Liz Howell

Well the Equine Dentist came out on the 6th of Jan 2010 to do Zee Zee's teeth. She had two extremely large wolf teeth, lots and lots of sharp points and uneven rowing had started. I had never used this dentist before but I was so pleased with him. He never got the horse upset, was gentle with her and extremely professional. He took the time to tell me what he was doing and to show me the areas that needed work.  Zee Zee was an easy drunk and took her tranquilizer without a hitch.

Its now been a few weeks and I have seen an enormous improvement in the way she eats and how much she is eating. I am so glad this was the ticket as I have been a nervous wreck trying to keep weight on her. The other day the girl that rides Sudden came to ride and out of the blue informed me that Zee Zee was getting fat.  I hadn't even told her that the dentist had came out and done her teeth so I was quite thrilled to hear this comment. Crap now I will probably have to put her on a diet.................

Zee Zee my little paso fino is doing so great under saddle. We have actually started gaiting around the pasture now.  She is so funny, she will get going along at a good clip and then scare herself and come to a dead stop. I pet her and tell her to "come on keep going" and off we go again. Please forgive my poor riding posture and flip flops I don't get fancy when riding at home, plus the nerves are little high when riding a green horse.

Zee Zee has lost a bit of weight since she came here and I am at a loss of what to do. Sometimes her appetite is really good (she always eats her grain) but a lot of the time she snubbs her hay. I give her the best quality coastal and alfalfa hay that I can find yet she still just picks at it. I have an equine dentist coming Wednesday so hopefully that will fix her hay issues.

Today was my new Paso Fino Zee Zee's 6th ride. She was so much better today than she has been, today we only had a couple of balks and temper tantrums which is a remarkable improvement over the way she has been working. Her previous owners did such a good job with her that I haven't had to do much ground work with her at all and have been able to just get on with the riding portion.  We are still in a walk but thats ok I want her to be comfortable with being ridden before I ask for anything else.

Zee Zee is such a sweet girl but I feel so bad for her.  All her life she lived at one place and had the best life kept on pasture 24 hours a day being brought in a stall just for feed and treats.  Here, she is in a stall with an attached paddock and turned out to a sparse pasture for only a couple of hours a day. She eats twice as much feed as Sudden does, won't eat the alfalfa and picks at the coastal.  She lost a little bit of weight because of this but seems to be putting it back on now. I have never had a horse not like alfalfa and I hope she eventually decides its good as I would rather over feed hay than over feed horse feed.

For the past 3 or 4 weeks Sudden has been ridden once a week by a 12 year old girl named Kelsey.  Kelsey had put an ad on a local website wanting a horse to ride and since I can not comfortably ride Sudden I thought it might be a good match.  Kelsey said she was experienced and had taken lessons but from her first ride I knew that to not be exactly true. She certainly knows how to sit on a horse but we had to fix her hands, legs and heels.  I have given her some tips and hollered many a time and made her legs hurt with some exercises just enough that I think she is beginning to get the hang of it.  I try to not butt in too much unless she is doing something really wrong as I feel it is important that she learn to think on her own and figure things out.

Sudden is being a perfect angel and gives her just enough trouble that Kelsey realizes she can't just be a passenger but has to actually ride.  Today Kelsey was trying to learn how to post correctly but every time she would go up Sudden would either go back into a walk or a really slow jog. I tried to explain how to squeeze as she went up but was unable to get my point across so I had her practice riding the trot without her stirrups to help build up her balance and strength. I don't think Kelsey was very happy with me today either that or she was just frustrated.

After the ride Kelsey, her sister and her cousin took turns riding Sudden and then they gave her a bath.  It was really cute to see the three of them washing her and arguing amongst themselves about who was doing what.  Sudden really enjoyed the bath and soaked up the attention.

Thanksgiving week was an up and down week. Jim was sick most of the week which of course made my week not so great.  We went to the neighbors for Thanksgiving dinner and they were both sick.  Jim took about two bites of his food and turned solid white so I told him he needed to go home immediately.  I guess what little he ate came up on the walk back home, poor guy I felt so bad for him.  I wish the neighbors hadn't gone through all the trouble they did to make all the delicious food as they really needed to be resting and not having company.  I quickly ate, said my goodbyes and went on home all the while praying I didn't come down with what all these sick folk had. Several hours later I too was able to re-taste what I had eaten earlier Yuck. Talk about being bummed, I was really wanting to hit the Black Friday sales and this was the last thing I needed.

