced to everything under the sun, right from the start of their lives. They need to learn to go on trailers and walk over tarps and play games. They need to learn that going somewhere new is a normal part of life. That there's a nice, big, fun, beautiful world outside the pasture fence, and that it's really nothing to worry about.

Loved hearing Stella’s story?

Head over to the Horse & Human Wellness Project to keep up to date with her progress.

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

The U word

After Tuesday's bucking bronco debacle, I wasn't too keen on putting a saddle back on Stella anytime soon.

It was very obvious to me that there was something about it that she couldn't tolerate, and I was really starting to second guess whether or not her new saddle really did fit her.

In my heart of hearts I really didn't believe that to be true. I'd been so careful about the fit, and had tried so many saddles that didn't fit, I felt certain this one did.

But the difference between "pony with saddle" and "pony without saddle" was so obvious, I started tentatively (and half-heartedly) thinking about another saddle shopping excursion.

My coach, Wylie hadn't been at the barn the last time I'd lunged Stella, so I went back out on Wednesday so I could show her how things were looking. While I groomed, Stella was definitely still showing signs of a sore stomach, swinging her head back with a stern look whenever I touched behind her elbows, or around her sternum. This gave me a little bit of hope about the saddle fit - there was still absolutely no pain anywhere along her back or loins.

I took her out without her saddle, and it was pretty obvious that the pain was not saddle-related. My poor pony, who had stunned me with her beautiful, forward, flowing trot the first time I met her, was now not even tracking up. She looked dejected, her eye seemed troubled, and she was short-strided and tight in front and behind. The way she was "holding" her belly (you could see her ab muscles working to try to keep the belly still) made it very clear. This was not saddle pain. This was a gut issue.

Wylie said, "she's getting weirder". And that was the truth.

I took her temperature, pulse & respiration (all normal). She was eating, drinking and pooping. This was not colic.

This could be... gulp... the dreaded U word.

I fed her a treat (yes, I know. No treats for Stella. But if there was any time for an exception to the rule, this was it) and tucked her in.

I felt horrible.

It was killing me to see my pony in such pain.

Friday afternoon, the vet came. He did a quick examination (during which she almost bit him when he touched her sternum area). Not surprisingly, the pain response seemed as bad as, if not worse than the last time he'd seen her almost a week and a half earlier. If you recall, at that point, we'd suspected ovary pain, or some sort of heat-related issue. Obviously that was not the case.

He asked to see her lunged first without the saddle, then with. I brought her out to the arena and sent her out on the end of the lunge line. She immediately exploded and started bucking. So things had gotten worse (last time I lunged her without tack she was definitely not bucking). She also demonstrated her short-stridedness, as well as a new tendency she'd developed of, post-explosion, lowering her head and shaking it as she trotted along.

We took her back to her stall to put her saddle on (which almost killed me. I couldn't believe I was doing the thing to her that hurt her most... again. But we had to get to the bottom of it, so I petted her, apologized, and did up the girth).

She was obviously not happy with the process.

I had a bad feeling about taking her back out into the arena tacked up. Nonetheless, off we went, me and my little trouper of a pony. As soon as I tried to move her out away from me, she spun to face me and started running backwards. This was not going to happen. I couldn't bear it any longer.

I looked at my vet and he said "Take the saddle off. I don't need to see any more."

When I took the saddle off, Stella seemed a little more comfortable, but she had a dull, pained look in her eye and she just seemed... tired. Like she was waaaaaay over this. I scratched her forehead and fussed with her forelock and ears and she leaned her head into me.

It was time to fix this.

We started her right away on Gastroguard, an orally-administered paste which should reduce the production of stomach acid. According to my vet, if the issue really is ulcers, she should start to feel relief in about three days, with peak-effectiveness at the five day mark.

As you can imagine, I'm counting down the hours until my pony starts to feel better. At this point, I'm actually hoping it is an ulcer, because at least then we can get to work on healing it. And if it's not, then we don't know what the heck it is, and I just need this pony's pain to stop.

It used to be that people thought only race horses got ulcers. Now, however, there is quite a bit of research to show that they can be caused by as little as the act of exposing horses to weekend show conditions. If I think of all of the changes Stella has been through since I got her last summer, it really wouldn't be surprising if she had developed one as well:

• For the first six years of her life she lived a low-stress life, mostly outside, with her herd

• Her first trip off her farm was a three hour trailer ride to a brand new barn, leaving her herd behind

• Three months later we moved to her current barn, including some fairly intense trailer loading training, another trailer ride, and another new herd of friends to get used to (plus, for the first time, being stabled at night and out in a paddock during the day)

• Her training started in earnest a month ago, when we finally found a saddle to fit her

• She moved to a new paddock a little over three weeks ago, with a new paddock mate and a new group of friends

This little mare has been through more changes in the past five months than many horses go through in years.  So if ulcers really can be brought on by stress and change, then it would be no surprise to find that she had one.

