Here's your ass...

The point of moving to the new barn was that I would ride more.  It's closer to my house and has a covered arena...so even though we were having huge amounts of rain I could still ride!  Except my horse was psycho.  So......

Actually, I did ride him a few times.  I was proud of myself for riding him through the attempts to buck and rear and freak out being separated from Jessie who was screaming his fool head off back at the barn.  To me, my attempts at riding were great...I rode him until he was able to go on the bit somewhat quietly for a couple of circles.  To my trainer, they were ridiculous little attempts that barely made a dent in the issue.  Which was ok with me, because that's why I moved to that barn...so that I could learn more, faster!

So my first lesson at the new barn I asked my trainer to ride Shamrock.  It was glorious.  Shamrock basically had his ass handed to him for 45 minutes and came out of it a changed horse with a new found focus.  And a need for a nap.

Being a working member of society and not a nutcase is tiring...

(I want to add that my trainer is amazing and while disciplined and expecting a lot of the horses he knows how hard to push and uses his incredible timing more than anything...no force or gadgets for Shamrock, just good old fashioned half halts and expectations).

Home sweet home...

The new stable was amazing.  Large, roomy stalls.  Covered arena.  All weather jump ring.  Large dirt ring.  Grassy field to ride in.  And dirt paddocks with good drainage.  Life was perfect.  Right?

Except PSSM means that my horse doesn't always approach change logically.  He is also crazy, possessive of Jessie.  Freaking out if Jessie leaves his sight...and...apparently, since the move...if *he* leaves Jessie's sight!  Yay!

At least the barn cat liked me...or my stuff...

Shamrock loved hanging out in his stall, with Jessie directly across from the aisle!!!

Jessie was pretty comfortable as well!

Did I mention the stalls are roomy?  Shamrock is positively swimming in his!

Moving on...

I had really enjoyed the year I spent at our barn...but a few issues popped up, leading to me deciding to move my guys to a different stable.  The biggest issue was that I really, really, really wanted to board at the stable my trainer worked out of.  I had been planning on making the move in the summer, but ended up doing it in March.  Because it was raining...it started raining and I wasn't able to ride or work Shamrock.  Not to mention he was living in a mud pit and couldn't be moved to the pasture because there was still *grass*.  So I moved Shamrock and Jessie to Retama Equestrian Center.

Oh look, another PSSM symptom!

During the winter I discovered another PSSM symptom.  Cold impacts him more than "regular" horses.  Basically if it's below 50 degrees he needs a blanket.  Fortunately I have a lot of winter blankets in his size since I had a mare that wore the same size in Ohio before I got Shamrock.

Of course, she was a mare...and I bought everything in purple that I could find...fortunately he looks great in purple!!!

Weirdo...

Shamrock has many endearing qualities...one of them is his tendency to nicker at me when I am dismounting.  We worked throughout the winter and he continued to improve.  Staying on the bit longer and longer.  And also coming back to being on the bit after resisting much more quickly!

Trucking along...

So we kept working, sometimes I rode 4 times a week...sometimes I rode 2.  I didn't have a good handle on what he needed, exercise wise.  He was definitely improving though, and that was huge!

Help!

One of the best things I did for Shamrock and I was to take him to a desensitization clinic.  We spent the first half of the day doing ground work, then the second half under saddle.  After a little longeing once we arrived Shamrock did *amazing*.  I never thought he would do so well!  It was a huge confidence boost for me and allowed me to trust him again.  He accepted all of the spooky objects, walked into a kiddie pool filled with empty plastic bottles, through pool noodles, and we even drug obstacles around!  He did great, and we followed it up with a lesson on trailer loading...he's loaded great since that lesson, so we were able to start trail riding again!

The next time we went trail riding Shamrock did fantastic.  He was relaxed and fun to ride...I was even able to ride him on a loose rein, and I didn't have to worry about getting him to load while leaving!

The most amazing thing about this picture is that it was taken *before* we went on our trail ride!!!

Impeding our progress...