Friday morning Jim wakes me at 3 am saying "Come On we gotta go get in line".  I moved around a bit testing my stomach stability, and decided that Yes I was going to be able to make it.  Target had a 1 TB external hard drive at the lowest price I have ever seen and I really really needed it. My computer drives, and all my external drives were full and in the red. We got in line around 4 am and boy was it cold, by the time 5 am came around the line was almost around the building. You should have seen the folks running through the store once they got past the doors. Jim had gone back to sit in the truck so I was on my own finding the hard drive.  I made my way back to the electronics section without being run over and started looking for the drive, about that time Jim comes around the corner pushing a cart saying "Honey I got the drive for you".  I looked at him dumbfounded and said "how did you get in front of me I thought you were in the truck?" Turns out he had not gone to the truck but went to sit on the benches up by the door. He said that once they opened the doors he saw a break in people and took it. That was so cool, we were able to get the drive, pay for it and were out the door in under 20 minutes.

Our next stop was Best Buy. We had missed the 5 am opening but wow was that store crowded. I found the digital picture frame that was a door buster, got Smallville season 8 and tried to find Supernatural season 4 but they were out of it. The checkout line was crazy and took over 40 minutes to get through but wasn't without entertainment.  I looked to my right and saw a woman barreling her way through all the barriers Best Buy employees had setup for the checkout line. A Best Buy employee steps in front of her holding his hand up yelling "Mam step away from the barriers" and tried to push her back away. This poor woman was yelling, hyperventilating and having a panic attack all at the same time, and all she wanted was to get out of the store. I told the employee "Dude, shes having a panic attack you need to let her out of here."  Several other people started chiming in with what I had said and the employee gave us a look that said OMG its going to be a riot.  He got the woman to calm down enough to follow him towards the back of the store so I guess he let her out the back door or calmed her down in their break room. The rest of the checkout process was very uneventful.

Next we hit Hardees for their yummy steak biscuits and our last stop was at PetSmart.  All of their Christmas merchandise was 50 percent off so we went ahead and bought Naomi and Abbies Christmas.  She is going to go crazy when she gets the toy with 16 squeakers in it.  That was our week. Whew!

I have been actively horse searching since Mariachi's untimely death and it hasn't been easy.  Several times I said "I am getting out of horses" and then Sudden would holler and I would once again set off looking for her a buddy. I found an ad for an un-broke 5 yr old mare and 2 yr old gelding. They were both unregistered Paso Finos at the same place so I gathered up Jim and Abbie and we went to see them. They were really cute and the mare had actually been saddled (I rode her with them leading me) but the owner did not have a current Coggins and the horses had never had a West Nile shot. Disapointed we went home and I searched some more.

My friend Janet and I went to look at 3 Registered Paso Finos that happened to be at the same place.  Two of the horses were totally wild and could not be caught. One was very friendly and appeared to be well gaited but when he would run it looked like every other stride his hocks were catching causing his back legs to get tangled up. Bummers I really liked him, he was very cute.

I looked at a 7 year old gelding but he was a run away and a 12 year old mare who was very mare aggressive. Neither of those horses would work. I was becoming very depressed as Sudden was so lonely, I felt helpless that I could not console her. Then a miracle came, the owner of the first two horses that we had looked at called to say that she had pulled Coggins and gotten their West Nile shots. Well the coggins came in and Janet and I went to get the mare.

The mare had different ideas though about going to a new home. We did everything we could think of to get her in the trailer and she just was not budging. Whipped we left and decided to come back with more reinforcements and a bigger trailer over the weekend. Saturday came and Janet and her boyfriend Buzz went with me. Well the mare still was having nothing to do with going in the trailer so Buzz and Caroline's (the owner) son got behind her, picked up a leg on each side and walked her on her front legs into the trailer. Thank goodness she is only around 600-700 pounds and not a 1000 pound horse!  We got home and Sudden hollered like she always does when she sees a horse trailer and to her surprise a whinny called back to her.  Janet and I were dying laughing as Sudden's head flew around as she realized "Hey someone is in there".

