Dinner pics

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Cuteness

Also from yesterday, Louvin not being amused at all by Clover's goofy baby faces.

He's tolerating her better though, when he first met her he wanted to eat her. I can't really blame him- I'm not much of a fan of children of my own species either. I've been making a point of tying him by her stall to teach him that it's not ok to try to eat foals when I'm around. He can be a grumpy old man on his own time.



I took my dog, Spider Stacy, out to the farm last night for the first time. He's never been around horses before- except the mules and buggies in the Quarter, he's never been very interested in them. He was a good dog and had a great time. Met Louvin- Spider thought Louvin was pretty cool, Louvin didn't care much one way or the other about Spider, and got to run around with some kids for a loooong time. He was one tired dog by the time we got home. He's a bit curious about the horses but was definitely way more interested in the people hanging around.

Longeing yesterday

Started him out in the arena on the line but he got a little opinionated about where he wanted to be, so we skipped on over to the round pen- I'm starting to see why folks like round pens so much. I coulda worked through it in the arena, but why not make it easy?

He went pretty darn well for the first time in side reins. Took him a little bit, but he was giving... until I got out my phone to catch him looking good- then he went back to ducking and tossing to avoid the contact. No biggie though, he was getting it well enough that I don't think it will take any time at all for him to do it consistently enough for me to be able to catch a good clip of it.



And a pic-

rode last night

The farm was kickin' last night, everyone came out of the woodwork to play with their horses. It'd been awhile since a lot of them had ridden- got to see some rodeo shit in the arena.

In spite of that, I saddled up and got on him (with some help, dang knee). First time I'd ridden him tacked up. It went ok. I did about 15 minutes at a walk when my knee told me this was a stupid thing to be doing and I listened to it and hopped off.

He wasn't diggin' contact with his face much, even pulled some head tossing crap. Think I'll swap out the gifted D ring for my full cheek french link and see how that goes, throw him on the line w/ some side reins too.

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Video!

Earth shattering footage of Louvin trotting in the pasture.

Seriously, it's a really boring video. But we all gotta start somewhere- at least now I know how to do it.

ETA: I love that all of youtube's clip suggestions after this clip are the Louvin Brothers. :)

Finally, some nice weather!

It's 73 and breezy, finally a break from the stagnant 90's!

Mr. Louvin is obviously enjoying it. He didn't particularly want to be caught this morning. I had to send him off twice (which he did with glee) before he stood for me. Sooo.. I guess he's no longer a perfect gentleman. heheh.

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Sept 23rd pics

My saddle arrived in town, so I tried it on him. Good to go, it's just right. Can't wait to ride in it- just gotta wait for my own knee to heal up and then I'll start riding him. Hopefully it won't be too long.

And a few more pics- from dinner time.

You can still see the unevenness here, but it definitely doesn't look as bad as it did when he was super skinny. 

Sept 17th pictures

My little gentleman

Louvin decided he didn't want to wear his flymask today, so he took it off and put it in his empty water bucket for me (don't worry, he has 2 other water buckets- he just drinks the red one dry before touching the others).

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Treats!

My friend Mandy came out with me tonight to meet Louvin. She brought a bag of carrots and an apple for him. He wanted nothing to do with the apple but he went nuts for the carrots!

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Ride

These are from our second ride. Handed Bobbi the camera and walked him around for a little bit. Most of the pics didn't come out (dark/blurry) but a couple is better than none right?

He continued to be an angel. I took him in the regular arena the day after this for another walk. He was much more responsive in there.

Presents from Arkansas

Ozland from HC sent me/Louvin a box of goodies. Awesome!

Hooray for stuff. As we were taking these photos, Louvin decided to pee. Now, it's a pain to clean up after a horse who pees in the aisle all the time. I said something about that to Bobbi as he readied himself to let loose. She grabbed an empty bucket and... yeah. Of course I took a picture of that weirdness too.

Big update to follow

I have a few things to talk about but most of the related pictures are on my mac so you'll have to wait until I'm at work for me to post 'em.

In other news, my BFF of the past 20-ish years and her momma are coming down for a vacation in a few weeks. They decided to drive so she's going to stop by my parents and grab my tack for me.