Once he got on the correct diet the biggest obstacle in our progress was...me.  I still had trust issues with Shamrock from how spooky and resistant he was before "fixing" his diet.  I also only rode 2-3 times a week.

I tried working on this, but it was hard for me, because there had been a *lot* of spooking.  And it was hard for me to just let go and trust him.  But fortunately, help was on the way...

The great protector...

One of the reasons that I kept Shamrock was because he did such a great job of protecting Jessie.  Shamrock is little...I do use pony as a term of endearment, but in Shamrock's case, it actually fits.  He's only 14.2 hands.  But he'll run an 18 hand thoroughbred around the pasture for an hour if he feels that it poses a threat to Jessie.

When Shamrock was moved to his own paddock I discovered how great of a job Shamrock actually did.  In the beginning, when they first moved to the barn Shamrock only allowed a donkey to be near them.  As soon as Shamrock was put in a no grass paddock Jessie started getting beat up.  So we moved him into the same paddock with Shamrock...they had less room, but Jessie was much happier, and safer, with Shamrock...and Shamrock was much *saner* off grass.

Grass...the devil's plant...

Shamrock got started on his new diet and was doing great...suddenly we really started progressing in training.  Then it rained a lot.  A lot.  So it was hard to ride because the footing in the arena wasn't all weather by any means.  Then the grass that the barn owners had been carefully cultivating for months began to grow.  And Shamrock went crazy.

It was a low key barn, where the horses spent most of their time outside, and only came in for meals.  They knew their stalls and calmly walked from the pasture gate to their respective stalls, where grain was already waiting.  Except for when there was grass.  Then Shamrock decided it would be more fun to gallop laps around the stable yard and arena instead of going to his stall.  He was also super spooky once again with completely rigid muscles.

So then it was time to figure out what to do.  First we tried only turning him out at night, when the sugars are supposed to be lowest.  Then we tried a grazing muzzle.  Finally, the only solution was to put him in a different paddock, that had no grass.  And suddenly he was sane again.

Diet experimentation...

I don't remember his first diet exactly...but I do remember that as I was waiting for the supplements to arrive in the mail he went lame.  I was supposed to be having a riding lesson with my instructor and his assistant trainer, who was going to come out and work Shamrock for me while I was completely swamped with weddings.

It was a weird lameness...he didn't palpate badly anywhere...the first couple of steps he took were the worse, and he didn't flex badly either.  For the most part, it looked like it was a stifle issue, but it didn't worsen on a small circle.  It also wasn't worse in one direction versus the other.

We couldn't figure out what was wrong, chalked it up to some weird PSSM thing and waited until his supplements came to try again.  The hitchiness was better the next day, and then his supplements came and once he was started on them it never happened again.

Shamrock's symptoms...

I know I started this blog kind of belatedly, and there aren't even any readers...but just in case someone, someday, wonders what symptoms I do attribute to PSSM, here they are.  This is Shamrock's list of PSSM symptoms.



Spooking
Muscle tightness
Pushing his butt against walls
Hitchiness in his hind legs
Sensitivity to being brushed or touched
Difficulty being caught
Fear of *everything*
Pain filled eyes
Bucking when picking up the canter
Difficulty cantering
Tripping a lot
Clamping tail down
Always resting a hind foot
Sweating a lot just in the pasture
Muscle wastage
Weight loss
Drinking excessively
Urinating excessively
Fear of new people
Difficulty working in general...everything was hard for him

Shamrock's diet...

It took a few months to figure out his diet...and then a few more to really figure out exactly how much exercise mattered to his well being.  I'll touch on some of the trails and tribulations it took to get there, but this is the finished diet.  I pre-mix a month or so of supplements at a time, and fill a 4 oz cup with powder for breakfast and one for dinner...splitting all of the powders evenly in half.  Sometimes Lego people play on my filled cups and knock them over, apparently...

