The smarts

Amber has them. I love that about her. It makes training her much easier than a few other horses I’ve worked with. Plus, she wants to do things for you, so that makes it even better. But there’s no doubt this girl is smart. And unfortunately, TOO SMART at times.

Like being lame just because she doesn’t want to actually walk. And freaking us out in the process.

Because she has been walking phenomenally this whole week with morning and evening walks being outside.

We stop to smell the roses (or goats in this instance).

And half of the time I have to still make her walk because she’s also smart enough to try to put in only THIS MUCH EFFORT if more isn’t needed.

She’s overdue for her post-surgery check-up, but my poor vet was injured in something horse-related, so he’s been out for a little bit and can hopefully see her within the next week or so.

As unfortunate as surgery was the first time she was injured, it’s helped me a lot with this one. With the heat, the majority of her time is spent standing, which allows the leg to get very stiff. The past few days she’s been on 1 gram of bute a day so that she feels okay when walking (she was pinning her ears back and just generally looking really uncomfortable and has since been a lot more willing to walk once we did this).

So Tuesday night I started raising her walk time. She now walks 25 minutes in the evening but keeps the 20 in the morning. Part of that is just that there’s only so early I can go out and walk around outside when I need to be at work at 6 am. Mostly though, when she started walking, I’d up one time, leave that for 4 days to a week, then up the next one. With her walk improving and my vet not being able to assess her yet, I figured more walking certainly couldn’t hurt. The stifle improves with more walking anyway, so now I have her out in an area where she’ll actually walk and walk for a fair amount. So her evening walks will probably be 25 minutes until the weekend or so and then her morning walk time will increase as well. Hopefully by the weekend or the start of next week I can take her down to 1 gram of bute every other day.

She also is smart enough to know when 20 minutes is over. So yeah let’s start making that longer lol.

She got her feet done yesterday and did really well! I was relieved that she was actually able to put a fair amount of weight on that right hind! I was also super pleased that the new farrier was very understanding and careful with Amber due to her recent surgery. Plus, I think her feet look great. So far, I’m liking the new farrier!

Today I’ll be heading down to Laughlin for a mini-staycation with my sis, so my mom has kindly agreed to walk Amber for me for the 2 days I’m gone. It’s a break well-needed but I am disappointed to leave Amber for a bit since she’s been walking so well. I’m really enjoying the morning and evening walks – just peaceful time spent with the pony. I think she enjoys it too, though she really wonders why we couldn’t just be eating.

Happy Weekend everyone!