# Get out of Dodge: Adventures with a Spanish Mustang



## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Now Dodge was firmly mine. I made all the decisions and no one who used to know him was around to tell me what I could and couldn't do for him. 

Along with horsey boot camp I also tried desperately to fix his issues. The summer sore was gone, but he still had diarrhea and his feet were a total mess with severe deep central sulcus thrush. 

I started Dodge on some supplements for the runs he had, I tried different hays, I tried a lot of stuff. It only got a little better sometimes then back to horrible projectile black water. I just kept trying whatever I could think of. I suspected Dodge had ulcers, probably in the hind gut, but who knew. I didn't need a vet to tell me to try something and see if there was a difference, I just tried it to see if there was a difference. Unfortunately at the boarding barn the hay choices were alfalfa or grass, the alfalfa was rich, for dairy cows, not horses. I did what I could but nothing worked. 

The farrier and I worked and worked on Dodge's hooves to set them up correctly. That worked out well, and his central sulcus thrush started going away and the hole started to fill in the best it could. His heels were weak and infected and he had contracted heels on both front feet. We had to leave some heel on for him to stay comfortable, but had to remove some so that spreading could happen. I learned how to trim the hooves a little bit at this point. 

Dodge was coming along well in riding. He stopped bolting in the arenas, and he was going into a frame and generally trying a bit more than before. Things still took 10-20 times for him to get it though. Eventually I got him going over little poles and generally getting him to the point where he could walk, trot, and canter under control in a big rodeo size arena. 

Dodge and I moved and I started working. I started riding him all the time at the new barn. I didn't want to give up what I had worked for with him, and I wanted him to come along more. All great! Then I get Diablo a month after moving, so I was learning the ropes of having 2 horses. Dodge continued to do well, and he was happy to have Diablo as his friend. I got to have fun with both the boys. 

After that it started raining, and some other stuff happened along with that. Dodge has coronary damage on both hinds where his heels have chipped and pulled off. It seems to happen every year after the first good soak. This next year I'm thinking I may need to lop off his heel before it has a chance to rip off. His bars distort to support his hoof where he has no heel. That part of him I'm still learning about. 

I noticed Dodge's manure was getting a little firmer than it ever was before in the 3 years since the BLM. Then the hay changed and it was horrible again! I did a lot of research into ulcers and curing then without expensive medications, and looked into a bunch of other possibilities for the problem. I ended up switching him to all pellets, since the barn offered either pellets or grass hay. I also started giving Dodge large loads of psyllium in addition to the other stuff. 

Everything started clearing up, so I switched him to hay in the morning and pellets at night. He's doing great so I took the psyllium out and the clays I had been giving him. Eventually I want him to go back on all hay, but the hay is really rough orchard grass and I think Dodge has a sensitive stomach that gets ripped up from the grass, even with him chewing it well enough. 

Things were getting checked off the list for Dodge health wise, but I had stopped riding him. It was too wet, and I got a little too risky trying to ride him by the road. A mini horse galloped at him and he spun around the opposite way if how I was pulling him. 

Finally it was down to helping his feet. I learned Dodge has something called High/Low Syndrome, which is most likely caused by poor or no hoof care as a youngster, and him always putting the right foot forward while he eats, pushing that foot forward, and lifting the left hoof as it stretched behind him. I can't really fix it now, He's done growing, but I can make slow changes to how he uses his feet to make them more even and comfortable for him. Besides that the thrush hadn't gotten worse with all the storms we had, but it still wasn't quite right either. 

I focused my attention to Diablo, who was also healing, and just checked on Dodge a bit... Now that work is over for the summer I am spending my time with Dodge and Diablo is spending some time off. 

Were working on getting that riding jazz back, there's some stuff Dodge remembered, but a lot he forgot, we can both be a bit lazy, so were going to work on paying attention, staying in front of the leg, making good decisions, being brave, etc. 

But when I say all that, I mean like, pay attention for more than 1 or 2 steps, walk like your life depends on it even if it's really super hard because lazy horses are real, don't run away from the crumply hat, Try to figure out that crumply hat, etc.

So those are the goals with Dodge in a nut shell. I want him to feel special so he will give me what I need from him. I'll put in some other pictures of him looking all pretty showing off his spanish blood. He's also got curly mane and wavy tail hair so he looks like a stocky Frisian. I guess you can decide, he's a mustang, so even though he was born at the BLM there's no way to really know! Oh he's a 2011 horse, 5 yo in the 2016 makeover, and now he's 8!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

I put things like saddle fit, and hoof pics in albums now, there's some in posts around here too...

https://www.horseforum.com/members/98817/album/

https://www.horseforum.com/hoof-care/what-would-you-use-quarter-crack-786493/


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## AnitaAnne (Oct 31, 2010)

What a cutie pie he is!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Thanks, @AnitaAnne, good excuse to post more pics!

oops let me fix the pix!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Here's some silly pics


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Dodge was good today. I skipped a few steps and he was still trusty today. 

Usually to be safe I lunge without tack, then again with, before I finally get on to ride. Well I just got on to ride today. 

I'm seeing what Dodge remembers. For as sensitive as he is he still lags in his transitions. That will be easy to school him on later. 