DAILY FEED (split into breakfast and lunch)
Triple Crown Senior
4 tbsp of Magnesium Oxide (or MagRestore, I could get away with 1 tbsp less of MagRestore)
8,000 iui natural vitamin e (from SantaCruz)
2 tbsp of stock salt
2 tbsp Acetyl L-Carnitine (ALCAR)


4 Servings of Coastal Hay
1 Flake of Alfalfa Hay


LUNCH (I mix this up myself on days I ride or work him)
Triple Crown Senior
2 tbsp Magnesium Oxide
Splash of Oil
Whatever supplements are left in his feed pan
Enough water to make the supplements stick to his feed

Bloodlines...

The wonderful woman who brought PSSM to my attention manages a database, tracking PSSM bloodlines.  She ran Shamrock's bloodlines for me and said that they were the worst she's seen for PSSM chances.

So, there you have it.  A quick hair test later and voila...an answer for all of my questions!

The diagnosis...

Shamrock was doing so well I was finally ready to dive in and post on a dressage fb group about Shamrock...this way I could start participating in the group actively.  That's when someone messaged me, asking if I had considered that my horse may have PSSM.

This is what I'd posted:

"While I'm posting...this is my horse...a 7 year old solid bred paint gelding. I've had him for two years and he was a mess when we started. Head flinging and wouldn't accept contact at all. Very bad underneck as well. For the first year I didn't do much with him because I just didn't know what to do. Even trying him in sidereins and longeing didn't make a difference. I worked on massaging and stretching his neck because it seemed as if it was "locked up", he also could reach around very far with it when trying carrot stretches.

He was also *very* spooky and I rode him very defensively...making it much worse.

Then I moved to a different barn where I was able to start taking lessons. I've been taking lessons on him for almost a year and have had a few giant (to me) epiphanies. I haven't been able to ride as regularly as I would have liked, so progress has been slow in coming. I am finally able to ride a lot and have moved my horse to a much nicer barn with a real arena and good footing, which has made a world of difference.

We still have a long way to go, but my lesson Monday was the first lesson that was mostly good with only moments of resistance/unbalancing...before that it was always resisting/unbalanced with moments of good!"

And suddenly, just like that...it was a whole new world...PSSM made perfect sense!

More trail rides and abandoning Shamrock...

Ever since I got him, Shamrock has trailered well.  He looked at my Equispirit the first time we loaded him after buying him, but walked on after a short wait.  He loaded great for every move and the very first trail ride we went on.

The first trail ride we went on after moving tot he new barn Shamrock did great...other than peeing before we rode and refusing to stand in the pee spot!

He was a tired but pleased pony after the trail ride.  I thought he'd be excited to go home.  He wasn't.  He didn't want to go home at all.  He wanted to stay there.  I almost left him there.  I tried to coax him into the trailer for over an hour.  We moved the trailer so that the sun was shining into it, that way it wasn't dark.  We pulled the trailer away like his buddy was going to leave him.  We moved the trailer so it was backed up to a little hill so that it wasn't so much of a step up.  No dice.  Eventually I took the leadrope off the extra halter and made a psuedo butt rope to encourage him onto the trailer. Finally, that worked.  He was still mine for another day...though many times after that day I wished I *had* left him at Canyon Lake that day! 

Improvements!

I like photo collages...they show advances being made when you don't see them in person.  With the move to the new barn Shamrock's diet changed a little more, to a higher protein feed...he was also getting more of his magnesium because it wasn't sticking to the bucket stacked on top of his bucket.  I was also starting to be able to ride more regularly and he was improving rapidly.  Of course then photography would pick up, so I would back off on riding while I stayed caught up, and then I would start riding again, just in time for weddings to pick up.  But, there was a glimmer of hope!

Stranger danger revisited...

When Shamrock moved to the new barn he didn't want to be caught by the workers.  Big surprise, right?  At least he had Jessie there, to help get him caught.  One day, before a lesson, when the barn owner saw me struggling with cleaning Shamrock's feet due to the cold, he offered to help and clean them for me.  Shamrock did not approve of unauthorized people handling his feet...definitely not, lol.  He let him help, but you could tell he was uncomfortable with the situation!

Checking out Jessie's birthday cupcake from Jessie's 25th birthday...

