Day 119

As you may have guessed, progress on Doc’s legs has been slow.  The daily doctoring sessions are a pleasure to do because of how wonderful our patient is, but I look forward to the day when we see a major change in those legs.  The amount of exposed tissue is a lot less than it was when we started, but the masses of scar tissue that have taken over are worrisome.  I don’t know if it is possible to surgically cut all of that away, but I sure hope that we can make it smaller.  I would love to allow his legs to move more freely without the burden of such huge scars.

We have continued our walks in the woods, and Doc can’t wait for Alicia to fit him with boots so he can come comfortably on some longer rides with the big boys.  For now, we keep the walks mainly on soft dirt and away from gravel roads that can be painful to tender feet.  

A couple of weeks ago, Doc had his first experience with a hose.  Alicia was bathing Rudy, so we used the opportunity to get Doc close to the water with an older, experienced horse there to set the example.  I can’t say that the hose was his favorite object, but he managed to maintain some of his dignity when the mist hit him in the face.  Next time we will take the sprayer off and spend a decent amount of time on getting used to the idea of a bath.  Our boy could certainly use one!





Yesterday was a lesson day at Cottonwood Creek, so Doc came along to play in the arena with Cohasset before class.  Since we were the only ones there, I let the boys run loose for a while to get to know each other.  The first thing that Cohasset did was find a nice soft spot to roll…

I expected Doc to roll as well, but he was much more interested in finally having a chance to interact with Cohasset as another horse without me in the middle interfering.  Up until now, I have only allowed them to sniff each other briefly before putting them both to work.  Now they had some freedom to establish a hierarchy between themselves.  I expected Doc to simply submit to Cohasset as the obvious leader, but was surprised with how persistent Doc was about challenging that role.

Talkin' it over

After they decided to be friends, I took Doc to the round pen for his first "real" lesson at liberty (without a halter or lead rope).  We made some excellent progress in maintaining direction and gait and I managed to use plenty of teaching moments.  In the end, he was moving from a walk to a trot, then gallop, and back down again with a lot of attention to my cues.  I really enjoyed watching him move for a prolonged period of time.  It was the first time that I could actually watch his trot and lope to see how much his movement was affected by his legs.  Although you can definitely see stiffness and a short stride in both hind legs, I must say, the boy can move!  Watching him collect himself and run like a wild mustang was a thrill... although it wasn't exactly what I was asking from him at the moment J

We ended our session with a nice ride around the property with our friend Amy riding Bozo and ponying Archie.  Doc was very well behaved, and even went through the cowboy curtain for the first time!

Friends at last

With the warm weather we are having, it is easy to get spring fever and be excited about fixing those legs.  The reality is that we still have a few more months to wait.  Thanks for hanging in there with us until then!

~Jackie