Good news, he's still super soft and givey with the bit. He's one of those horses where you take a feel and he could easily over tuck his nose. He's also easy to get in a bad frame where he just pulls forward and pulls and pulls and pulls your hand. Good for me to practice keeping an elastic feel and honing it to perfection. 

We just did some walking and trotting with the givey give going on. 

At the end of the ride I tried practicing the spanish walk from on his back. I taught him to lift his legs from the ground by tapping them with the whip. He lifts them not super fancily but he knows to get good lift. I just did the same from the saddle, tap tap on his legs and he lifted them so I can practice doing that for fun too! Though it would be so helpful to have a 2nd person training that move!

In general I'm expecting to keep going walking and trotting to increase stamina, and I will add in some poles to enhance his fitness in lifting his legs. I think that he will pick up on things faster than ever but I still need to go slow with him, and this gives me a chance to rebuild him up again and better refine some things he didn't have before. 

Dodge is seemingly doing really well on the animed mag right, super calm look in his eye no spooky stuff going on. He's always been a sweety but the wild is leaving him and he's loving the spa treatments I give him. He actually did some thing I taught him over the past months about approaching scary things on his own today so that was cool!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Dodge has been good lately. But of course as I say that he will find something to do to prove me wrong... I had him do a little ground work refresher then hopped on and did the same stuff on the ground as I did in the saddle. Pretty easy level of work, but I would like to amp it up with him at some point. Gotta make sure it's all to the "T" first. 

Worked on him with haunch yield, forehand yield, leg lifting, and alternating haunch and forehand yields to get ready for lateral movements. All satisfactory!

My main goal was to hone in on the turn on the haunches moving toward the right. He gets a bit stuck on the left side and won't move it away under saddle, and you can see a few times takes steps backward or around instead of pivoting. The good news is he did it really well under saddle. Still needs loads of work to perfect it though. 






I guess the riding video didn't come through, but it was good!


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## trailhorserider (Oct 13, 2009)

He's gorgeous! 



In that first photo, you could pick whatever fancy, schmancy warmblood breed you would like to call him and I would believe you. He's built so nice! I don't think people realize how nice Mustangs can be, and I don't mean just temperment, I mean their conformation. A lot of domestic breedings don't turn out that nice!


Solid, well built horses a lot of them! Feet and legs a Quarter Horse or Thoroughbred would envy.


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

@trailhorserider

Thank you! I think half of it is getting all dressed up for that look!

He does have good conformation, but looking at his pictures from pickup at the BLM, he looked like a starved rat. It really has helped me to see what the horses will look like once they have been in ownership and care for a year after coming off the range or out of the BLM facilities. I like to look at the auctions online and I do see a lot of good horses on there, but you would have to really know what you are looking for. There's a lot of mustang types out there. I've been thinking of starting a thread where everyone can come look at the mustangs for auction and comment about what they see. 

With the feet and legs they are so solid! I'm not sure if it's normal for the mustangs to have hoof issues in general, but Dodge has a few, not sure how or when they were acquired. He still has good feet, they will be rock solid once they are more healthy. He's had one leg injury when he ran around in some deep footing, but I went back and looked at pictures from when he was picked up, and he had it then too. Doesn't bother him at all!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

I decided to give Dodge the day off after I rode him, even though it wasn't too hard of a ride by any means. I think he just likes working one day and taking one day off. 

The day after that I was ready to ride, but also decided to check on his feet a little more in depth. His frogs grow and grow on his hind feet and eventually there's no crevice where the frog meets the sole because it's totally grown over with flat calloused frog. Even if there's not debris in there he develops thrush in there pretty easily just because there's no air flow. 

I carved out the frogs to open up the sulci. Then the manure and sand just falls out on it's own. 

After I did the hinds I took a look at the fronts. A couple of spots where the bars needed trimming, well the wall does too, but the bars were about to start laying over. It sounds extreme, but Dodge goes 4 weeks before needing a trim, so in just 3 or 4 weeks the bars start growing and bending over. I cleaned up the frogs on front and just opened up the hoof more below so debris could fall out rather than get trapped. 

On the low hoof I carved out a small depression where there used to be a crevice. I can't fit a cotton ball in between the contracted heels on that hoof anymore, but I need to keep it cleared out with the knife so that some sneaky bacteria don't crawl in some tiny crevice I can't even see like they seem to do. Then it just goes right back to that deep sulcus crap. I'll post a picture of that hoof soon. I think I've finally gotten it where I wanted, and now can set another goal to keep it opened up and really establish support in the back of the hoof. 

On the clubbier upright hoof there's progress too, but it's not what I thought. I started trimming up the frog when a huge chunk started to tear off on it's own. I trimmed it off and cleaned it up, but I ended up removing a lot of his frog. It was all necrotic so I cleaned it till there was only healthy tissue, then I took down the frog a little on the other side so that there wouldn't be a bunch of pressure over that one spot. His heels are contracted on the club hoof and are less willing to decontract than on the low hoof. Obviously it being a club hoof the heels are higher and it tends to be a strong wall holding those heels together/ doesn't allow for as much flexibility with it being a little more upright and all. 

After cleaning up the frog I rinsed the whole area with hydrogen peroxide, then stuffed a cotton ball in between the heels to let it soak and soften the tissues. I cane back one last time to open up the hole created by the cotton ball. I think I've exposed it all now. I say that, but with the contracted heels it comes out in layers, and something can easily sneak in between those layers back up into the tiny spaces I can't see and it gets bad again. I wish he would tolerate a bag on his leg for soaking, but it's just not worth the fight. With everything exposed I rinsed it with betadine, and applied no thrush powder after that dried. The picture I have isn't the best for showing some things, but you can see certain other things in it!