The time *I* broke *my* finger...

Right after moving the horses to the new barn I left for a trip to Ohio to visit family.  I was gone for a couple of weeks and when I returned...it was with a broken finger.

As a result, I didn't ride Shamrock for a couple of months while it healed.  Between the pain and not being able to groom him to remove the caked on cement equivalent black mud stuck on his coat!  

New barn...

We moved to a new facility and the horses *loved* it.  They had their own stalls for meals, but otherwise got to spend *all* of their time outside...the way both of them preferred to live.  I also decided that it would be a good place to hang their stall signs!

Speaking of Logan...

I even put him to work!

And sometimes he just got worn out...

And he used the open space to practice karate...

But our time at that barn was coming to an end.  My photography business had picked up to the point where I could afford to move to a facility with a real arena, with all dirt footing.  I could also do full care instead of self care board!

Work, work, work...

While I was making progress with Shamrock, it was slow in coming.  Partially because I was working at the barn where I kept the horses...and many times I used up Logan's patience for the barn with doing my required work (cleaning 12 stalls and watering horses...and then cleaning my own 2 stalls as well).  Logan was 3 at the time, and a very good sport about it.

He did love the barn, and it was a great environment for him.  He made lots of friends and was also able to come to the barn and invite friends over to come for pony rides.  It also meant that having horses there meant I rode rather sporadically.  Not ideal...especially for a PSSM horse...but that's what we did.

Logan did start to love riding though...especially when there were girls riding at the same time!

Baby horse trailers...

"Awwww...look mommy! Baby horse trailers! Those are little trailers for baby horses to ride in"  Something Logan said to me when passing these UHaul trailers around this time!

First trail ride...

Shamrock was doing so well, compared to how things started...that I decided it was time to take him on a trail ride!  I went with someone from the barn and he did really well!  Only a little scared of a couple things, but did very, very well.  He did reaffirm his love for water...and his weird water habit...he walks into the water, pees, then paws and drinks the water.  He's such a dork!

But there were good days...

It wasn't all bad.  He was jumpy and scared of new things, but he was getting better.  We would have a couple of strides of softness, then have to restart the process.  My trainer even took a picture when we were having a particularly good ride!  He would still veer away from dead spots in the grass where poles had been laying.  And the jumps constantly being set up in the arena made it hard to school the way he needed to be schooled...but we managed.

The time Shamrock broke my husband's finger...

My husband was in the Air Force at the time, and preparing for a deployment.  He came out to the barn to take some video of me riding and then was nice enough to hand graze him after.  That was how I operated...horse started getting better because he wasn't getting grass and food that made him crazy, so I started rewarding him by letting him eat grass.  So dumb.

Anyway, my husband was letting Shamrock graze while playing on his phone.  Shamrock stepped over the lead rope and continued eating.  My not so horsey husband noticed this, decided it must be remedied *immediately* and reached down to flick the rope toward Shamrock's chin so that the excess would be out from between his legs.

Shamrock saw the rope move, panicked, and took off.  Non-horsey husband held on as long as he could, in such a way that the pressure broke the tip of his pinkie.  He didn't have a speck of rope burn though!  So off to the emergency room we went, where the break was confirmed and splinted.  For some reason my husband has had a distrust of Shamrock ever since...

Positive changes....

I got some nutrition help from Back to Basics and that made a big difference in Shamrock.  He was able to relax a little more when I changed his feed and upped his magnesium even more.  My trainer started riding him for part of our lessons to help Shamrock understand what was being asked of him despite my fumbling efforts.  We still had a long way to go, but he was getting much better.  The first time my trainer road him with a whip he nearly sat down when touched with it.

Help has arrived...

One of the best things to happen with the switch to the new barn, is that I was able to start taking riding lessons.  I found a classical dressage trainer that also traveled to give lessons.  He had his hands full with Shamrock and I, but he did a fantastic job of getting through my ill conceived notions on how dressage should be ridden and how to deal with my very spooky gelding.  I highly recommend you check him out if you are in the San Antonio area, his website is www.skeletonkeysporthorses.com  His fiancee is a fabulous trainer in her own right as well!  And not to skip ahead too far in the story, but they are so amazing I did everything I could to make it possible to move Shamrock into their barn...but that's two years from this point!

