Fa la la la la..

Merry Christmas from Suzie and I!

Annnnnd she's naked!

Suzie is back to being naked again! The weather has warmed up considerably and it's even drizzled rain a bit today, so I pulled off Suz's blanket and put it away in the tack room. It should be warming up more and more as the days go on, so hopefully Suzie won't need her blankie again for a while. 

She's naaaaaaaaked! And on a sidenote, I am quite pleased with her weight here.

While I was looking her over and doing my inspection, I noticed that she had a lot of dried poop stuck on her girlie parts, so I ran back to the truck and cleaned her up. Not sure if she's having diarrhea - I doubt it because I haven't noticed anything. But in any case, I'll be keeping an eye on it. Her blanket did go over the head of her tail, so maybe while pooping she had a hard time lifting the flap up? I'm kind of leaning towards that is what happened.

So I went back out about 3 hours later to take her out for a short walk. Initially, I was going to refrain from taking her out for walks since her feetsies seemed quite ouchy, but today I thought if we stuck to the road and away from the rocks she'd be fine. She did perfect and was fine walking along the road, but then on the way home, she acted gimpy up on her front right. 

She is broker than broke. I love that she puts up with my shenanigans.

I swear, this mare is going to make me pull my hair out! I'm nearly certain she had too much foot taken off from her previous trim in October and now with the cold and wet weather we've been having her feet are just mushy and soft. Sigh. You can't really win. I am tempted to put shoes with pads on her, but once the snow comes she will be completely screwed with those on. Our snow is really compact and will just pack itself in her feet until she has high heels on... So, those shoes aren't really an option either.

It's been COLD COLD COLD!

Well, it's been below 0 for the last week and I thought Suzie could tough it out, but the wind has just gotten to be too much for her and she shivered like a little ninny. So, I broke out the blankets. At first, I intended on only putting a wind-breaker type blankie on her and see how she did. So, I threw it on her and came back a few hours later to check on her.

She was cold.

So, I brought out her brand-new fluffy blankie and threw it on her. She instantly seemed much happier.

Until it warms up a bit more, I'll keep her blanket on her and keep checking on her. I've also been keeping up with her arthritis meds and she seems so much happier with that. It's been tempting to snow today, so once it does, I think it'll warm up and Suzie's old joints will feel better too.

Pedigree

Suzie's grand-sire, a world champion.

Suzie's pedigree is primarily made up of Halter horses, and some Reining horses. I can see how Suz looks a lot like her Halter-descendants, as she has that bulky muscle no matter how fit or unfit she is.

Impressive, the starting stallion on HYPP diesease and also
in the sire's portion of the pedigree.

Tardy Too, all-time leading sire of many world champions. He
is featured on of Suzie's dams side.

Just compare her to the above studs!

 

I certainly have a lot of her facing to the left!

The Wind is Relentless!

Poor mare.

It sure is bone-chilling COLD outside and with the added wind rolling off the mountains, Suzie's old bones sure are feeling it. I've been continuing with the arthritic supplement and pain reliever as well as doing some massaging and stretching when I see her.

A few days ago, I figured "Hey, exercise would be good for her!" and took her for a quiet hand-walk. I went to go pull out her halter and leadrope from the tack shed, and it was FROZEN. Her lead rope was all twisted and grotesque looking and wouldn't unfurl so I had to hand-walk her with this awfully cold and STIFF lead rope. Suzie kind of just looked at me like, "Really?" when I proceeded to put her halter on her and continue as if everything were normal.

Initially, she seemed very ouchy on her feetsies and turns out, she just has crappy feet. Since her shoes were pulled off for the winter, her crappy hooves are mega crappy. We [farrier and I] are working to get her feet in the shape we want them to be, but it'll take some time. Still, I felt bad that she was hobbling on the rocky, frozen parts of the trail and seeking refuge on the soft mushy grass spots. Whatever the case, I think she was actually happy to get out. Sitting in a paddock can get you going stir crazy after a while, I imagine.

And I'm bad. No photos for any of you - it was too damn cold to take any and the ones I did get turned out crappy!