Third Ride Outside the Pen on Curly Zeke

I really, really like a horse that I can smoothly open and close gates on. In fact, it's manditory, although when I ride a green horse out of the round end for the first few times, I'll usually ride the horse out through and back into an already open gate. I'll open the gate and push it open then ride through. If you are some people who have had their knees or legs banged up against the gate posts going through or coming out, you know what I am talking about. Going through an open gate a few times gives me a pretty good idea if I can keep him in the middle.

I have had some video camera malfunctions on the first couple rides. Okay, not really malfunctions, but I either didn't orient the camera properly or have a charged battery in place. So the video below is Zeke's third ride outside the round pen. He still is bracing on left and right lateral flexion, more so on the left, so we're working through that. At the walk, I concentrate on giving him a fairly loose reins when he is straight, even for a moment, all rein and leg pressure are non-existent and eventually he will understand that and seek that feeling. When I ask Zeke for a transition into the trot, I don't force him to keep the trot. If he needs to go back to the walk that's fine. Soon he'll keep the trot. You can get into trouble asking the horse for something he's not mentally prepared for and if you let him take his time to be comfortable, it'll be no time at all until he is.

The same is true, I believe, about a horse speeding up. We have a tendency to rate them down, but it's confusing to a green horse, and unless he's a run away horse, the horse will soon rate himself back down. We can direct them, but pulling on both reins is confinement and invites a troubled horse. I only have a little over five acres to ride on without getting on the county road to get to the open desert but I have all sorts of new things for a green horse to explore, so that's what we are concentrating on in the short term.

The first video below is an initial ride out of the round pen and spending a short amount of time doing some 180 degrees turns at a walk. This builds confidence in each other outside the round pen where he horse not may be as comfortable. I'll try to go back forth the round pen gate a couple times. I didn't expect to have issues with Zeke, and nothing came up. So the next time, or even the time after, I can work on opening and closing the gate on horseback. To have a good chance of doing so without any troubles, I'll rely on the work we have did on bringing his front end over, controlling the front end independently of his hind end, and his hind end over, indepndant of his front feet, so I can position the horse up on the gate without having to lean too much to access the gate latch. Side passing over to the gate will come later.

In the second video (below), I'm asking him for a trot so the asks for lateral felxion and a change in direction come a bit quicker. I have to be cognizant of his compromised hing end (missing lateral patella ligaments) and am trying to ask for wider turns so it's easier to keep his momentum up. That'll soon lead to asking him to step undernath himself with the inside back foot, building him up to turing like a cow horse.

Continuing the Starting of Zeke

I am continuing starting Curly Zeke which I began as a long 3 year old, after the diagnosis of this gelding missing his lateral patella ligaments on both back legs. So the plan is to work him on the ground to build up his endurance and muscularity and minimize or at least carefully watch how much time I spend on his back as to reduce the burden on him. I give him one to two days off between sessions to let him rest and any residual inflammation from his patella joint injections and Adequan IM injections, I am reminded every time I work him that it's a shame that such a good minded horse, with otherwise great conformation, had the bad luck to born without these ligaments.

In exposing a horse to new things it is easy to overload the horse and when the fear and flight instinct dominate it is practically impossible to change his thought or reaction process until he can come down from the height of his fear. Generally, when beginning to expose the horse to a scary object, his body language lets us know that the horse is beginning to exhibit concern or even fear, and, it lets us know when to stop, retreat if necessary, then proceed (sometimes by inches). Such body language is stopping forward momentum; tension in the horse's body and even weight leaning backwards about like he's going to do a turn on the rear end; head comes up to elevate line of sight and see directly of the center of the eye; ears turned and pointed forward; and, the horse quickly and nervously looking left and right and to his rear. These are major things the rider or handler on the ground can observe.