I had two big issues with Shamrock when we started lessons...my position and his unwillingness to accept contact.  Oh, and his spookiness.  Can't forget that!  My first lesson was in the midst of a very, very wet month.  So wet that I couldn't ride in the "arena" and took my lesson in the courtyard.  My trainer had a lot of work to do but he was definitely up to the task.

The first issue he addressed was my constant gripping with my knees.  Unfortunately, due to the spooking I was losing trust in Shamrock and started gripping with my knees...leading Shamrock to slow down and become unwilling to move out.  Once I stopped gripping he started moving forward.

To work on his unwillingness to accept contact we varied between raising my inside hand to maintain contact with his mouth despite his evasions and pushing him forward to my hand as well as opening the inside reins and encouraging him to release his jaw and stop holding and bracing with it.  Eventually he got to where I no longer had to raise my hand, just push him forward with my legs, hold with the outside rein and vibrate my fingers on the inside hand, releasing when he gave instead of bracing.

He also started developing the ability to stretch down and reach...which soon became his favorite thing ever...then it became a new problem.  He would constantly ask to stretch, and then throw his head when I didn't allow him to, I would get him soft again, he would try to stretch, he would throw his head...and so on.  We also didn't canter much because his canter was an imbalanced mess.  I spent a lot of time riding Jessie, because he was much more fun and in fabulous shape.  Shamrock was improving, but inching along.  Lessons were sporadic between my trainer's schedule and my own budget...more like one or two a month even.


See his eyes?  Poor horse looks half crazed!  And yet he tried his best...even though everything around the arena scared him and made him want to bolt.

Settling in...

Eventually Shamrock settled in, got over being scared of the barn...

And even enjoyed playing with his new friends in his turnout.  

Jessie and Shamrock had opposite turn out schedules...they were in the same pasture, but Jessie went out at night because he was having trouble with the heat.  And then Shamrock went out during the day because he wasn't 24 years old.  Their stalls were across the aisle from each other.  The whole situation was a blessing, I just didn't know it yet...

Hostage Exchanges...

As the PSSM took ahold of Shamrock's brain I started needing to do what I called "Hostage Exchanges" with him.  Both at his first home with me and his second.  Fortunately, I had a secret weapon...Gigi.  Gigi was an adorable pony mare that I got in Ohio.  She was 40" tall and I brought her to Texas with Jessie.  I moved her the day after I moved Shamrock because she was close to foundering on the grass and it wasn't possible to ensure that she stayed off the grass.  I had to sell her soon after moving her to the new facility because they didn't have a turn out big enough to contain her, and I really couldn't afford to board two horses and a pony.

Isn't she adorable?  Fortunately I found her a great home that had dry lots with fencing made for little ones and is doing great now.  

But back to the hostage exchanges...this is what I called catching Shamrock until after he moved to the new facility.  He became hard to catch, and the easiest way to do it was to catch Gigi first, who loved being fussed over, so I would get Gigi, lead her over to Shamrock and then clip the lead rope onto his halter and let Gigi go.

When he moved to the new facility the other workers were unable to catch Shamrock without using Gigi as bait...which was a huge change in his personality because the first time I went to see him at his old home he walked up to me even though he'd only seen me once before!

Eventually I did get Shamrock moved over...

And he did flourish.  He didn't have access to grass any longer, and started moving better.  He was also getting magnesium and that helped a lot.  He was also terrified.  Scared to enter the barn...scared to enter his stall.  And the first time it rained this is how he stayed...terrified to stand under a roof.

This is what he looked like after a year on grass.  Absolutely wretched.  He was headshy, spooky, and scared of *everything*.  I had to untie him to brush from his shoulders forward, for fear that he would pull back.  Same thing with fly spraying him.  We had a long road ahead of us, and it was going to be very bumpy, and very hilly.