Wednesday, April 30, 2014

A winning day for Charlie

As it was a busy day for me today, after working/riding this morning I ran over to my mom's house to take care of their dogs before booking it back to the barn to squeeze in Charlie's 12:30 vet appointment before work later that afternoon at the dog rescue. It was a deluge outside but apparently everyone and their mother thought today would be a good day for spring horse stuff: there were multiple vet appointments (with different vets), a dentist appointment, and a farrier visit all scheduled around noon today with different people...how odd is that?

I made sure to get there early to ensure Charlie was clean and spruced up for his Coggins pictures (yes, they are doing them digitally now) - which he was, thanks to my bath earlier in the week and the fact that I kept a sheet on him:

The awkward "I'm cute, right? You have treats?" face
That's better
He's really filling out nicely, although I think those withers detract from his neck
Shiny shiny! And his mane is actually laying all on one side for once
Then we waited and waited and waited....the rain was pouring down outside and making it nearly impossible to hear over the constant drumming on the roof of the indoor. I figured the vet was probably caught up in the bad weather, why waste this time? So what did I do? Hopped on Charlie. Bareback (like, really bareback, because I didn't want to mar his sleek coat with pad rubs or sweat marks). The rain was pounding and the wind, whistling. Oh, and there were the two new paint mares, one of which is in heat, in the round pen at the end of the ring due to the storm (they are normally out 24/7 so they don't have stalls). How was Charlie you ask? Perfect!!

Yup. True bareback for once. I'm sure I'll feel that tomorrow.
We only walked, my tailbone wouldn't be able to handle anything else without the protection of a bareback pad, practicing stop/go/stop/back/go and lots of turns and serpentines. He couldn't have cared less about the mares or the rain or the people walking back and forth outside of the ring. After about 10-15 minutes he started to get bored so I got off and we practiced liberty commands on the ground without a lead rope: come, walk, halt, back, yield hindquarters, etc. Wouldn't you know that little devil of mine decided today was the day he would show off like a pro! I had him trotting next to me on command, doing circles, whoaing to a halt within a step or two and backing up with just a hand signal and voice command. Where is the video camera when you need one?!

Then the vet came, he got his shots and coggins bloodwork/pictures....Charlie did great except he decided he didn't want any shots on his left side today (two were given on his right, and then the one blood draw after which he decided enough poking was enough). I'll chalk that one up to the fact that he'd been out of his stall for over an hour, which is time to cue the boredom in Charlie's brain, and the rain and wind was picking up just in time for that last vaccine (I'm sure Charlie was thinking, "Mom! The noise and weather wasn't so bad before, but you didn't tell me it might bite!"). It's ok, nothing can mar my happiness with him today :)

Checking out the mini waiting for her vaccines from Vet #2
Oh, did I mention we lost power halfway through?
Heeeelllo ladies :) He gets along with everyone and loves to flirt, the ham



3 comments:

  1. Sounds like a busy day at the barn!! He's looking so handsome :)

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  2. Damn girl, he looks spectacular.

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  3. He takes shiny to a whole new level! So handsome!

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