Skip is a worry wart?
So, took Skip for a mini hack around the back of the field, he did great! Walk, trot, canter…no problem. Got back in the arena and he starts doing his hippity hoppity thing again.
So, I did some research about this and have found it can be a stress/anxiety thing where the horse is anticipating something or something medical like lameness, etc etc. After thinking about it for awhile, I realized the behavior started right after a pretty bad trip that was nearly a full on fall. We had been trotting in the indoor arena and Skip tripped to such an extreme degree that his face actually hit the dirt between his front legs and slightly under his body…nearly tumbling heels over head. It happened really fast, I stayed on, Skip caught himself before any physical damage was done….but that doesn’t mean he didn’t hurt himself mentally. I think he is anticipating a fall!
Because it has been so hot everyone has been flocking to the shady indoor arena= a ton of dust= the arena is getting watered quite frequently. The frequent watering creates pockets of deep soft wet dirt, this is what I think caused Skip to trip (oh gosh, now I am rhyming).
I think for the time being I will try and work him in the outdoor (much much larger) arena that has footing that is much better, hard packed dirt with a layer of sand. Maybe after some time Skip will forget about his little scare or we can just wait until cooler weather comes and the indoor arena is not used so heavily.
On another note, Ben my dog has been having seizures all weekend 😦 He has epilepsy and goes into seizure cycles that typically last 3-4 days with seizures happening every few hours (and yes, he is medicated daily, every day). Right now he seems to be coming out of the cycle but it is so tiring for him and for me. I give him extra sedatives when he is in a seizure cycle and they cause him to get mentally “stuck” on some sort of behavior. Typically he gets really oral/mouthy or he does this VERY obnoxious loud, high pitched yipping noise (its like a skipping record, he cant seem to stop)….nothing will appease him UNLESS I lay down next to him and rub his back, he will then quiet down and doze off…and then I try and sneak off without waking him. Its frustrating because he will wake up several times in the night and it takes a good half hour to an hour to get him to go back to sleep. Not to mention that I have to haul him outside and make sure he doesn’t need to go potty……but I love him and that is why I do it.
Speaking of doing things for the animals you love….do you ever wonder if animals can sense that you are someone that will help them? For example, one morning I was half awake and I kept hearing a scratching barking noise out front (I have a big bay window right at the front of the house). I got up and there was the neighbors dog waiting at the front door lol. We let him in to come and play and I called the neighbors to come get him……..funny thing is, about a month later their 3 year old daughter was knocking at our front door. She had figured out how to open their front door…walked down the sidewalk and crossed the street to our house. Scary but since it turned out fine we do have a laugh about it now. I am reminded of these incidents because today their new dogs got out and found their way to my house…I put them in my side yard until they could get back to pick them up……just wondering if my house is a pit stop on animal GPS or something (for the sake of this argument, lets just consider 3 year old children as animals 😛 haha).
Thats it for today, I am naturally using this blog as a tool for procrastination. 🙂
misadventures with mel 