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!

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!