Friday, September 6

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Continued hot weather, though we're all hoping for rain soon. It was still a beautiful day.

So many sweet kitty snuggles and Roxy pets.

I didn't do much before I went to ride River.

He was SO TIRED today, with the heat and the dry, dusty air. We worked on our ridden work, trying for being lighter on the bitless bridle (he tends to lean on it, so we go back to our lateral work to lighten him up) and a bit of better head position. We worked on our stationary circles at liberty at a walk, and yields.

Then I stayed to work with Ferrari with R during the woman with many health challenges's lesson. The young woman is riding a different horse now. I'm not sure why she needs to "graduate" to a larger, more challenging horse when she probably barely weighs 100 pounds and doesn't do anything challenging on the pony she was riding. I truly feel like R is just bored and is "creating progress" whether or not it exists for this person. Her health challenges are numerous, and her riding skills are very limited, certainly not exceeding the capacity of the pony she was on. The most she's able to do is to trot very gently on her own for very short periods of time, and hasn't even mastered competent guiding of her mount.

"Riding" for this person is mostly for socialization and stimulation, not really for moving ahead with riding skills.

I worked with Ferrari on the ground, doing yields and lunging, that kind of thing. You can tell he's losing some weight, which is great (this is the enormously fat fellow that was likely at risk for foundering).

I helped R clean up and put away for the night, and chatted with R and her husband K.

I came home and talked to my Sweetie, who just got to his hotel. He left after work to where the MS bike ride will take place, and his first day of around 45 km starts tomorrow morning.

Comments

[cf2princessawnw]

I love that you work with a horse named Ferrari! :) what a great name!

And that's wonderful your husband's doing the bike ride.

[gottawonder]

He's a fun horse. He's black like the horse symbol Ferrari uses, and he is pretty zoom-y. He is crazy over weight, and R is doing her best to help him slim down. He's only supposed to be with R for another month, and going back home.

R is doing her best to educate the owners about the severity of his obesity, and hopes that they will do something to help him.

R is also advocating for him to stay at the barn, and have some of the costs offset by leasing him to riders that are interested, to help him with the obesity etc.

[cf2princessawnw]

That's a shame that he's struggling with obesity like that. I wish R all the best with her efforts advocating for his well-being.

[gottawonder]

Horses can get overweight easily, if they are allowed to just eat all day long, and aren't getting ridden. They come from generations and generations of animals that had food scarcity often and had to work all day, and many of them are genetically "easy keepers".

The owners of this horse for some reason were under the impression that him absolutely rolling in fat meant he was "in good shape", and R is very concerned that if he goes home again at the end of September, that they will just keep over feeding him thinking that it's kindness.

[cf2princessawnw]

I guess horses, like human beings have to be trained and good eating habits with their parents do the wrong thing out of kindness, it's still going to harm them in the end.

[gottawonder]

A lot of pets are over fed, leading to health problems. Dogs need a lot of exercise to be healthy, cats too but it's not like you can walk them.

Humans often overfeed themselves, and don't get enough exercise. It's hard to tell them to do better for their animals if they don't do it for themselves.

[cf2princessawnw]

Good to know that about animals and keep in mind. Makes sense a lot about the owners habits affecting the animals.

[gottawonder]

I really notice that with heavier, more sedentary owners, their pets are often also heavy and sedentary.

[cf2princessawnw]

Makes sense!