I will also put in a picture of Dodge after trying a new horse treat. It's funny. 

I'm thinking I may slap some boots on him and have him go around a bit but I'll kinda play it by how his hoof feels after all that yesterday.


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

I rode Dodge yesterday and got a little video. The video cuts out at some point, and is a little slow to get started. 





Dodge was just okay. First it started with putting the hoof boots on, which he's worn before without any issues at all. Well today they were some freaky monster that was trying to kill him. Only on one hoof though, the other hoof the boot was fine to be on and was not trying to kill him. All I could really do was tell him sorry but the boot is going on and get over it. There was no effort on his part to want to accept the boots, not willing to sniff or look at them at all, totally shut down. 

After that he was fine with it! Sometimes I can't believe this guy and the decisions he makes. It just doesn't make sense to me why the boot would be totally fine on one hoof but not the other, and why once being led around they are both fine. That makes it hard to connect with him to find solutions since he can be so resistant. 

I guess that was what the day was about: resistance. 

I did the ground work stuff but he was just not interested, didn't try at all, just put in half effort, if even that. Once the whip accidentally booped him on the head and he freaked out and had I not had a hold of him he would have galloped around the pen and not stopped until he was out of breath. After that I worked with him on the whip booping his head, which he hated, and really found no pleasure or reason in trying to get used to it. He did eventually relax while I stroked his ears after that. I think I will start incorporating that into the stuff I'm doing on a daily basis because he needs to be solid there and he is not. When stuff touches his head or face he reacts super extremely, not just like "oh what was that ahh", it's like "HOLY EXPLETIVE, GET AWAY NOW, TRAMPLE ANYTHING IN MY PATH EVEN MY OWN LEGS WITHOUT THINKING OR LOOKING AT ALL"

So after that I just figured I might as well get on and practice a few things from the saddle, maybe we could make progress there if not on the ground today. I can firmly say we did make progress in the saddle! Was it what I expected? No, but it was something. 

I started off letting him get warmed up and walking a little, I tried to get him in front of my leg without having to kick or hit the crap out of him, and he went for it, but only just a very little bit. I tried schooling him on the haunch turns, but most of the time he was just pivoting around his center, not around his hind feet like a proper haunch turn should be. I kept going with it over and over. Our boarding neighbor showed up and I chatted with her while still trying to get him to just pivot correctly. He started to do it better as I chatted, or maybe I was less focused on getting it just right, less pressure on Dodge. Toward the end of the ride I was just talking, and Dodge started doing the pivot in his hard way all on his own. At least, I don't think I cued him to do it, he just tried to do it all on his own. So that was it, that was our progress. 

I hopped off and let him drink some water, but the tricky stinker he is, he decided to 'help' take off his hoof boots. Basically ripped out all the padding on the front of one of them. The thing is, if it's junk he won't destroy it. If I paid lots of money and bought it new he will destroy it. It makes it hard to want to help him at times. I was pretty mad about that, but at the same time I should have just tied him up so he couldn't drink or reach his boots, and I didn't do that. Next time I will be 'mean' and not let him drink until he is untacked completely, because he was 'mean' to me by destroying my things. It seems a little petty, but this kind of thing happens way too much with him. He destroyed a jolly ball 2 days ago, boots yesterday, when I was gone on my vacation he ripped the hose off the waterer 2 times and flooded his stall. Before that he was shredding the mats in the stall. There's only one toy he hasn't destroyed yet, the Amazing Graze. I'm sure he's bored leading to these behaviors, but I don't have more than 3-4 hours a day to entertain him, I feel that I'm already giving him enough, he needs to meet me part way with that. Just to put it out there, he gets enough hay in the morning to last till his evening feeding where he gets pellets. He can nibble all day, but chooses not to. 

Anyway, looking back, I first trained him on the turn on the haunches last summer around this time. It took at least 20 rides if not more before he could finally do it... so just the fact that he can half do it on our 2nd ride back is fine. I'm planning to ride him today and will work on the touching ears stuff, as well as the turn on the haunch more to see if it can get better. I think I will use the treats again today to see if that encourages him. I also ordered some spurs online. One issue I have is when I apply my calf he is so dead to it I get nothing at all. I have to give him a little bump with my heel and he moves off the pressure. To put things in perspective I'm 5'9" and he's 14.3 (and 1/2) so my heel dangles down below his belly even with stirrups pretty short. For my ankle, heel, or any part of me there to be able to touch him I need to being my leg back, a lot! I'm hoping that these large spurs will help fill the distance and that I can get his responding a little more without having to crank my leg around. 

Hope today he's interested and not shut down from the start!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

After the last post I made here I did go out and ride Dodge. 

When I got there he wasn't at the front of the stall neighing for me like usual. I found him in the back paddock with his foot stuck in a jolly ball. Someone decided he needed a jolly ball, and all he did with it was tear it mostly to shreds. I may need to put up a sign that says something along the lines of "Do not feed horse plastic". The jolly ball was not mine, I'm not sure how it got in there. 