Mariachi had to be humanely put down today. Since he came here I had suspected that he had some sort of nerve damage. Every once in a while he would just twitch for no apparent reason. I figured I would have chiropractic and acupuncture performed on him once his weight got up to a reasonable amount.  I was getting so excited and had been telling Jim that I would probably be able to start riding him in a week or so as the weight was really coming on nicely.

Yesterday Jim called me out from the house and said to come see if he was ok as he was acting weird. I went out to find him holding himself up against the fence and Sudden all upset that she could not help him. I pulled Sudden out of the pasture and put her in the stall and went back to check on him. He was wondering aimlessly around the pasture and appeared to not be able to see and was confused.  I went out to try and get a halter on him and thats when the worse seizure I have ever seen a horse have.  His bottom lip exposed his entire lower jaw, he went totally stiff in the poll then his mouth flew wide open and his head jerked to his side. He went in circles like this for a little bit and then went down, his entire body was stiff with his neck still turned to his side and his legs were flailing about while he tried to get up.  This was so violent there was no way for us to get in there to prevent him from hurting himself.  He got up once only to fall again and after the third time I just lost it.

I ran up to Jim screaming we have to shoot him he is in pain and probably a bunch of other things I don't remember and went to get the phone to call the vet.  Jim went inside to get his gun while I called the vet.  By the time we got back out there he was back up but still disoriented.  He had no coordination and his hind legs kept giving out on him he also was still unable to see. I walked out to him and softly called his name but he either couldn't hear me or was so disoriented that he walked over to the other fence line and leaned against the fence.

The vet finally called and I told her all the symptoms that he was having and she said right off the bat that it was encephalitis and that usually when they are that far gone that supportive therapy (which is very expensive) would probably not work. We made the decision to have him put down as that seizure was so horrible that I would not want any person or animal to have to go through something like ever.

Well it was about one and a half hours later and Mariachi finally came back into his mind.  He still had the tremors but responded to his name and came over and drank some water. A little while later I offered him a treat that he was able to eat and put some hay out for him.  I left him in the pasture that night as I did not want him to hurt himself in his stall or in the paddocks attached to the stall. I went out at various times through the night checking on him until around 3 am when Jim woke up and took over for me.

This morning Moses an animal rendering service came out and put him down. Jim put Sudden in the far stall so that she could not see what was going on and then stayed out there with Mariachi as I had said my good byes the night before.  He said Moses was a very kind person and that it was very quick and painless for Mariachi.  Moses then stayed with Jim another half hour or so consoling him which I think is the kindest thing a stranger can do for another.

We are both torn up over this terrible tragedy but we know it was the right thing to do. After checking all the books poor Mariachi most likely had West Nile as he experienced every single one of the characteristics associated with this disease with the exception of Coma.  All it takes is a shot to protect a horse from such a terrible fate, now a beautiful horse is gone because of his owners neglect.

My other horse Sudden is so sad...she really loved Mariachi and they got along so well together. Her shots ARE up to date but I am going to give her boosters just to be on the safe side.

Every year Jim and I participate in the Haunted House for the community put on by the Forest Advisory Council with help from the Eagles.  It is free to the community and benefits those in the area. This years theme was a haunted pirate ship.  Diana a local artist did a fabulous job on the backgrounds and creating the rooms. I went as a vampire pirate and Jim went as Hammerhead from the Pirates of the Caribbean. I wasn't scary enough to scare anyone but Jim got a whole lot of screams.  We did not have as many victims this year as we did last year but it was still a lot of fun.

We came home that night only to find that someone has tried to break into our house.  They busted the window and twisted out the whole frame in my computer room.  We will have to replace the entire window now which was an expense we had not planned for.  We filed a police report but were told that the charges will only be for misdemeanor vandalism since it did not appear anyone got in.  We have an idea of who it was because only a few people knew we would both be gone for the event and the times that we would be gone.