Getting back to work.

Whew it's been a while since I've hopped on the blog world. I work through the holidays and vacation when the weather is nice so balancing work, family, friends, pets, and horse time had me pretty much maxed out for a while!

My excuses aside, I wanted to blog a little about getting back to work after some time off.

Max was out of work and had rest time in his stall for a little under two weeks straight till he was deemed un-lame by the vet. After that I noticed stiffness and resistance, especially going right, and when picking up contact with the bit. I figured this was normal recovery stuff and I wanted to give him enough time to get back into things, build his muscle back up.

Well apparently I was being a little too lenient. He started resisting more during canter departs to the right especially, and he'd either buck or push his shoulder out and run off with me. Me being such a worry-wart started giving him more slack, thinking maybe he had some sort of discomfort.

I had the saddle-fitter come out and she did say that the ThinLine pad that I had put on him was not fitting well with the saddle and was causing a bit of a pinch. I also have the dentist coming out to check his teeth, juuuustttt in case.

In the meantime I had my trainer hop on him. She sent me a message as soon as she hopped off saying he had picked up a bit of a behavioral habit of tossing his head and resisting. He also bucked! She continued to ride him forward and round and after that he was great.

She advised that when he is weak on one side to not ignore it but keep working him through it. If I didn't keep on top of things, he would try avoid it constantly and then build into something behavioral.  Looks like while I've been busy worrying about one thing, something else pops up!

I'm still going to make sure he is doing well physically. With the dentist coming out, and a hoof specialist in spring, proper saddle fitting and good exercise hopefully he will be a happy well-adjusted horse by summer.

In the meantime..at least I know that he CAN work through it and to not let him trick me into thinking he can't!  What a clever fellow he's turning out to be!!

Cheeky Max!