Poor Dino. I got totally cocky and over-faced him in our little Thursday night jumping club last night. Terrible photo from my friend Shona, but proves we did jump about 2ft6.

He was doing really well again at the jumping last night and were confidently popping over a variety of fence up to about 2ft3. Jumping that knocked it a bit (bad mummy) but he did jump it and we finished up on something smaller. :wub: Claudia was super pleased with him on Monday. She says he’s moving a lot more through his hock joints and the really beginning to use his back end, even though we’ve hardly been working in the school. :db:

The super-ness continues! It really has been an excellent week. Today: I went on a bit of an impromptu hack down the railway tracks and round Arrandene Open Space with Claire, her daughter Gilly and Pamela. Pamela is a bit of a nervous rider too so we often hack together and just walk and trot.

Dino was superb on the railway tracks. Gilly was in front on a pony that’s not hers that was properly tanking, Dino was in second place and we had a pretty relaxed time and a lovely relaxed canter. He was awesome! He trotted when I had had enough even though Brill was still cantering in front. Amazing :wub:

The Arrandene section was a bit more stressful. We had a miscommunication about wether we were cantering up the middle field so we started, and then someone was left behind so we stopped….at which point Brill lost the plot and started rearing and bucking. There was a few moments where it was a bit confusing about whether we were going or not and they all got a bit excited…we decided to canter and Tally with Claire went forward steadily……….at which point Dino bolted. 😮 He was properly out of my control for probably only about 15 seconds but this is exactly the sort of situation I usually find terrifying.

I am super proud of myself though. It *was* scary but I didn’t get the butterflies in my stomach – feeling sick terrifiedness I usually do. Got to the top, wrestled to a halt and then it took a while to calm down but I didn’t feel like getting off and walking and we were all calm again when we got to the gate. So I’m pleased, mostly. I overall felt confident, managed to canter nicely on the railway tracks and didn’t completely fall to pieces when a scary thing did happen. I think Dino would have been fine if we’d all just cantered at the same time but stopping and starting slightly melted his brain, poor pony.

So all good! :db:

1st ever lesson in driving a car tomorrow…wish me luck!!!

I feel like I’m really beginning to crack this confidence thing. Some of the girls & I popped some jumps up this evening and I managed to put my stirrups one hole higher than usual and did *so* much better at seeing Dino’s stride I was really pleased with myself. And because I was happier he was also soooooo much more forward and confident going into the fences. We were still doing small cross poles but Claire reckoned he was clearing about 2ft in his actual jump. It just seemed to come together this evening in a way it hasn’t before. I need to remember to look up though and I really need to get the stirrups up another one hole. But overall :db:

I offered him all the herbs today and he was still not interested in the oils at all but I think he’d eat as much of everything else as I could give him!

<3 my pony!

Back from what feels like a very long day at the vet school. But it’s good news :db: Basically the scan looks almost identical to the last one which is great – there are still tiny fragments which may cause an issue in the future but they are stable where they are and haven’t moved in four months (and are tiny compared with what we’ve been dealing with so should be able to be removed easily if they are troublesome). Tom is happy and thinks it all looks great. You can see the bone filling in the hole made last summer gradually (it had filled with flesh when it closed over but the bone itself takes much longer to reform). All the bone density round the gap looks really good.

Tom would advise sticking him in the CT scanner annually to keep an eye on things, but understands if we don’t want to and would rather leave it until there’s an issue. Goncalo (usual vet) will be out to do his teeth every 6 months anyway as obviously the gap means he has a couple of hooks that need regular attention so I don’t really see any reason to keep spending £415 to stick him in the scanner unless we think there is actually a problem. So we’re all good for the moment!

Such a beautiful day today and it took so much longer than hoped that I stuck him straight in the field when we got home without doing his herbs as, honestly, I think a few hours with the sun on his back (well, neck I suppose as he’s rugged – temp is a bit all over the place after sedation or I’d have left him naked) will do him much more good than spending more time messing about stuff even if he does love the herbs. I will do the full range tomorrow though and see what he picks!

So relieved. Might have a nap now.

I’m a bad person. I really wanted to ride yesterday so see how he was doing after his week off and whether he was less stiff as M had done some in hand and freeschooling on Sunday so despite the fact it was absolutely p*ssing it down and really quite windy I tacked him up and took him out to the school for 20 mins. He really does have a very excellent ‘put upon’ face :laugh: He was brilliant though. Didn’t feel stiff and was super forward but that might have just been so he could get it over with and get back inside quickly :nod:

I just got off the phone with the herbalist (M – I was about to email this to you but thought others might find it interesting and leaving it here makes it easier for me to find so, er, here’s your email…)

Since his meeting with her the other week he has stopped taking any of the oils when offered them, but he’s still super into the herbs (and gets very excited when he sees the herb tray coming out. I did them standing in his box with him last night ‘cos of the rain and it took twice as long to go through them as he kept trying to get into the box and just pull out the ones he wanted!) Dena says this is not unusual and probably a good thing: all the oils are quite powerful and he probably got all the healing he needs from them on the first day when he had quite a lot of some of them. She says we don’t need to offer them every day but should offer him the whole range of everything at least once per week. That goes for the bladderwrack too which he’s also lost interest in. New thing for the Saturday job list! Along with tack cleaning which was making a regular appearance until it got cold. Anyway, I digress…