I think that some horses are much more capable of handling changes than others, and having spent six years of her life with very few changes to begin with probably made it all the more traumatic for Stella. She is a surprisingly sensitive little horse, and it's entirely possible that this was all just a little too much for her.

If ulcers are truly the problem, then it will become my mission in life to bring Stella along to her full potential with as little stress as possible. She will require constant, careful monitoring and some small adjustments to her lifestyle, but I know we'll be able to make it work.

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

Spring ahead, fall back part 2

I still didn’t know what was the matter with Stella.

But, to summarize from Part 1, the ways Stella tried to tell me something was wrong were vast and varied:

1. anxiety and nervousness on the cross ties, when she's normally very quiet;

2. biting while I was brushing her sides;

3. increasing fussiness when being tacked up;

4. getting "stuck" at the mounting block - not wanting to walk on after I had mounted;

5. not wanting to stand still while I tightened her girth from the saddle;

6. and finally, on the night of my last ride, anxiety escalating to "naughtiness" at the mounting block.

I told all of this to our vet, Trevor, when he came out to see Stella on the Monday night after the rearing incident.

As we stood in Stella's stall talking about it, she was sweet and loving toward Trevor (as usual. Like I said, she's the sweetest pony I know). But the moment he ran his hand over her girth area, she swung her head around, almost violently, as though to bite.

He felt every other inch of her body, palpating and manipulating her withers, spine, muscles along the back, her loins, her hindquarters, everywhere. There were no other places that caused her even to flinch. I was happy that we could rule out back pain, but as soon as he came back to the girth area, the violent head swing happened again.

At least we had been able to narrow it down to where she was hurting. Now we just had to figure out why.

Trevor had a couple of ideas off the top of his head as to what it could be. Looking back on the events leading up to the incident, the first thing that came to mind was that this was pain associated with Stella being in heat. Now, I don't know how many of you have mares, but those who do know that being in season can bring on some very odd behaviours in a mare, and some mares can have pretty painful heats.

If Stella was experiencing some kind of ovarian pain, that could explain many of the symptoms she was showing - the increased anxiety/nervousness (which can accompany any kind of pain in a horse, really), the sensitivity in the belly/girth area, and the other, less obvious, symptoms, like making sour-puss faces at her best girlfriends.

Having said that, I hadn't really seen any other signs of Stella being in heat. But, to be fair, I had now had her for almost five months, and I honestly hadn't noticed so far when she had ever been in heat (and after all of my trials and tribulations with my other mare, Sunny, I had developed a pretty keen eye for a mare in season!).

Nonetheless, it was at least a place to start. We decided to put her on bute for four days. By the fifth day, one of two things will have happened - either the pain will have gone away on its own due to the fact that, if she started her heat the Thursday before (that's when the worst of the symptoms started), she should be out of season by the coming Thursday, or, if it was a temporary issue, the bute should have taken the pain away. 

I was to continue working her (ground work and lungeing only, no saddle) for the next four days, and then on day 5, which would be the Friday, I was to try tacking her up to gauge her reaction to having the saddle put on and the girth tightened.

We did as instructed. I also started keeping a journal for Stella, to track her symptoms, and jot down notes about how she seemed on each day. If this issue was, in fact, being caused by painful heats, then I was going to need to know when she was due to come into season, so I would be able to plan her work schedule and her pain management around it.

On day 5 (Friday), we put on her saddle. She seemed concerned, and a little anxious, but at least she didn't try to leap around as I put it on. I was not convinced the pain was gone, and in fact her sides still seemed a little sensitive whenever I touched them. I could even tell by the look on her face that she was not feeling comfortable about being tacked up.

Saturday and Sunday were spent at a groundwork and desensitization clinic (that's a whole 'nother blog post!), so it was Tuesday of week two before I tried tacking her up again. I actually started out without tack. I was itching to practice some things we'd learned over the weekend, and I wanted to gauge her demeanour in the ring without a saddle on first. So off we went with just a rope halter and lead. Stella was quiet, focused and attentive. No spooking, no shenanigans. It was a nice little schooling session, and had I left it there, I would have gone home thinking that there was some real improvement. But, of course, when you're trying to test a theory, you have to follow through.

I took Stella back to her stall and started tacking her up. She was about the same as she had been on Friday. A little ouchy on her sides right behind her elbows, and a little anxious about what I was doing. I figured I was never going to get to the bottom of things until I pushed the envelope a little bit, so I decided to see how she looked on the lunge line. 

