Dentist appointment

~Bodhi with a hangover and swat in his itchy ears~

Bodhi got his teeth done yesterday. It went well though at first it was a little scary. Bodhi is a cheep date so to speak and really became a little too drowsy with the medication. He fell to his knees at one point which made me grimace but quickly got right back up again. The tooth that was missing from a kick (so the previous owner reports) is probably not going to grow in at all. Evidently if horses lose a baby tooth in trauma the adult tooth fails to form. Poor Bodhi. Besides his MIA tooth he has now officially lost all of his baby teeth! The last one fell out a few weeks ago. Bodhi is now all grown up!

The Vet said Bodhi looked great. We taped him at 1015. She said she would rate him a 5+. This is good though I feel like he could use a little bit more muscle tone. Any advise out there for conditioning my rotund pony? I ride as it is 3 to 4 times a week for about 30 mins to and hour. We work on collection, transitions, and lateral work at all three gates. He does not have much stamina for the dressage work however and gets really tired after 30 mins or less. I don't blame him as it is a lot of work to learn to move his young body in the ways I am asking him to.

On a side note I am always worried about over working him, especially since he is a small horse and I am average sized woman. Now that we have an accurate guess on his weight I feel better...
120+10 pounds of saddle(?)/1015=12.8% or about 13%
I have always heard that horses should not carry more than 17% though I have heard from haflinger owners that they can carry 20%. Either way even if my saddle weighs more than that we are still good. hmmm I wonder...
120*.13= 15.6 So if I was to have a rider in the proportions of my self on Bodhi than I would be carrying a large cat or a small monkey. I think I could handle that!
No more complaining Bodhi! :)