This, of course, meant that I needed to tell my parents that my friend would be picking up tack for me. And why.

It is a bit insane that I, a 30 yo independent small buisness owner, was keeping a 'secret pet' from my parents who live a thousand miles away, but seriously- my mom is not an animal person and I just wasn't looking forward to the conversation. She doesn't get it.

It didn't go too badly. After I told her how much I paid for him and how much board is she chilled a little... and gave me helpful suggestions like "if you move, you can find your local equivalent to the Shipshewana auctions and sell him there by the pound and not be out much." Leave it to my momma to go there.

I should add- she's not really that evil, she just tends to say evil things. After Katrina when I was a homeless horse owner with very little money, she paid to have my horse hauled up to where they live in IN. Then she offered to keep him for the winter when I decided to move back to NOLA in Oct. and when it became apparent that there wasn't going to be anywhere for me to keep him down here for quite some time, she took care of getting him sold for me.

All that probably plays a big role in her attitude about me gettin a new critter. She doesn't wanna go through that again! Can't blame her.

So in spite of the rotten things that come out of her mouth, she's actually always been awesome to me and my critters.

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Aw, what the hell.

I worked him a bit in the round pen tonight. He was great even though it was a little soupy.

After 5 minutes or so, I said, as the title of the post implies "Aw, what the hell" and got on him. Sat on him, walked him a couple hundred yards, sat a little more, then hopped off.

Note to the general public: hopping on your rescue for the first time at night, in the dark, bareback, with just his halter and a lead, with no one around- that's really stupid. Especially if you've only ridden a handful of times in the past couple years.

I figured it'd be just fine with Louvin though, and it was. :)

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This town is too hot

Louvin was fine today, I went out a little later than usual to see him in the heat of the day.

I think he was dehydrated yesterday. He drinks a lot of water, so that wasn't my first concern... But last night I pulled his salt/mineral block because he'd annihilated it. Only had it for a couple days, but it was in 3 pieces and probably half of it had been consumed. Hard too tell exactly, because there were lots of crushed up bits in the corners of his feeder, but I think it's safe to say he was over indulging.

Knucklehead.

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Heat

Pic of Louvin trying to sneak back into the barn- he was successful via this doorway once before (d'oh, my fault), so when I wouldn't bring him in at the back gate, this is where he went. He was tired of waitin' on dinner.

Bobbi fed Louvin for me this am (well, noonish I think) and she was pretty worried about him not taking the heat well. Said his resp rate was up and that he seemed hot. I'm not too freaked out about it- the humidity levels have maxed out in the 90% range the past couple days in addition to the high temps we've had (90's)- I've definitely been feeling it more than usual for this summer, so it's not surprising he is too.

I brought him out a fan and got it all set up for him. Hopefully the heat/humidty will let up soon.

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Pig piggity

I've been cleaning his stall twice a day, this is what happens when I don't. This is probably around 16 hours of confinement. And that 5 foot wide 'pee spot'- yeah. 5" deep of soaked bedding. 3 wheel barrows full of yuck.

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Sound 'nuff tonight

Turned Louvin out into the arena w/ his girlfriend for a bit tonight, they tore it up for awhile and he didn't take a bad step. I thought about taking him over to the round pen to see if maybe the circles are what makes him uncomfortable but decided he'd had enough exercise for the night.

Made the poor dear stay in tonight, but don't feel too bad for him. Left him with a good 50 some odd pounds of hay to keep him entertained.

Here's something Bobbi posted on HC on a thread about the differences in hay cuttings-

Nobody refuses the June hay....well...except for Louvin (3 Stars Corc's new horse). "Mr. Thang" went from "Oh my goodness....HAY!!!" to " "got anything else to eat around here?" He reminds me of the evacuess from Hurricane Katrina in Texas. After being taken care of and fed daily....they began to refuse the sandwiches and asked if "Yall got any red beans around this place...we are sick of the sandwiches!" ----

Yep, sums up my horse pretty well. heheh.

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Pic, update. Same ol, same ol.

Bobbi measured him at 910 with a weight tape yesterday. That's about 80-90 lbs up from when I got him, and that's probably a bit conservative considering how he's filling out (yes, I'm talking about his butt again, I can't believe how big it's getting).