So after him being totally embarrassed and me laughing and taking pictures of the sad fellow I got ready to ride. I skipped the groundwork and went right to the saddle. I figured if I needed to hop off and school him from the ground I could. 

Dodge was a total pill. He started off kinda half trying and did it well enough. Then I asked for a little more pa-zaz in his actions. To perform them more accurately. He just gave up. Like 100% shut down, wasn't moving when I kicked him, pushed his head into my chest when I hopped off to try moving him from the ground. I took a step back and asked for something easy that he would know to build it back up. Still getting nothing. So I stopped asking and had to DEMAND he do something. He wasn't planning on trying for me, and I didn't want to end the session with him being shut down and doing nothing. I had to lay into him a bit. Still working on the turn on the haunches work. From the saddle I kicked him as hard as I could but nothing. I hopped off and signaled from the ground with my whip near his head and held the stirrup to apply pressure to his side. Nothing. I tap tap the air, getting a little more aggressive each time, nothing. I tap his face with the whip, nothing. Finally I'd had enough. I needed him to do something. I had to go from tapping him to wacking him. Then, finally he moved. He didn't want to be hit. I had a lead to build off of. I did it again and he moved again. Back to getting some sort of response. Then I stepped back after that and worked on putting the handle of the whip through the stirrup and poking his side with it from the ground since he was so dead to my leg. Had to poke pretty dang hard to get him to move off that, but again he did, so I kept it up a little. 

It made me uncomfortable that I had to be so aggressive. I don't like hitting anything, but I also can't let him just stand there and think that's the correct response. He got "cowboyed" a little bit. I guess sometimes you just need to be the biggest bully in the pasture. I hopped back on and had something going again. He worked through it and he gave me the turn on the haunch, or his idea of it. I took it to the next step and asked him to back up but he would not. This is part of his problem, he doesn't listen. There's a difference between the cue for backing, and turn on the haunches. Yes, for both I am going to be holding a feel on the reins and applying leg, but for backing there's pressure with both legs, and with haunch turn there's pressure with one leg, and I drop my hip outside to push the whole front over. With the reins I apply different types of pressure. Dodge doesn't have the subtlety to notice this kind of stuff. I mean, he's looking off in la la land 80% of the time anyway if you let him. I really felt like I needed to make a point. This is all stuff he's demonstrated in the past that he can do, as well as recently. When that standard of excellence is there it's hard for him, but he needs to do it. We worked on that for a while. The game "back up, or haunch turn, which is it?" took a good 20-30 minutes before he caught on and performed it well. I stopped, I think Dodge had stopped the moment he got that jolly ball stuck on his leg earlier that day. To finish off the day I decided why not give him a shower. 

Dodge hates the shower. He hates that the ground gets wet, he hates standing there to dry off, he hates going in an enclosed area, even if that only means there's 2 walls. But maybe he was tired and down enough to just go for it. Nope. When I first got Dodge it tool about 30-40 minutes to step on the bath mats or wash area. When I could finally get him to go into it he would throw a fit, but none the less I reduced the amount of time I would wait for him before pulling out the big guns, and about a year ago he would go in after around 10 minutes of contemplation. I just had to be persistent, annoying at the right times, and make him run around a lot a few times too. While we were walking to the shower I told him he better walk right in or he's not going to like what I'm going to do which is basically just pop him a few times or make him run for 10 minutes in the round pen, but I make it sound really terrible. He hesitated but I let him take some time, just 5 minutes then I had to pop him a few times and he decided going in is better. The shower was relaxing. Dodge started to relax a bit, it was good. I left him there to dry so I could get some water. The horse area of the property is all fenced in, which is good, because Dodge likes to untie himself. He doesn't really have a strategy but he bites and pulls the rope in different areas till it lets go. With Dodge it's called a quick release because within 30 seconds after you tie him he's walking away. (For this reason I either tie him differently, or I don't tie him at all) So he escaped and went for a trot around the property unpermissed. I soon cornered the oaf. Since he supposedly had all this energy I decided 10 minutes in the round pen running around was in order. Seemed to do the trick. He dried off and got to cool off in the wash rack, went right in and he didn't even try to leave after a few laps. I guess it worked. 

I don't always want to wait several minutes for him to finally make the decision I want him to make, I don't want to have to pop him with the rope, or bully him, or any of that stuff. I don't want to have to do that to any horse. But there is give and take in the relationship too and I give him a lot. 

I took the next few days off to hang out with a friend and Dodge got the silent treatment. It's weird, but when I don't visit him for a day or two, he is so happy when I finally return and I can use that to my advantage, so why not use it. I thought about a lot of things in those two days. My mind never stops thinking, I'm always thinking about horses. What could I do for Dodge to make this work for both of us?


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Thinking about that I figured that the days I worked with him from the ground first he was way better, and the days where I just hopped on I had to bully him. 

Could he still need to rely on that time in the round pen doing ground work? 
Does he not trust me enough to take my lead and just let me hop on and go? 
What other factors were involved leading to mutual success, and to him wanting to shut down?

Today he was really really good. 