So the reason we expose horse's to things that are bothersome or fearful to them is to try and exercise the thinking side of their brain as opposed to the reactive side. Horses are doing to be different and the level on what scares them. Working in our favor is the horse's natural sense of curiosity. One of Zeke's really good points is his curiosity and acceptance of new things. In between short session of lunging or riding him I have been experimenting on what he accepts and just how fast he does it. The ever present West Texas wind was blowing a meal bucket against a tie rail making a lot of racket when I had him tied to the trailer using a Functional Tie Ring. Zeke would glance between himself from time to time, so I untied him and led him to the offending bucket. And even though the noise and movement of the bucket was pretty loud, he walked right over and punched it with his nose. We just stayed there for maybe 30 seconds until he was distracted at something else, then we went back to what we were doing.

During breaks in the working sessions, I have sacked him out with a crinkly bag, pulled a cans of tin cans and with minimal ground work with ropes all over his body and legs, I have thrown loops off of him. The videos below of exposing him to the crinkly bag and pulling the sack of cans were the first time each that he had been exposed to that stimulus. In the video throwing a loop off him, that was the second time I had done so.

Equine Dental Exams and Floats

I have written before on the importance of getting horses' teeth checked regularly. All my horses over the 26+ years have had dental exams and some level of teeth floating - which is basically correcting the uneven surfaces of the teeth.

As a horse chews forage or other feed in like a circular motion with their upper and lower jaw, uneven surfaces of the teeth can and usually result. This creates sharp points or waves that starts to decrease their ability to chew feed properly, and uncorrected can cause the teeth to cut the inside of the mouth causing pain, and can show up in many other ways such as resistance to biting, riding or turning/rotating their head. You may see partially chewed feed dropping from their mouths or laying on the ground or in the bottom of their feeder. Bad teeth can also cause partially chewed feed to be swallowed increases chances of a intestinal blockage (colic).

The actually floating of the horse's teeth involves using a speculum to open the horse's mouth then a hand rasp or a power rasp is used to draw across the surface of the teeth to correct the issues. It takes training and skill to know what you are seeing in the exam and to use the tools to correct the teeth. It may be hard to find an equine dentist, but if you can find a good one, it's worth the relatively small cost for a dental exam and floating. I have seen non-sedation floating, where the equine dentist works on the horse's mouth without the benefit of the horse being sedated and did not like what I saw. I have viewed videos of what was claimed to be non-sedation floating as well with better results, but it hard to trust videos, and I just can't imagine a horse getting their teeth floated without sedation. While some states do not allow equine dentists that are not Veterinarians to sedate horses, I think it's more common than not for some equine dentists to access sedation drugs and use them. I prefer a Veterinarian to sedate my horses and float their teeth, or to sedate and monitor the horse for a non-Vet equine dentist.

For twenty years or so, I have had my Veterinarian to do the floats, but this year she has partnered with her daughter who is a equine dentist and body work specialist. These are two of the most awesome people anyone could every meet. As a bonus Pulsed Electromagnetic Field (PEMF), also known as Magnawave therapy, was performed on my 4 year old with the missing lateral patella ligaments.

Pulsed Electromagnetic Field therapy or PEMF, if I am not mistaken, was pioneered by NASA, and uses electromagnetic fields applied through tubes, paddles or mats to increased circulation, decrease inflammation and pain, and enhance cellular repair. I've actually had it done on myself and know it to be effective. It's not a cure, but a therapy. The picture above is Magnawave being applied across the withers and shoulder of my 4 year old, but he also had the Magnawave therapy on his stifle and upper hind legs as well, where he has inflammation in the patella joint due to the missing lateral patella ligaments bilaterally. Horses stand well for this treatment and in the past I have had horse's drop their heads, drool and seem to fall asleep, so I'm pretty sure this therapy works.

      This is the Equine Dentist and Body Care Specialist, She works out         of the greater Phoenix area but does travel like she did coming to El         Paso to service 7 or 8 days worth of clients. If you are going to                 contact her, I suggest text messages.

       Casey Orduno
       915-543-1455
       KC Equine Dentistry and Body Care, LLC