It quickly became obvious to me that having the saddle on was the issue. After half a circle of calm walking, Stella exploded, running and bucking until I was worried she’d fall over. My concern was not so much that she was blowing off some steam (after all, she’ hadn’t been worked in days). My concern was the bucking. See, Stella doesn't buck. And by that, I don't mean Stella rarely bucks, or she doesn't buck much. I mean she doesn't buck. Ever.

The other thing that worried me was the difference in her temperament between when she was in the ring without the saddle, and when she was in the ring with the saddle. She was immediately a little more anxious in the saddle. She was expecting it to hurt (and obviously it did, judging by the bucks).

So. Back to square one. This tells me loud and clear that the pain is still there, even after almost a week off, and four days of bute.

Time to call the vet back out...

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.

Spring Ahead, Fall Back - Part 1

Here's the thing. You have got to listen to your horse.

Stella had been telling me for two weeks that something wasn't right. I just wasn't listening.

We’d recently gone through some pretty major saddle fitting issues, but, once I finally found a saddle that worked for Stella, it was full steam ahead with her training. She was now going very nicely, trotting round quietly, reaching for the bit, using her hind quarters, turning and going straight like nobody's business.

She was quiet and correct at the mounting block (and if she did have a "moment" and get out of line, with a couple gentle reminders she would step back over to me and stand waiting for me to get on). She almost always stood quietly afterward, waiting for me to tell her when it was time to walk on.

Her lunging was coming along nicely, although she had reached the point where I didn't really need to lunge her before every ride. When we did lunge, we did fun stuff, like poles and low cavaletti, which she really seems to enjoy.

Even her spookiness seemed to be improving. I was doing a lot of just leading her around the property in her rope halter, introducing her to new things and spending quiet time together. She had a new paddock mate, a lovely horse named Dee, who is also six. They get along swimmingly, and the move to a new turnout area also allowed Stella to make friends with a couple of geldings in the adjoining paddocks. So she had a nice new group of buddies, and really started enjoying her turn out time.

Everything seemed to be going exactly as planned... up until about two weeks ago.

A little over 2 weeks ago…

It was a Friday afternoon. I was grooming Stella on the cross ties, and she happened to catch sight, out the window, of a horse coming down the driveway. I guess she hadn't really seen a horse from that view before and it startled her so much she spun around in the aisleway and was, in a split second, facing the wrong way. 

She had one crosstie over the top of her head and had pulled it so tight that she started to panic. I spoke to her softly, rubbed her forehead (her favourite thing), and got her to calm down enough that she relaxed her head and neck and I was able to undo the crossties and turn her around. I made a nice fuss over her and continued grooming. She never quite settled that day, and even during our ride she was very much on edge. I blamed it on the crosstie incident and put it out of my head.

15 days ago…

One evening the following week (Monday, I think), I had ridden and was now untacking and grooming Stella in her stall. She was munching on her hay and I was softly currying her left side when she suddenly reached back and bit me!

Now first of all let me say that this is very odd behaviour for Stella. She is, quite literally, one of the sweetest ponies I know.

But I also know that a lot of people at the barn like to feed treats to the horses (and as much as I gently scold them when they feed treats to my horse, well, it's hard to get them to stop). So I assumed that this was the result of a pony getting stuffed with too many tidbits, so I put up a nice little "NO TREATS PLEASE" sign on Stella's stall door, and didn't think twice about it.

14 days ago…

When I tacked up on Tuesday, Stella seemed much quieter, although she did get a little fussy when I threw the saddle pad over her back (I used to move very slowly and methodically when I tacked her up, because I remember when I first got her that she was always very antsy getting her saddle put on. So I chalked it up to me just being a little too devil-may-care with the tacking up, and made a mental note to go back to moving a little slower).  She was very, very good that night. I remember thinking that I wished someone was videoing her, because she was being such a lovely girl.

13 days ago…

On Wednesday, I was more careful tacking up. I didn't want her reverting to her old ways. The saddle pad & sheepskin half pad were fine, but when I put her saddle on, she literally jumped sideways (into me).

For a moment, my heart sank. She was behaving like a pony who didn't like her saddle (and trust me, I know exactly how a pony who doesn't like her saddle behaves). But because she had been going so much happier in this saddle than she ever had in any other, I really felt in my heart that this wasn't the problem. 

But I nonetheless took the saddle off, and felt all along her back, along her withers, spine, loins, everywhere. Not a flinch, not an ear back, nothing. I gently sat the saddle back on her (this time, she didn't seem to mind), and loosely did up the girth. I remember her swinging her head around at that point. It was almost like she was going to nip me, but then changed her mind. I thought at the time that the no-treats rule must be working, since she was going to nip but then thought better of it...