I groomed him in the stall while he ate his pellets, which he gets before any exercise to soothe his nervous belly. 
I braided his mane. 
We went to the round pen and did ground work. First just going around me in a circle with the lead rope setting the distance. Then yielding the hind end and yielding the forehand with attention to not moving the back feet. After that I pointed to the foot I wanted him to lift and showed him that when I point I want him to lift his leg until I stop pointing then he can put it down. He totally gets that kind of stuff. It baffles me sometimes. There's a button he was born with. 
After the ground work I let him do a couple laps to warm up and worked on the walk trot transition signals and response time. 
I added in a pole/jump thingy and had him go over it however he wanted as long as it was with intent and grace. 
I left him in the round pen and brought the tack out to him to get ready. I'm not sure is this part is as important or not. 
I got on and let him walk a couple laps to get settled in with the saddle and rider before asking or anything, he had to navigate the pole on his own too. 
Then I asked for the turn on the haunches. He was like I got his you watch! and he did it really good for him! Both ways! (let's hope he doesn't forget between now and tomorrow)
We trotted, still figuring out the pole, and I continued to insist on a quick response time for the transition. 
I cantered him over the pole thingy a few times and he was jumping it well. 

It was all going so good! This is always where I'm wanting to push it just to see... I made the half crossrail pole into a real jump about 2 feet tall and let him free jump it. He jumps so cute! In the past he's hated jumping. He's loved going over poles though. Once I showed him poles each lap he would practically want to drag me to the poles to hop over them. I saw that same excitement for the free jumping, he zoned in on it and figured out the right spots to jump it first at any pace he wanted, then I had him do it a few times explicitly cantering. See me being bad with the wanting more thing. I hopped on and figured why not jump it. He knocked it down the first time, but he got it the 2nd time! We went the other way and he got it once but not the 2nd time. I let him free jump it once more then we stopped. He looked proud of himself!

He was good after that. He didn't try to eat any of his tack, make a mad dash escape somewhere, or whatever other nonsense he likes. He stood untied without a fuss while I took his gear off. He seemed like he had figured it out a bit, but I had too. 

I think the ground work needs to happen still, every time. I don't know if there will ever be a day where I can finally ride him with free communication without doing the groundwork first. This journal will keep me accountable. This may be part of the puzzle for Dodge, but who knows maybe it was just 4th of July fireworks causing him to be bad. Though someone's been shooting their hot gun a lot recently and I flinch, not him! Who knows, but I'll try the ground work because that's been consistent on the days he's good. I'd just think after 2 years he'd come around to that. Still he's worth the extra effort.


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Well, I rode Dodge on the 8th. He was really good. I used the ground work before and saw a good improvement, and my spurs had arrived so I got to use those which made it a lot lot lot easier to ride him because now my leg cue was up about 4in right where it needs to be so he was willing to move off my leg. 

Then, sadly while we were trotting he tripped and came up totally lame. I'm going to give him a few days off or more. He's had this issue with his extensor tendon since before I got him. I noticed it after I turned him out in some wet sand and he galloped into a big hill of it and hurt his leg 2 winters ago. I healed it but it wasn't quite right so I went and looked at pictures from the makeover time to see if it was visible then. It was, so he hurt himself with the BLM, and I'm sure it never really healed correctly so it will always be there. The good news is that had I not let him gallop in the wet sand he wouldn't have hurt it, but I can't help the tripping. I think it will resolve fairly quickly and he will continue after some rest!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Dodge had some time off, then on the 14th he looked ok so I turned him out in the arena to see what he would do. He ran and ran and didn't take a bad step at all. I cleaned out his sheath and bean which he didn't drop for but he also let me do everything I needed without fuss. He didn't try to break out of the wash rack either. The next day he let me check him all over, and I took him out for a short walk under saddle in the round pen. 

I gave him a day off after that, then I rode him again today. 

When I got to the barn I saw the guys were working and one of the goats was in the stall with Dodge. It's the shy goat, so I was careful and slow not to worry her. She ran out and in from the stall a couple times, which is hard on her to do, contorting to slip through the rails. I gave Dodge and her both some pellets so she would calm down and I could brush Dodge. He seemed calm and maybe a bit annoyed by the goat. I tried to lure her to me by brushing Dodge, then kneeling and holding out the brushes for her to sniff. She liked that. Then when I took Dodge out to the round pen I was able to leave the stall open. She went in, and out, and around, confused, but it was clear she just wanted to go in her stall with her other goat friend and their horse. I finally opened the stall gate and convinced her to go back in while everyone else stayed in. She was happy to be back and took a nap after that. 

I figured out how I'm able to cut down on the ground work a little. It's not bad to do, it's just time consuming and I know they can get to a point where they don't need it all the time anymore. He mainly just wants to get warmed up before saddled, so just walking and trotting around the pen works. His mind has changed in the past 6 months since introducing the high doses of magnesium 5,000mg, , and even more since switching to a different type of mag. I may not need to do any ground stuff like yielding the haunch or forehand and may be able to get away with just lunging. That would be good for the future when life gets busy but I still need to ride!

After the ground stuff I saddled up, let him go a few laps, then hopped on. I did take a video, but something is off with the camera saving the frames and after a few minutes of videoing the footage gets really choppy. Sometimes it's as bad as 1 frame a minute, so I'm trying to see if I can just take the still images out to post those! 

Here's the video, the first half is okay at least...





