[Monthly Review] January 2016

January saw us finally getting some potential answers for Pea's behaviour over the past 7 months. The vet visits our yard once a month as I'm on quite a large livery so I decided to put his name down to get him checked for whether there could potentially be a shoulder or back issue. You can read the full post here but as a summary he ended up having back x-rays which showed a few vertebrae closer together than normal and so he had steroid injections to try and help. 

We then had to lunge for a few days following including some work with the side reins on before I could ride. However, riding was put off longer due to the cold weather we had freezing our arenas and we haven't had our indoor back. He then had the physio out which the vet recommended we keep and she carried out some work on his back (read it all here) as well as suggesting I do regular carrot stretches. 

Again, it was a few days until I could ride again due to the weather, resulting in him not being ridden for two weeks (though he did get lunged). In typical Laura fashion, I decided to take him for a quick hack when he'd been in for two days...not quite the most sensible thing to do! I think it's safe to say that Pea was feeling very fresh after trotting off down the drive and then threatening to spook and run at every little thing... 

Since then, I've schooled him a few times. The vet recommended that I trot round on a

long rein as soon as we get in the arena for a short while and then have a canter round to loosen him up before slowly gathering him up. So far, he seems to be going quite well. He still has the odd grumpy moment but I've come to learn after 7 years that that's never going to change! He's a lot freer in the canter, and I'm slowly working on getting him to canter round large circles so we can hopefully progress to him comfortable cantering a 20x40 such as if he was doing a dressage test. 

The plan for February is to do more pole work, keep up lunging him once a week in his side reins and work on smaller circles in both trot and canter. 

Thanks for reading,

Laura xx

Physio Time!

First of all, apologies for the delay in this post! Procrastination is my worst habit and then with work I just never got round to it! Oops!

On Tuesday, Etti was doing another routine visit and I popped Pea on the list after agreeing with the vet that it would be a good idea for him to see her after the injections in his back. Etti mainly focused on Pea's back and finished the session by placing a magnetic pad on his back. He wears the Equilibrium magnetic pad during the night but Etti explained that hers is slightly stronger as the magnets are placed strategically to repel each other, causing a stronger current which helps increase the circulation. 

Pea's not done much work recently due to frozen arena's and work but after hacking him yesterday, he feels pretty good. The real test will come when I school him but fingers crossed we'll be on the right track. I'm also focusing on remembering to do some carrot stretches everyday to really open his back up and strengthen his core which will also help. 

Thanks for reading,
Laura xx

Physio Time

Pea's had about a week off due to me doing 14 hour shifts at work and then going to Disney Land for the weekend but yesterday he had Etti, our physio, out again. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of his behaviour but I had also noticed that he started leaning quite badly on the right rein, especially when he was in canter. This causes us issues when riding as I can feel how hard he finds it to bend round corners and thus falls to the outside before pulling up short and breaking back into trot. 

Etti gave Pea a good work over and we chatted about what issues we've been having, what my instructor has said and also what happened when Alex from Oakham vets looked at him and he had his x-rays/scans. She agrees with me that it seems like there must be something a bit wrong with him to cause his naughtiness but she couldn't pinpoint it to just one area. Instead, she thinks it might be that he's actually a bit stiff all over and therefore needs help loosening up as when she performed a few movements he was really stiff at first, to the point where he didn't want to lift his legs for her, but the more she tried it, the better he got. She's also suggested that we keep doing lots of polework but doing more in walk at first to really loosen him up. