Liz Howell

Archive for the ‘The Horses’ Category

This weekend was very stressful. I had been advertising Maricita and Zee Zee for sale for the past month as one of them needed to go. I liked them both equally so it was hard for me to decide which one to sell. I hadn't had much interest in either one and then "Boom" I was getting calls and emails galore. Read the rest of this entry »

The horses really had a workout this past weekend. Kelsey and Jessica came Friday after school and stayed until Sunday evening. They stayed on the horses as much as possible and I think they had a pretty good time even though I made them do chores and did not let them go to the barn at 11:00 at night.  They wanted to sleep in the horse trailer one night but all I could think of was some crazy or some animal coming to get them so I had to say no to that idea. Read the rest of this entry »

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.

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.