At first I let him walk a few laps to get used to my weight. Then I started asking him to walk up into a frame. These spurs are exactly what I needed for him. I used to just press my leg on him and he was so dead to it, then when trying to get him to respond to things I didn't have any umph, so things like lateral movements, upward transitions, downward transitions, turning/circling... were impossible or not pretty. Now I have a horse that bends around my leg, moves off my leg forward, backward, and sideways, and moves the front and hind end independently. There's just a lot more clarity. Now I feel like I can achieve teaching him stuff like flying lead changes, spanish walk, and some other stuff, but probably won't seriously get into that until next year still.

So were walking along, I'm trying to have an independent hand that Dodge will come up into. He's moving off my leg well and listening amazingly (for him). He's a little bit between over curling up like a cooked shrimp, and poking his nose out, but his poll and head are in a good position in general. I just need him to tip his nose in a little, and that will come with more time. He started giving a really nice feeling walk, and performed his haunch turns and backing up really well, no confusion about what I was asking. I had him practice a little bit of figure 8's to reintroduce the idea about changing bend. I got him to do it last summer, but it wasn't pretty. This summer I want pretty. We will work on this more when we move out of the pen and into the arena. 

I decided why not go to trot and do the same thing, get him moving off my leg, into my hand, and help him find his own track instead of just going along the rail and sometimes smashing me into it. He did great! He has such a nice trot, it's a dream to sit. I can get my whole leg to sit super still on him, even though my ankle dangles down past where his belly starts turning under. I want this trot 80% of the time, not 20% of the time. I think he might be ready to get there. It was more than 50% there today. He's trying and managing to keep it fairly consistent. Still the same thing putting him into a frame as it was at the walk. 

Still, being me, I decide to push it. Why not canter? This time it paid off a lot! Dodge also has a really nice canter. The only shame is that he's short and has a short back, and I'm tall. The center of balance along his back is a small area for me to sit in. When you canter your shoulder moves forward and backwards. If this motion is extreme it throws our whole motion off and Dodge has to fight my momentum each step. If I can sit really still in the exact right spot and not move at all then he can more easily carry and navigate my body upon him. He has a few modes of canter, a perfectly paced canter with no impulsion, a lazy lope, a quick full step with impulsion, and a flat gallop. My preference is the perfect pace with no impulsion, but he can also step up and under in a little quicker step. I think I can strengthen him enough that he can carry me at that slower perfect pace while having impulsion. That's the canter goal. Dodge just cantered along nice and evenly paced and tried to maintain that the best he could. He did good for him! I was able to sit really still and steer him a bit with my leg. A great first step for getting that impulsion! Previously I would gallop him around but steering was only installed in the front end with your hand. I don't think anyone's ever trained him to track up and carry himself, steer off the leg into the hand. He can do it now that he can feel the cue! That and no bucking from him either, so that's amazing! He used to love to buck even without spurs!

Overall it was super great there today, and I think Dodge is almost ready to go out into the big pebble arena to work on some trot figure 8's, and some trotting lateral movements out there!


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

For those viewers out there!
I am also looking for a position critique with these photos. Where I'm at feels good, but everything can be improved!

I am generally working on keeping my toes forward more consistently, being more conscious of how I position my heel and why, keeping my bottom somewhere between out and under, knowing when to use seat/pelvic cues for different things, keeping my core and back straight and upright, keeping my shoulders even/square and turned to point where I'm going next. I keep thinking about my elbows and hands, probably my hands need work, thumbs up! I need to stop looking down and start looking forward. Dodge is just too pretty!

I tried to grab any frames I could from the video, and you can look at the time line on the bottom, some are one step right after the other so you can really start to see how my body moves from step to step.


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Canter photos


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

I hope I'm not bugging anyone by keeping track of things with Dodge here. 

I had posted this thread about his hooves shortly after posting the riding pics. As you can see I don't ride Dodge much more than walking for very long. (trot for 5 min, canter for 1 all together)
https://www.horseforum.com/hoof-care/trimming-contracted-frog-heels-805935/

Part of the advice was not to ride him, and I think that's correct in general. He's not an hour long hack that's for sure. He seems ok with riding at the walk. When asking for anything more it's too hard and uncomfortable for him. 

He's also dragged his hinds the whole time I've known him, for years. I had him on a liquid glucosamine supplement that seemed to help but I ran out and haven't been sure about what to do since then. I think I want to put my other guy on some kind of something for joints as well so I need to figure that out and try more stuff 'till I find something good. 

I trimmed both his front feet a couple weeks ago, and they are already ready for a retouch to keep them from getting weird. Today I trimmed his hind feet, but I didn't get any photos. I will later, but it might be a few days. 

A few days ago I decided to work with Dodge more outside of the round pen, but I need a safe way to manage him in case anything goes awry. I also need him to build some confidence, and listen better. He's sorta settled down a bit and seems to have hit his mellow in life. He's not crapping water, infected with parasites, going forever between trims, and it's been a solid 6 months since he's had any of that. It's been really good it makes sense he would be able to finally relax. I decided in addition to lunging on the line in the arena he would benefit from ground driving. Time for Dodge to explore the world. 

I hooked up my surcingle and a halter, and looped my ropes through and got ready. He got a little nervous with all the ropes so we went in the round pen. He struggled to understand, at first he wanted to face me when I said whoa, which doesn't work in ground driving. I just kept turning him away from where he was trying to go while saying whoa till he stopped and then let him stand. Sometimes it was good other times he got tangled and a couple times he got weird and I chased him away. Overall he figured out what to do much quicker than things like this in the past. Then I had to teach him that I will approach him from behind to pat/touch him or the surcingle, ropes, etc. He figured it out pretty quickly. Moving forward from a halt and turning were easy for him. 

