Well, it turns out that I had to miss my lesson last week and will probably not be getting a lesson this week, so that last lesson update was probably my last lesson of the year. So I figured we'd round things off with one last Shorty update.
My last update for him was in September. We'd just started in-hand work, and I was still hopeful that he might be sound in November.
Well, he's still not sound, but he's made a lot of improvement. His swelling is as low as it's ever been. I've been able to cut his Bute dosage down again as well. And his pain level is definitely not as bad as it used to be.
I've discovered that, generally speaking, if he's moving around consistently, he doesn't seem as lame, versus if he's been standing for awhile or gets up from a lie down, he will limp more. So that's interesting.
We've both gotten a better feel for in the work in-hand, but it's still presenting challenges. I'll be honest, we haven't gone as far as I had hoped we would by this point. Shorty seems to have more mental hurdles with learning this new thing than I thought he would. So I had to rein myself in and bring myself back and again start taking smaller steps. But that's okay.
Overall, he's just being a happy pony living in semi-retirement at the moment. He has his thick winter coat on that the wind has curled. It can make it hard to tell the level of swelling on his leg, so you have to feel it to see if there's been any change.
I guess I did say what his injury was in an earlier entry. We're nearly positive that it is a tendon sheath injury. Which tendon sheath it is, how he did it, etc. we don't know. I've managed to find out some more information about it, but nothing that could really speed up the healing process.
Tomorrow will mark 6 months since he went lame. I haven't sat on his back in 6 months and I miss it. But that's alright. Just so long as he's happy and he's not hurting, that's what matters. I'm hoping that by spring he'll be sound again, but we'll see.
I'm thinking that next year might be the year that I get another horse. I've known for the past two years that he can't take me where I want to go, and it's not fair to ask him to. He is getting up in years now, and I don't know how much this lameness will affect him. But no other horse will ever replace my sweet boy <3
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2022 Riding Journey
Non-FictionThis is my riding journey for 2022. I have my 2021 riding journey also available here on Wattpad, which is complete at 69 entries. This chronicles my 2022 riding journey, I record my lessons with my trainer, post updates on my horse Shorty, write...
