Update

I ended up calling the mom/land owner. She reacted well, and came down today to meet with the vet and farrier. Now everyone is up to date on feet, wormer and shots! Relief! She said one of the horses feet had giant splits and were curling up! As for the old guy- his vitals look good, and his activity level is good. They drew blood but the vet thinks that he looks good for an old guy and just really needs more food.
This is great news, though a little bitter sweet. It would have made me less angry if there was something wrong with his teeth or internal workings to make him lose all that weight. It really is that he is just not currently recieveing the correct amount of feed and care. I talked with the mom about some posibulities about getting the horses out of there in to new homes. She is on board but will not do it without her daughter's consent. Her daughter and her are on rocky terms and she is afraid it will make things worse (understandable) I am going to try and talk to the daughter about it. I really hope that she is receptive as this will be hanging over my head as Canada looms ahead of me. I would really like to have this all settled.
If she is not receptive the mom talked about hiring people to come and feed the horses. She has already set up the vet to just automaticly come out and do the horses. This is great too, though it seems like a lot of work. At the end of the day it is their decision as a family, I just hope that the horses best interests are condsidered and not just family drama.

This is another great example of moral delama's and end of life horse care. It can really get tricky!


Shew this has been one stressful week! I am looking forward though to my riding lesson on Saturday and the tack sale we are having at the barn.

Roller Coaster

Sorry for the picture quality but I wanted to include photographic evidence of Bodhi's breakthrough!

Well this weekend was a roller coaster ride of emotions! First the good news:
Two of the other boarders rode Bodhi this weekend. It is always nice to see your horse being ridden by other people. He had a bit of a ponytude at first and was doing a lot of bulging and refusing to turn. What a buggar! They reached an understanding soon enough though and got some nice work done. One of the things I wanted them to try was to get that left lead. They were amazed at how balanced he is on his right lead going to the left. He really has an amazing counter canter! They could not get him to pick up the left lead either. Bummer. They however thought to ask him for a flying (why didn't I think of that!) and he gave it to them-consistantly! My four year old can do a flying! I was very impressed. So I guess our new game plan is to practice our flying changes to build up strength on his left side. Hopefully this means the left lead canter will be comming soon. We set up a little cross rail course for him as well, as I wanted their opinions on how Bodhi is progressing over fences (they are jumper people). He did great for them, and is even starting to develop some grace over fences. He took one 2 ft verticle at the end of their ride with no problem. What an improvement to my nervous little clutz. I guess he has a future as a hunter pony after all- and who knows maybe cross country? I am so stoked!

On to the bad news-
I went out to grab a few of my things left at my old barn. I talked a little bit about what happened in this post here. Besides the things I found at her farm I have been taking the end of our friendship pretty hard. It really hurts to be ignored and forgotten and I have been having a pretty hard time of it. I have been trying to avoid seeing or talking to her to save myself the heart ache.

I had not seen her horses since I left in June. It looks like they had not had their feet done since I left. I am also aware they have not seen the vet as the vet has called me conserned. The older fellow who was in bad shape when I left is now worse- I would say a 1 on the weight scale though I am not a vet. He was gaining weight slowly back from his founder episode with a lot of beat pulp, senior and alfafa. I wanted him to be fed three times daily though she was not up for that. There was only senior at the farm now, no beet pulp, no alfafa or even hay. They do have some grass left but not enough for an oldman like this guy. His feet were horrific. His toes are insanely long, and one of his front feet was warm. There were flies everywhere, and the stalls were dirty. I was devastated. What am I going to do now? I think I will call her parents (she lives on their property) or my vet. I have not decided yet. At this point the old man is bad enough to be charged for it. I do not want to be a "tattle", or get her in trouble but this has to stop. I have a broken heart over this, I have not slept since I saw it. Everytime I close my eyes I see the poor old man. I have to figure out what to do and fast. I am so torn.