Since it was his first time learning how to drive I was very firm in my reactions for right and wrong. I was clear for him and he was clear with me. We got forward and brakes, but not always steady. 

I took him out from the pen to the arena and had him go around and he figured it out well. A few mess-ups, but overall great effort on his part!

....
The next day Dodge saw the ropes and had this look on his face like "oh this again?" Yes Dodge, this again! He seemed bored with it already. I hooked him up in the stall, flung the door open and Dodge slowly plodded out with his ears back listening for me. It was perfect!

I took him to the arena and had him go around, over some ground poles, turning more, backing up. He was so responsive and listening, attentive, it was amazing. 

I had him trot and canter a bit with the ropes on and lunged him with both ropes to get that steadiness he can use. He listened every step of the way and never over reacted. I was so happy!

I think it was the best day I've had training Dodge so far! He listens now!

....
Keep going to the next day, I decide to ride him in the arena with the halter. Just walking for 20 min and 1-2 min of trot. He was listening really well again, and super swingy in his booty. I had started giving him deeper massages with a 4 knobbed back massager thing. 

....
Then there is today. I decided 20-25 min of walking on the lunge would work great. Some trotting permitted too... He wanted to. 

When he trots he has a few speeds. His fast speed he doesn't drag his toes, but his slow speed he does. I've put some poles a little close so when he lazy trots through he has to lift, or if he run trots through he has to slow down and use that impulsion upward. A few times he hops over the space and does it wrong, so I'll work on it with him so he sees what I want him to do more specifically next time. 

Dodge likes poles. He will actually pick up speed and run over them on his own, and zones in on them when riding. 

I took some videos of him walking and trotting today, he is a bit more free in his back now. I need to do more stretches with him soon. 










 (having trouble self regulating his speed)






After watching him more closely I decided to trim his hind feet. They needed it pretty badly. Hope soon I can get a similar video with his feet trimmed, and I'll stretch him and massage him again too.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

Dodge is so cute and looking very well. I have to say I like the red on him and also your hair is very long and pretty.

Only one thing I could say position-wise with the riding stills. In the trot you are keeping your core together very well, it's just at the canter several times it looks like you're letting your arms get pulled forward, away from your core instead of adjusting your reins. If we let our upper arms get pulled forward or pull them back behind our torso, it will make riding from our core less effective and if the horse does something unexpected we're more likely to get off balance.
In the first picture I think it would have been better to lengthen your reins and keep your arm next to your side, and in the second one I think it would have been better to shorten your reins instead of your arms back behind your torso.

















I have to remind myself a lot also to not do either of those things, and to open and close the elbows and adjust my reins rather than riding from the shoulders.
Is think this gal is a nice example of following elbows:
https://video.dressagetodayonline.com/assets/5-19-16-how-to-ride-the-half-pass-zig-zag-with-catherine-haddad-staller-with-additional-emphasis-on-collected-canter-and-leg-yield?autoplay=true


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Hey, thanks for the critique! I enjoy having things to think about then in the little time I get to ride Dodge I can work on stuff. 

I believe my reins are about the same length in both photos, I'll have to look into that, and maybe put a marker on them. I think some of it is going to be in our(his) fitness. In the 1st photo I'm trying to follow his motion, in the 2nd photo he had pushed me into the rail the lap before so I wanted to pick him up and push him in. (Is it crazy to remember the specifics that this long after?) You are so right about my arms though. Perhaps is he was more elastic I wouldn't need to over do it. 

Dodge has been good. We did have a few issues about a month ago. Someone left Dodge's stall unlocked and he escaped over night. I guess he just stayed on the lawn as per one witness account, and according to others he was in the road. Well the parking is right next to the lawn, so my guess is that someone was being dramatic when they said the "road", and that person also profusely blamed me, and that person is also the only other person who goes in the stalls to feed and clean, so it't not hard to figure that out. Some children blame others for their mistakes, and are 40yo babies who need to shut up and do their job. The issue is that this place is in my range of affordability. It's close by so I can see him 90% of the time. It might be possible, that in a year from now I can afford the $300/mo difference and I can move him to live where Diablo is. It would make my life easier, and they would work with us there to make sure he is healthy. Dodge would need to be ready too move there, which I think he is at this point, though he loves his neighbors a lot. Not great but + still more than - here even with the safety risk. 
So with that I'd gone out and bought several chains (for some reason Dodge has 4 doors on his stall) and I chained them all closed. Well the big baby man doesn't lock them, and leaves the stall open again, and has the audacity to toss the chains on the ground. I talk with the guy who owns the property, and he bolted the chains back on, and put different clip on them, probably had a talk with baby man, and now it seems like things are ok. However there is still one chain he refuses to reclip. I had to finally, just decide to put a 2nd chain on that door, so at least one of 2 chains are clipped. Dodge hasn't gotten out with the new chains yet. He had gotten out previously, 3 times in the year we've lived here, and 2/3 times I hadn't been at the barn that day. It's best when I can go down there in the afternoon to latch the clip on the double chain. So that's what I do to make it work. It's working. 

