Today I decided to take a day off from work and get caught up with some things around the house and go to a dental appointment. Naturally I had to work in some time with Max so I decided to do my weekly lesson in the afternoon.
The weather here has warmed up quite a bit and Max is still shedding his winter coat so he's been pretty misearable and cranky lately. When I went to groom him, there were lumps on both sides of his neck which appeared to be hives, something he's never had before. I checked his temperature and it seemed to be OK and his overall demeanor seemed OK, so I proceeded with saddling him.
We then started to warm up with the usual sorts of dressage drills. However, lately Max has been refusing to canter in some instances and at one point he wanted to go back to his stall. After having a "discussion" with him, we got that resolved but it still concerns me. Given the weather shifts, the winter coat and all, I think he's feeling miserable and cranky. I also think that his arthritis may be acting up again (it does cool down pretty fast at night still).
I've got a dose of Adequan so I'll give him that but I want to see what happens with the hives/lumps. His appetite is good and he's acting his usual self (except for the cranky "I don't wanna!" moments). I've got some more investigation to do here.
For the lesson itself, it seemed like today Max just couldn't get the right lead canter at all. This is normally his "good" side and it usually requires very little effort on my part to get him to go. The left lead has traditionally been the problem area- maybe I overtrained it?
We kept working at it, regressing to increasingly simpler manuevers to get him to go. Of course, mixed in it was operator error on my part (balance, folding the pelvis underneath me, etc.) and Max was getting increasingly frustrated with me (goddammit Dad, what the hell to you want me to do?!"). We finally got him to launch into the right lead canter after some remedial work and then gradually built him up so he was properly executing them from the walk and even from a standing start.
I'm going to go a bit easy on him (which isn't hard since my schedule is a mess right now), give him the Adequan, and otherwise keep an eye on everything. Max appears sound (my trainer observed him) and he doesn't exhibit any pain behaviors, so those are good signs. I'll also work on the canters, mixed in with other manuevers. I also need to work on my backing up- Max is now assuming that I always want to do a rein-back and will beging to turn automatically. Max sometimes tries to hurry things along and I need to exercise more decisive direction at the right moment.
Always something with Max...definately not a motorcycle I can put away between sessions. :-)
The weather here has warmed up quite a bit and Max is still shedding his winter coat so he's been pretty misearable and cranky lately. When I went to groom him, there were lumps on both sides of his neck which appeared to be hives, something he's never had before. I checked his temperature and it seemed to be OK and his overall demeanor seemed OK, so I proceeded with saddling him.
We then started to warm up with the usual sorts of dressage drills. However, lately Max has been refusing to canter in some instances and at one point he wanted to go back to his stall. After having a "discussion" with him, we got that resolved but it still concerns me. Given the weather shifts, the winter coat and all, I think he's feeling miserable and cranky. I also think that his arthritis may be acting up again (it does cool down pretty fast at night still).
I've got a dose of Adequan so I'll give him that but I want to see what happens with the hives/lumps. His appetite is good and he's acting his usual self (except for the cranky "I don't wanna!" moments). I've got some more investigation to do here.
For the lesson itself, it seemed like today Max just couldn't get the right lead canter at all. This is normally his "good" side and it usually requires very little effort on my part to get him to go. The left lead has traditionally been the problem area- maybe I overtrained it?
We kept working at it, regressing to increasingly simpler manuevers to get him to go. Of course, mixed in it was operator error on my part (balance, folding the pelvis underneath me, etc.) and Max was getting increasingly frustrated with me (goddammit Dad, what the hell to you want me to do?!"). We finally got him to launch into the right lead canter after some remedial work and then gradually built him up so he was properly executing them from the walk and even from a standing start.
I'm going to go a bit easy on him (which isn't hard since my schedule is a mess right now), give him the Adequan, and otherwise keep an eye on everything. Max appears sound (my trainer observed him) and he doesn't exhibit any pain behaviors, so those are good signs. I'll also work on the canters, mixed in with other manuevers. I also need to work on my backing up- Max is now assuming that I always want to do a rein-back and will beging to turn automatically. Max sometimes tries to hurry things along and I need to exercise more decisive direction at the right moment.
Always something with Max...definately not a motorcycle I can put away between sessions. :-)
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