Sunday, December 10
Dec. 11th, 2023 12:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gottawonderToday I am grateful for:
Really gorgeous weather. It was just barely below 0 C, so the snow didn't melt, but quite seasonally warm. Sunny, too.
That I was able to get up early (for me) to attend the Christmas party at the riding barn.
It's fairly informal, but it's so nice to see everyone who boards or takes lessons (and some are more like alumni who stay in touch with the barn owner). I don't see all of these people that often, some of them I ONLY see at shows or barn functions. Others I see a lot more often because our ride times overlap a bit.
R, the barn owner, has several horses that are trained to drive, so she treats everyone to sleigh rides (and a cart too, the snow wasn't very deep). It's a pretty cool thing to be able to do something like this.
I did bring my tasty coconut thingies, and they were well-received among the whole table full of assorted tasty dainties that others brought. No healthy options this year, or even cheese and crackers, which is a bit surprising.
So, there was nothing I could eat at all, but I had eaten right before we came in case this happened.
My husband though, thoroughly enjoyed the treats.
After the gathering, we stayed so I could work with River. The Sunday rider stayed as well.
While I was getting River ready, the once-owner of Quidley, the horse R is working with, came to see him. I'm not entirely sure if Quidley has been surrendered (due to his diagnosis of Wobblers, which is not severe enough to make him unusable, but enough to end his potential jumping career). The gist is that Quidley is there to get some therapeutic work and training from R, and to rehome him. I don't know if he is being sold, or given to the right home.
The diagnosis of Wobblers is such an uncertain thing. It means he has spinal cord issues that can mean less control of his body, and from what I read can be mild and never get much worse, or can worsen drastically to the point where said horse might have to be put down because he can't walk and might fall on someone. So, while this horse at the moment really only drags one of his hind legs a little bit, it COULD change to something much worse, or it might never be worse.
It would be so awful to adopt him, put a lot of time and love into him, and have it change so he's unusable or unable to walk safely.
My work with River went well. Went over the same Liberty work we've been doing, the target training too. Ridden work was good, he often seems to have trouble making nice, round circles around pylons but he's willing to try.
I feel like he stayed in a good mood throughout, and left on a good note.
We came home and watched "The Hitman's Bodyguard" which is fun, and then he turned in at a good time so he can get some sleep for work tomorrow.
I learned that in Japan, there are several tombs that contain the noses that Samurai brought back as war trophies from the invasion of Korea in the sixteenth century. The noses were proof of the Samurai killing a Korean, and were paid per trophy like a bounty.
The parts were interred in tombs, thousands upon thousands of noses, many of them pickled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_tomb
Really gorgeous weather. It was just barely below 0 C, so the snow didn't melt, but quite seasonally warm. Sunny, too.
That I was able to get up early (for me) to attend the Christmas party at the riding barn.
It's fairly informal, but it's so nice to see everyone who boards or takes lessons (and some are more like alumni who stay in touch with the barn owner). I don't see all of these people that often, some of them I ONLY see at shows or barn functions. Others I see a lot more often because our ride times overlap a bit.
R, the barn owner, has several horses that are trained to drive, so she treats everyone to sleigh rides (and a cart too, the snow wasn't very deep). It's a pretty cool thing to be able to do something like this.
I did bring my tasty coconut thingies, and they were well-received among the whole table full of assorted tasty dainties that others brought. No healthy options this year, or even cheese and crackers, which is a bit surprising.
So, there was nothing I could eat at all, but I had eaten right before we came in case this happened.
My husband though, thoroughly enjoyed the treats.
After the gathering, we stayed so I could work with River. The Sunday rider stayed as well.
While I was getting River ready, the once-owner of Quidley, the horse R is working with, came to see him. I'm not entirely sure if Quidley has been surrendered (due to his diagnosis of Wobblers, which is not severe enough to make him unusable, but enough to end his potential jumping career). The gist is that Quidley is there to get some therapeutic work and training from R, and to rehome him. I don't know if he is being sold, or given to the right home.
The diagnosis of Wobblers is such an uncertain thing. It means he has spinal cord issues that can mean less control of his body, and from what I read can be mild and never get much worse, or can worsen drastically to the point where said horse might have to be put down because he can't walk and might fall on someone. So, while this horse at the moment really only drags one of his hind legs a little bit, it COULD change to something much worse, or it might never be worse.
It would be so awful to adopt him, put a lot of time and love into him, and have it change so he's unusable or unable to walk safely.
My work with River went well. Went over the same Liberty work we've been doing, the target training too. Ridden work was good, he often seems to have trouble making nice, round circles around pylons but he's willing to try.
I feel like he stayed in a good mood throughout, and left on a good note.
We came home and watched "The Hitman's Bodyguard" which is fun, and then he turned in at a good time so he can get some sleep for work tomorrow.
I learned that in Japan, there are several tombs that contain the noses that Samurai brought back as war trophies from the invasion of Korea in the sixteenth century. The noses were proof of the Samurai killing a Korean, and were paid per trophy like a bounty.
The parts were interred in tombs, thousands upon thousands of noses, many of them pickled.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nose_tomb
no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 07:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 10:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 10:50 pm (UTC)"How do they smell?"
"Awful."
no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 07:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-12-11 04:48 pm (UTC)I feel relieved that I found a good owner for my last horse, Chick. At least I hope she was a good owner. It's such a huge responsibility, isn't it?
no subject
Date: 2023-12-12 08:00 am (UTC)If nothing else, all of them do get old eventually, and one must deal with that at some point. Some horse owners do sell their old horses, rather than keep them and care for them to the end.
You see it often on the buy/sell pages: "25 year old gelding, has been a great horse for the family for the last ten years, time to be someone else's unicorn" and so on. Or mares that are too old to breed anymore and were never even broke, but are now "great companion horses" for someone that wants a 20+ untrained horse.
Sometimes it works out, but often they go to people with either no experience, or no money (thus looking for that cheap or free horse) and those old horses get neglected. Lots end up going to an auction rather than being put down humanely.
Caring for a horse is a big commitment/responsibility. They're expensive, they need lots of routine maintenance, you need to either pay for a boarding facility or be prepared for lots of daily chores, there's a lot to know, and they live for thirty years or more.
I have had two of my horses die, one suddenly likely of colic.
The other was because I was not taking enough responsibility to see that my family was taking care of him (he was quite old, looked good when I last saw him, but deteriorated rapidly that winter and no one was really keeping an eye on him). It was on the family farm, I lived two provinces away, and they treated him like the other livestock, just out in a big field with round bales. They probably only looked at him up close once a month. That was still my fault for not realizing that they wouldn't do more than that for him.
You learn the hard way about recognizing that you can't rely on other people to care for your animal, even with good intentions. If you sell a horse, you can never really be sure if they will keep the horse into it's old age, and if they will do the extra work to keep them healthy, and to put them down when it's time. That's something you cannot be sure of if you have to sell.
You have to make the hard decisions yourself, do the diligence yourself, or not bother getting them at all.
Even then, sometimes we do fail, and it's certainly not easy to live with that.
That's why with this Quidley horse, I think he's a very nice horse, but it's such a tough thing to give or sell a horse like that. What if he gets worse? R had a young rider at the barn interested in him, and it would be her first horse. That almost seems like setting her up for tragedy.