Moving on, I have been continuing the 3 things I was starting before, lunging on the line over poles, riding in the arena, and ground driving. He's got the lunge thing going pretty well, and I will fare better getting him out on rainy days if I keep up with it through fall. When I'm riding him I'm walking and making sure it's all good there with stopping, turning, going. He knew some other stuff from my trainer buddy who owned Dodge before me, mostly side passing, so I can use that to do more lateral stuff at the walk. I don't ride him that much, maybe 1 day a week, lunge or hand walk 2x and right now doing ground driving 2x a week. The ground driving is something I'm sure he's never done. It's something he was never ready to do. It's something I like all my horses to do. It made a huge difference in his listening the next time I rode him. He had to rely more on himself while still trusting me! It's great! He was listening, and I could see him trying to put it all together with my voice, the ropes, and everything. Not only all of that from before but it's stayed good. There was just one instance a few days ago where another horse tried to kick Dodge when we walked past and it worried him. Shes old and crazy and has cushings and charges at other horses. Not great for Dodge, but he's finally getting better with it. He worked past it great. Maybe Dodge wants to use his power for driving. I'll keep seeing how it goes there. 






I also took some time to work on his hooves. https://www.horseforum.com/hoof-care/trimming-contracted-frog-heels-805935/

One day about a week ago now the mini horses were out. I took Dodge to see them and he started going crazy. I lunged him for nearly an hour near them and he was blowing the whole time. I guess I didn't really lunge him as much as I tried to relax and let him look, but he had other ideas. I took him away and turned him loose after, where he galloped for another 15 minutes. He was dripping, so I stayed for a while to make sure he was ok. But I'm still at a loss here about these minis, he hates them. I might try taking him over again when they are all out, but it's infrequent, which is tricky. How much would it cost me to buy and keep one... ok not that serious. 

Between some of that he also started on a joint supplement and I'm starting to see a difference. He's the kind to respond to joint supplements I guess. I plan to keep everything else the same, just adding this in. It's been 2 weeks and I think I can see better movement. I want to lunge him over poles again and get a little video clip now that he's had some exercise and had the supplements. I hope there's a difference and that this might allow me to have more riding days on him than just lunging, hand walking, or turn out. If not, I'll have to see what my options are. I need to refill the horse emergency fund account again after Diablo tried to rip his leg off over summer... I think I might go IM injections or joint injections if the supplements only get him so far. I just need to find out the costs and see when I'll be able to afford it.


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## gottatrot (Jan 9, 2011)

That's terrible about Dodge getting out and people being irresponsible. Not acceptable around horses. 

He looked like he was stepping out nicely when ground driving.


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## Filou (Jan 16, 2014)

Overall the past few weeks Dodge has been pretty good. I noticed he had some swelling in both his front legs and some little windpuff stuff going on for a few days, so he took that time off and I just hand walked him, or left him in the stall. 

It went away in a few days. 

Since I haven't been keeping up with my journal, I'm not sure what caused the swelling. I did work on his hooves which may have changed something. He ran a lot a lot when I turned him out. Who knows. 

Like I said above, some days in, some days turn out, he's been getting a lot of different stuff. I've been pretty busy with school still, but I think the wheels are finally rolling here so I probably get to leave the school at 3 most of the time now. That will mean I don't have to ignore Dodge as much, well sorta. I've also had to add some extra hours after school to make a little additional income. My bf left at the start of summer, and in the past year and a half I haven't seen him move his buns to get a job to help pay the rent. I'm done waiting. He's out. So, no help from him, and Diablo is still in the super expensive stall. It's a difference of about 1k a month from where I was at before. There's nothing extra at this point. I might be able to do some work around the ranch to cut the cost of Diablos board a bit. How does this all affect Dodge? Well he's not moving anytime soon. He also won't get any fancy joint care, which is fine, because he's looking amazing on the joint supplement!

What has he been up to anyway?

I lunged Dodge in the round pen yesterday(Saturday) for 10 min trotting and 5 minutes cantering. He was good, so I sat on him to cool him out after. I also gave him a shot yesterday for 5way + WNV. Pretty big shot so he just gets it easy today. 

On Friday I took him out for a short walk/lunge. 

On Thursday I just stopped by to feed him, too sick to do anything more. 

On Wednesday I turned him loose on the property and he ran around for 10 minutes. I was too sick to do anything more. Dodge had a blast though. He was leaping over the logs that line the pebble arena. He jumped a spread of poles and tarps that was about 4' wide! He galloped and galloped a bunch. 

Prior to Wednesday I had some busy days, and he had that swelling in his legs so he had about 5 days where he got to just stand around doing nothing, or easy walking, and one day I did put him loose in the arena and he decided he felt well enough to gallop so whatever. 

My goals going forward are loose. Diablo has to get checked first, he still has an open wound on his leg... so if it's a late day there's a chance Dodge will have to go without. My goal is to check Dodge most of the time, and to make sure that when I'm there he does get out, that way the days I can't make it will be rest days that he'll need anyway. I want to try riding Dodge more now that he's been getting the joint supplement and I see a huge difference in his movement. I think I will work next week on lunging and ground driving, and next weekend plan to ride a few days. This way he will be ready. 

The weather seems to be changing here finally. Mostly 70 and 50, but some hot days still lingering. Overall getting Dodge more fit would be nice, and also getting him super reliable on the lunge in the gravel so that he can go out even when it's raining!


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