He's getting the low end of the recommended amount of strategy, beet pulp (as much as I can get him to eat, he's not a fan), dac bloom and all the hay he can eat along with turn out in good pasture. Seems to be doing the trick.

He's still stepping short at the trot- his feet have gotten thrushy again- he was ouchie from that when I got him, thought I'd gotten it knocked out. I'm back on treating it, hopefully that's the cause. He was reactive when I was cleaning them tonight, so I know he's feeling it, just don't know if it's uncomfortable enough to make him off. I hope it is, I can fix that.

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Crud

It didn't occur to me that the feed stores would all be closed today because it's Labor Day. Dang.

Took Louvin into the round pen tonight, he was stepping a bit short trotting to the right. Double dang.

And now for something different, something not exactly about Louvin.

Linda's mustang mare passed away. I was out there pretty late last night, stuck around in case there was something I could do to help. She went downhill quick- it started out looking like colic, then bam- neuroligical symptoms. Staggering, aimless wandering, balance was off, etc. She'd lost her vision and was becoming paralysed (couldn't lift her head up) by the time I went home a few hours later. They couldn't get a vet out but I don't think it matters in this case- that mare was too far gone too quickly, even with heroic measures she wasn't going to make it. (She was a very stoic mare, things probably didn't progress as fast as they seemed to- I think she was a tough guy hiding her pain until she was completely physically incapable of doing so).

I was racking my brain trying to help figure it out when I joined the group when it was first beginning to look like something other than colic. Poisoning came to mind, her pasture had a fenceline along a fairly busy street so plenty of opportunity there. I started to do a little googling which lead me to ask when was she last vaccinated.

Shit. Not vaccinated. It hadn't even crossed my mind that this mare wouldn't have been vaccinated, this gal is more devoted to her critters than 90% of the people out there. Anyway, long story short, even though I'd never encountered it first hand before I'm almost certain this mare was killed by equine encephalitis. Her symptoms were textbook. Scary stuff.

I mean, this is southern Louisiana. It's not exactly shocking when encephalitis or west nile is found in mosquito populations here- there's no way to completely eradicate them. It's still horrible to see it pop up like this though.

Sigh.

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Round pen round two

So I told Bobbi about Louvin throwin' his feet at the moon and asked to borrow a longe whip for his next go round. She gave me one for keeps, cus she's awesome. :)

And she strolled over to watch me send him around tonight.

She was impressed by what a nice mover (well, nice for the muscle-less shape he's in) and by what a civilized gentleman he was the entire time. Snork.

She told me she was gonna get online and call me out for bein' a liar because obviously sweet Louvin wouldn't go bucking around like a terror. Hehehe.

He was very good, I'm definitely not complaining.. but aren't horses supposed to be angels when no one is watching and rotten when someone is? That's how most of the ones I've known have rolled. :)

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lolz

Took Louvin into the round pen tonight.

Now, honestly, I've never used one before. They just weren't that common in IN/MI when I was doing westerny things in the early 90's, and lord knows none of the h/j barns I boarded at after that had one. That being said, I'm pretty sure I understand the concept.

I think Mr. Louvin has been worked in one before, cus he got right to it. I wouldn't say that he wasn't into it or was displeased- ears were forward most of the time- but he was definitely 'up' and there were some fireworks. I just asked for walk/trot, but he went airborne a handful of times and scooted around at a pretty forward canter given the size of the pen. It wasn't too bad though, he stayed well away from me doing that stupid crap and he came back to my world pretty quick.

While I am beginning to suspect he might not be a perfect gentleman, I'm also keeping in mind that he's no doubt feeling better than he has in ages and who knows how many months or even years it's been since he was worked with. And I only worked him for 10 minutes, and ya can't judge that much from that. :)

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A couple am pics

Lookin' some more better! His butt is now filling in at supersonic speed. I'm thinking it's about time to start working him a little to get going on his topline- he's been moving a lot more on his own so I think he's up for a touch more trot work under my direction.

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my mistake

I really thought I'd rescued a horse, but it's become quite apparent over the last several weeks of my cleaning his stall that he is, in fact, a pig. :)

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