Long time missing.......

Yes, I have been missing in action for a long spell. What have I been doing, not much, been pretty lazy or unmotivated to write....a little of both. Fall is here and with it a lot of soggy weather this last week, rained and dreary for four days...ugh, not much to my liking.

But some things have been accomplished since I was last on here. Lacy and Gilly both are much better at trailer loading! And it wasn't because of any clinicians tips or tricks, we just kind of stumbled on it ourselves.  My neighbors mare, Lacy, had an appointment at a vet's in Lancaster, Ohio a two and a half hour trip from our house and we needed to get her to load onto the trailer preferably without being drugged, that worked before but I had the feeling it wouldn't work again. So the week before we started working again, with the trailer. Lacy will go in the trailer, stand about 5 seconds and rush out so fast she almost falls over backward. Not good! She would go in stand and seem fine then up would go her head, eyes huge and fly out backward. We had tried all the things all the TV trainers have said to do and it didn't work on her, or Gilly for that matter....but that's another story.

One of us would stand inside the trailer, in front of the chest bar and try to calm her, feed her hay or what ever. After having the rope pulled out of my hands so many times and my hands hurting I thought why not put the 14 foot lead through the Blocker tie ring on the loosest setting? This put a little pressure on the lead as Lacy would rush out and it slowed her down somewhat. When Lacy was asked to come back in the trailer I would just pull the slack out of the rope so she didn't step on it.

Then Kim said I think she may be nervous about the noises the trailer makes. The clanging of the divider, the door squeaking and such. So, we started banging on the door, sides of the trailer, the divider and opening and closing the door. Well after while Lacy would stand inside the trailer longer and longer. Finally she would start eating her hay, sighing and resting one foot. We kept here going in and out of the trailer while we made noise; after hours of this she was standing in there eating and not trying to back out. Do we dare? Should we? We did, shut the door and took her for a ride, got to a place where we could get her out and let her play in an arena. We sit and watched while she visited across the fence with some other horses.

OK, now comes the real test can we get her to go back in the trailer to go home? Yes, we did!!! Applause, applause!!! But now will she load up when it's the critical time.....to head to the vets? Again, yes, she did. So we think that she had some fear issues with noises the trailer made.

View from inside the tack room looking into the trailer. Lacy munching her hay. We have also been leaving the divider tied to one side to give her more room and to feel a little more comfortable in there. Kim also put on a fly mask to keep any dust from getting into her eyes.

 We stopped at a rest area for a break and to eat a bit of lunch. Lacy ate her hay and only got a little fussy once but then went back to eating. Kim has such a nice trailer, wish I could get to the horse area from inside my trailer but can't, oh, well, at least I have a trailer now! :-)

We passed this on the way to the vet's office.....PUMPKINS, lots and lots of pumpkins, (click on pictures to see them better).
The reason we went all the way to Lancaster to a vet was because of Lacy's leg problem. The shots for arthritis in her knee and coffin joint didn't help the lameness. We were hoping that this vet could tell Kim what was going on with her.

I will post again later on what his findings were and what is to be done about it. I promise I won't be gone for weeks and weeks!

The End....for now!!!