Ouch!

Well crap.
T-Bone came up lame today. He's always had stifle issues, but it has been manageable. Today I went to lunge him and it was REALLY bad. So I put him in a stall and he's to get bute and stall rest for a day or two to see if that helps. I'm not sure if he slipped outdoors or something, or if this is his stifle problem blowing up in my face. Guess we'll see. In the meantime, I'm going out to ride tomorrow to work with other horses. So, at least I'll get some time in the saddle.

ugh.

It's cold, but that doesn't stop me

Finally got out to the barn today to ride the horse. My plan was to stick with the basics and make everything really easy for him. 1) Because it was friggin cold and 2) because I hadn't ridden him in a week. (Shame on me, but in my defense I had a busy week!).

To my surprise, he started out swinging over the back like a pro! The trot tempo was relaxed, even and fluid. But, I still stuck to my plan and worked on loosening, suppling, etc. with some serpentines, circles, transitions. Toward the end, we were both warm so I threw in some shoulder in and travers. Hell, we even did a nice travers down the center line. I ended up working a little on counter canter too, starting with the loop from First-1 and endding up doing the canter serpentine from Second Level - both leads! Sweet! It isn't perfect, he still tends to get tense in the neck during CC, but I think that now he has the concept down and has gained some confidence, he should start to relax and that will go away. Like most horses, he gets most tense in the neck when you introduce something new or difficult - but has you practice and get better, the "falling down neck" slowing returns. Annnnd it makes the easy movements even MORE easy. :-)

I'm hoping I make it out a few more times this week and maybe we'll start to go back to some more of the diffcult stuff. I have a lesson Saturday as well, so I can get some more feedback.

peace!

My cat.

Today I learned that my beloved cat, T.C. ("The Cat") has a heart condition known as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Bascially, his heart has enlarged and can longer efficiently pump blood through his body. As a result of this, T.C. has also developed a blood clot in his left hind leg. This clot is capable of traveling to other parts of his body at any time.

If he were a human, this condition would require a heart transplant.

Basically this means that my time with T.C. is now limited. The vets have said that because this was caught reasonably early, we may be able to extend his time left. But, in reality, it is still only a matter of months. (Unless he throws the blood clot). He will eventually enter into congestive heart failure.

There is no cure for HCM.

I can't even describe how heartbroken I am. He's my cat you know? We're buddies. He's been there for me through thick and thin, and has always been there to jump on my lap and make me laugh when I'm sad. My job now is to keep him as happy and comfortable as possible (he has some meds to help) ... and be strong when the time comes to make a decision, because no animal of mine will suffer. God bless him.

So, with that, I am going to back to eating unhealthy food and sobbing.

Today I was informed that I won a 2008 Morgan Dressage Association scholarship! $500! That will pay for a nice chunk of lessons. I applied for this way back in August or something, and had sort of put it in the back of mind. Wooooot!

T-Bone has had about a week off due to weather, and the fact that I've been working later and just can't make it out there after dark, when it's cold you know? So this week I'm going to try to be better about that. Even the weekend went to hell because I had to finish moving (FINALLY!) and the fact that I partied like a damn rock star on Saturday night and couldn't function most of Sunday. Yeah, I was that lame. Complete with hiccups.

sooo ... slow news day. Sorry.