Animal news
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♥Feb. 14th, 2018 // 03:43 pm♥
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The Only Honest Horse Dealer In Kent has just been to see Benny. First, he watched me ride. After a couple of minutes, he said 'the problem's you, when his balance goes, so does yours and you give him a canter aid without realising it'. (Which kind of made me go 'surely someone else would have noticed this if it were the case?', but ok.)
Then he got on, and Benny did it even more. His conclusion is that there's nothing physically wrong, rather that Benny's got poor balance (true) and is trying to canter when he wobbles because it's easier than trotting. The prescription is lots of hacking to let him learn better balance in a straight line, only going in the school in short sessions, and changing him to the more gentle bit that we bought soon after we got him (but he didn't like) so that he can't lean on it so much to compensate for not balancing himself (the inability to do so being - TOHDIK says - what he didn't like). Also I need to be stricter with him about things like standing still and not pulling on the reins when I'm standing holding him (this is true, he is in danger of going out past 'showing his personality' and into 'a bit bolshy').
If he'd gone straight into reason two without having tried reason one first, I'd be a bit more reassured, but no one has found anything physical and everyone agreed that he's the person to ask, so.... I'm going to talk it over with my riding instructor, but if she says to follow his advice then I will. Edit: hrm. She's a bit dubious as well... she's going to come and ride him herself on Friday.
Jodie's increased medication has had good effects and bad. She's moving around well, and the lump hasn't got any bigger, but on the other hand she's spent much of the day doing what I can only describe as going through the motions. Last night, I had a lot of trouble getting her to eat her pills and she wasn't keen on going upstairs to bed. Today, when I got up she came over for her morning cuddle but lost interest and went away after about five seconds. When I put the boys in the field, she stood up and walked a few steps over for her treat but just let it drop back out of her mouth. When I put her breakfast down, she walked over to it, sighed, and started eating in a very dutiful way. She also only ate half of it, and then threw that up while I was upstairs changing the bed. She then spent the morning lying in the hall, not even giving me a wag of the tail when I walked past and gave her a stroke.
When we went outside to get ready for TOHDIK, she had a very liquid poo but then seemed a bit brighter. Not sure if that was because she'd got rid of something making her tummy feel bad, the steroid wearing off, the painkillers she'd just had kicking in, or just being out in the fresh air. Mike's in London today, so it'll be interesting to see if he gets the usual enthusiastic greeting when he comes home.
I spoke to the vet (inevitably, he phoned just as TOOHDIK arrived) and we're going to reduce the steroid and he's going to bring around something to help her stomach this evening. |
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Jodie's medication collection
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♥Feb. 14th, 2018 // 08:09 pm♥
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(And mine!)
She's much brighter this evening, and even came over to say hello to the vet when he dropped off more pills, which is good. Not entirely sure how we're going to get her to eat all of them: she just managed to chew up and spit out one of the new ones, although it was the lowest priority one (an antibiotic). |
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