On the herbs he’s stuck with:
GreenZymes & rosehips – these are broad spectrum vitamin and mineral rich supplements, and create an alkaline environment in the body which is healthy. He can have 2 sachets of GreenZymes each day and a couple of handfuls of rose hips. Ultimately these can probably go in his feed.
Cleavers – this is good for the lymphatic system and digestion
Hawthorn – this is good for the heart, blood and circulation systems
Nettle – this is detoxifying and mostly acts on the liver but a little on the kidney, very rich in iron
Dandelion – this is detoxifying and mostly acts on the kidney but a little on the liver

She says he can have as much as he wants in principle but she limits her mare to 6 handfuls of any one herb per day as that’s what she can afford. I guess we can offer him more handfuls and see how much he wants for a few days and go from there, although things might be different this week because he’s back at the vet school on Wednesday for another CT scan which might upset him a bit. Maybe offer him up to four handfuls for the next week M?

So wish us luck on Wednesday! I’m hoping the scan will be clear and the fragments will have gone and we can put this whole jaw thing behind us…

And we’re back in the field! :db: Had a quick hack up the bridle path this morning, just wanted to feel like we were both getting back to normal, and it was nice. Although some trees have been cut down part way along and Dino had a complete 😮 about them (he fears change!) but it was a nice walk and a few steps of trot. He feels a bit stiff but that’s not surprising! Given the weather today I think he’d have much rather stayed in his box with his extra rations than been out in the cold. He looked quite annoyed that I’d picked today of all days to get him back outside! :laugh:

My cough: still lingering. I’m considering naming it George.

Dino is certainly feeling better today! :db: He’s eaten all his night hay and his breakfast hard feed (which was a reduced amount as he’s been off his food) and was tucking into his morning hay when I arrived. I let him into one of the small paddocks to stretch his legs a bit this morning and he had a good roll, both sides, the jumped up like he’s been shocked and galloped to the far end of the field and then back again. Then had a little canter in a circle and then came to the gate and called for me :wub: He’s still got a very slight temperature so not letting him out with the others yet but he seems much happier in himself and is eating again. Hopefully he’ll be well enough to go out tomorrow.

Now all we need for *me* to get better as I’ve had a terrible cough and sore throat all week. Fingers crossed everyone well by the weekend…!

After an amazing weekend Dino has succumbed to the virus today. Slightly raised temperature, off his food. Poor thing. It should only take 3 days or so to clear but I had really been hoping we’d missed it!!!! And his jabs are due on Wednesday so that might not be the best timing for that now either. Drat. 🙁

Ok, so the total list of herbs he chose yesterday:

Oils:
– Chickseed
– Calendula
– Peppermint
– German Chamomile
– Carrot seed
– Neroli (but this was smelled not licked)

Herbs:
– Nettle
– Cleaves
– Rosehip
– Hawthorn
– Bladderwrack
– Dandelion

She also gave us some Greenzyme powder which is her preferred all round vitamin supplement.

Quite a lot of things! I hope he doesn’t want to stick with all of them or this will cost me a fortune 😮 So we’ll try all of these for four days see which ones he *really* likes. Watch this space!

OMG! What an amazing day we have had :db:

To start with the amazing Dena Schwartz who is a holistic therapist (http://www.animalaromatherapy.co.uk/index.html) came to see Dino. I didn’t have any specific expectations for this; the lovely Claudia swears by Dena and so I thought it would be nice for him to get a bit of an MOT and see what she made of him and if she found and niggles with him. She works with aromatherapy and herbs on the principle of self-medication; so the horses only want the herbs and oils that they need. It was pretty fascinating, I have to say. Dino is not one for smelling before tasting it seems! He wants to put things in his mouth and then spit them out again if he changed his mind rather than having a good sniff and thinking about it first. :laugh: I have the complete list of things he chose on a piece of paper but not to hand so I’ll post it about it later in the week but he chose a lot of stuff to do with cleansing and detoxing, which we think could be due to the amount of drugs and stuff he’s had due to his extensive vet treatment. Now we have a selection of things he showed an interest in we need to spend four days trying him with each on again, noting this strength of his enthusiasm for it and then report back so Dena can see what he really thinks he needs and interpret that a bit for me. It was really interesting!

But clearly for him it was pretty tiring; we went to sort out the herbs and when we came back he was having a nap!

Then we went out and had some fun! We had a brilliant time at the gallops! :yahoo: For a start he walked straight onto the trailier, no issues. Got a bit stressed when waiting to move but was pretty good once moving. So off we went with my good friend Claire and the lovely Tally pony. He was a bit tense when we first got off (and tried to climb onto the mounting block with me :o) but Claire was sensible enough to suggest we just went straight to the gallops bit before I could get too nervous and stressed about it. And it was great! Although Dino jumped off the track at first which was a bit unhelpful but then Tally went past him and he soon got the idea :db: I put a neck strap on him or my own benefit and was extremely glad I did as it made me feel much more secure. We just let them go and they proper galloped about 1/4 mile (the track is one mile long) and then cantered for another 1/4 mile or so before pulling themselves up. It was awesome! Then we went for a walk round some adjoining woodland bridlepaths for about and hour. And then they both loaded without any incident or bother again to come home. One very very successful day :yahoo:

Here they were having a snack whilst we had a cup of tea before we came home:

Very pleased with both him & me today! :wub: