Wednesday, December 16, 2015

Working it Out

Keeping the Moving Parts Moving

Jessie has not been getting the work she needs while I've been off training Scratch (See Scratch's Blog).  Part of the reason I took on the Scratch project was to give Jessie a little break.  She has seemed a bit "off" since she stepped in a gopher hole a few years back.  It's not a consistent enough injury to get checked out.  Her limp seems to come and go sporadically.  The four months of the competition with Scratch would be a good hiatus for her...or so I thought.

Training Jessie
Back on August 28th Jessie had a bout of colic.  My usually healthy, easy keeper, went south.  We got her to the vet and he took care of her.  Thank goodness it wasn't too bad a case and she made a full recovery.  It was probably noticeable back then, but I was to busy with Scratch to see it.  She didn't whiny or act up when we left for training so I thought she was okay with it.  The lack of work took its toll on her.

Scratch's competition ended on October 11th and, while I'm still training him, I gave Scratch a week off to recover from the arduous prep work we had done in the weeks leading up to final days.  When I got on Jessie to ride she was lamer than ever.

Now normally I would take her to the vet.  What was stopping me was the way she acted at feeding time.  In the mornings I would walk by her pen to get to the hay stack.  She would bounce around like a bucking bronco.  No sign of limping here.  Her tantrums were big as she kicked her back feet high above the top rail of our 5 foot panels.

I started taking her on short easy rides.  We would trot a few steps, then walk - mostly walk.  As time went by the limp eased and rarely shows up (although it's only been about 8 weeks).  The girl just needs to work.  I thought giving her a rest would be a benefit - a little vacation.  She needs a job and to move.  We are working more regularly now and we'll keep after it.