That night, I had what I would say was my best ride yet on her.

Great at the mounting block (My coach, Wylie, was teaching a lesson in the arena while I was riding, and she even commented on how nicely Stella stood during mounting), and then a super quiet, nicely forward ride, no head tossing, no turning issues, just a happy pony and a very happy rider.

And even after the ride, she had some stellar moments. For example, since day one she's been very silly about having her bridle taken off. She shakes her head like she thinks that'll make the bridle come off faster. It's something we always work on, and this night, she stood quietly and let the bit softly drop out of her mouth. She had finally figured it out, and I was so very proud of her.

That was the last good ride I had.

12 days ago…

On Thursday, she was a little antsy coming in from her paddock.

I remember thinking that she must be in heat (especially considering she peed twice while being groomed). She was even making sour-puss faces at her best friend, Emmy, who lives in the stall next to her. I know that some mares' heats manifest themselves in unfocused, unsettled behaviour, so I assumed that was the issue, and carried on.

She never really settled as I groomed and tacked up, and then, the weirdest thing happened. I took her to the mounting block, she stood quietly, but then once I'd mounted, she wouldn't move. Like she was... stuck, or something. She seemed to literally be holding her breath. I clucked and gave her a little nudge, and finally she moved off.

Everything seemed fine then, but I do recall that she was pretty tightly wound the whole ride. She was spooky and seemed to have a hard time focusing. Wylie also commented that she looked a little F-A-T (don't tell Stella!), so we decided to decrease her grain a little. Not that she gets much to start with, but she does get plenty of nice, good quality hay, so I figured could probably have her pellets reduced.

11 days ago…

On Friday, she once again felt frisky and scattered. Grooming and tacking up was a chore. She was literally all over the place. 

Because she was being so silly and unfocused, I decided to lunge her for a few minutes first. She pulled a couple of really big spook-and-runs on the lunge line, but finally she calmed down and seemed like she was settled enough to do some work.

Now, I've always been very careful not to tighten the girth up all at once. Not just with Stella, but with any horse. So I start out just tight enough to keep the saddle on. I'll tighten another hole when I get to the ring, then another hole just before I get on. Then I'll do the rest of the tightening from the saddle, in a couple of goes.

And I remember thinking how much easier it was to tighten my girth while mounted when I got my current saddle, because it has short billets, so I can just reach down to tighten it, rather than leaning over so far. Stella's always been very good about standing while I tighten the girth, but on this night, she would not stand still. It took me three tries to tighten my girth one hole because little miss Fussy Pants was shaking her head and trying to trot off every time I reached down. I finally got it done, and carried on with the ride.

9 days ago…

On Saturday, I gave her the day off. We did some ground work in the ring instead. She was quiet, happy, and focused. Then on Sunday, we did some more of the same. She started off a little less focused than she was the day before, but we worked through it and she ended up being fairly quiet so I decided to go get her tacked up for a quick ride. When I brought her back into the ring in her saddle and bridle, it was like we hadn't even done any ground work. She was spooky, unsettled and even a little bit naughty.

I gave the girth a tighten, and took her to the mounting block, where she behaved very oddly, getting really close to the block, making it very difficult for me to get on. We worked on it for a bit, and then she seemed okay.

But the moment I put my foot in the stirrup, she was obviously very much not okay. She reared, pretty much straight up. Three times. With lunges and spins in between.

Total rodeo horse.

Totally out of character for my sweet little mare.

Totally frightening.

I was surprised, and immediately very worried. What had happened to my sweet pony? My pony who had been steadily improving every day? Obviously something was very, very wrong. I was devastated.

Wylie was away teaching a clinic, but I texted her first thing in the following morning to tell her what had happened. She agreed that this was extremely out of character for Stella, and we made the decision to call our vet (who, as luck would have it, was going to be at our barn that evening to float another horse's teeth). I spent the day making a mental list of all the signs Stella had given me that something was wrong. Something had to have happened to bring this on. I refused to believe that this was Stella being naughty. This was Stella in pain, and I had to find out what was causing it before I could get back on my pony.

To be continued...

This was written by Pam Levy, who is an equestrian blogger and the creator of The Horse and Human Wellness Project, a blog that chronicles her quest to create a stronger connection with her horses. She is currently living her dream on the small farm she owns with her husband in rural Nova Scotia, on Canada’s east coast. Their herd includes three horses (Sunny, Stella and Q) and two cats (Jack and Arthur). Visit The Horse and Human Wellness Project blog or Facebook page.