Ever just feel like you are on hold? Delayed? Waiting? That seems to be a pattern for me since March 2020… Life took a very weird detour and delay for everyone – work, school, sports, religious meetings, hobbies, shopping – all were “on hold” and shifted virtual as the world reeled in the wake of a pandemic that just had begun. Here we are, just about 2 years later and still trying to “get back to normal”.
What is normal anyway? I sure do miss seeing smiling faces…not being worried about who is standing so close to me or my kids… Going to events and not having to keep distance from everyone around you.
But I digress…

We returned from our vacation to delays and basically got an ‘extended vacation’ as a winter storm pummeled us. Then we had more storms nearly every weekend after that with some amount of snow and colder temps than we usually get in Jan for VA! I had to do a lot of ice-breaking on water tanks… Feb has started out a bit warmer, but with rain so all that melted snow and rain on top has turned in a bunch of mud 🙄 Needless to say, the trailer at many points could NOT be moved and my driveway and the trailer turn around area show the scars of when it has. Careful planning and timing of hooking up got me and Sully to his appointment with a vet in Richmond late Jan to have his stifles checked out and develop a plan for this year with injections, etc. This did not go as planned… She did a thorough lameness evaluation on his stifles, which showed more issue on his Right than Left after flexing (opposite of what I felt under saddle), and then continued on with some neuro evaluation. He was showing some SI pain, which could be from his stifles, or a slip in the pasture, or ?? She also found some sensitivity and inflammation in the stifles as expected. What was more concerning to her is that she felt he was unbalanced in his muscular responses to her and suggested the possibility of it being early signs of EPM. Stifles were left as is for the moment as I needed to sort through the EPM idea…

It just didn’t make a whole lot of sense the more I thought on it… He is very well muscled with a good topline; he has been living at home almost 2 years with no opossum encounters that I know of (though getting into the hay I feed during baling is always a risk). He does have PSSM Type 2, which is a genetic muscle disease and symptoms can mimic EPM I learned… so, in the end I opted not to treat him at this point and continued down a path of alternative medicine, which led me to a 2nd opinion with a vet that does Chiro/Acupuncture and Chinese Medicine. She did find his hip was bothering him, but he had no reaction to the EPM test points. He was a bit long in the hoof at the moment so we didn’t do any adjusting, just acupuncture with stim and gave me suggestions for herbal remedies to help his body/joints. We discussed x-rays and injections of the stifles later. I made another great contact in that alternative med world and have some remedies to add in. Since I can’t afford to own a Bemer or do weekly acupuncture, I decided on red-light therapy as a personal purchase. I managed to grab a highly recommended one on eBay for like 1/4 cost of new that I can use on him (well, any of the horses and me!) and a handy laminated sheet available on Amazon that will guide me to the correct acupressure points to use it on.

We finally got out to ride on the 6th which was over 6 weeks from our last ride! It was also a few days after his acupuncture session so I was curious to see how he felt. While he was eager to head out he was also relatively calm, likely a bonus from it being a smaller group of horses to ride with and no one was particularly “up”. It was a cold day, but we had some sun and there had been enough snow melted to create some boggy/mud spots along the trail. We did 11 miles, mostly walking, but a bit of trot here and there. Scooby did great – it was his longest ride yet – and the composite shoes seem to have really helped to keep him comfortable; Skyler thoroughly enjoyed the outing and fell asleep on the way home! Sully had a lot of issues with the downhills and his hinds slipping out from under him unfortunately, but otherwise was “fit” despite the break and a little bit of chunk he has on him right now. He just wasn’t quite his self though; not happily trotting along, never relaxed when we did trot, and was tripping and overreaching more than usual. Upon our return I followed up with the vet and we believe most of it is due to his trim/shoes needing to be done, as well as his body still working to adjust from the acupuncture. Needless to say, I got right on top of getting the farrier scheduled so we could try another ride and see what was up after that.

They all got a trim and S&S got shoes done on Friday and we headed back out again Saturday. In addition to his normal wearing of a BOT cooler during the haul, I put Sully on the pads to help his body ‘relearn’ his position per se once off the trailer. He really enjoyed the pad time – he stood on both front pads a long while as I groomed and got Scooby tacked and just zoned out. Then he stood on each hind individually (that is his pref way to do his hinds), which he stayed on the left a while too, then not as long on the right side. Left side showed me he was standing particularly toe heavy on that leg, which you can see in the pic and then I saw the imprint left on the pad after as well. Overall, it was a much better ride, Sully felt better and moved out more happily with a few bobbles on the downhills. Scooby did great and Skyler was constantly asking to trot and move out some making it to almost 12miles with us. So, it appears the trim and shoes helped, now we just need to dial in on the rest with some physical and nutritional assistance, which is resulting in a “delay” to my ride hopes for this season. Rolling with the punches again this year, I’ll get him sorted out!
Hopefully I will have some better things to report next time with our walk down this road of recovery and strengthening for him. There are a few factors at play that we are exploring…

In other news… on 1/24 we adopted a sweet TINY <2lbs> 3 month old kitten! Luna has been settling in and providing lots of entertainment for us. She and the dogs are not free run together yet, as she is so small (easily lost under/in things and squishable), but we are working on the intros daily. So far the dogs are intrigued; Obi wants her toys (to eat them) and Bella really wants to play with her but is also terrified of this little thing! lol Luna has grown quite a bit in the last few weeks too and gets bolder every day with her free-roam time.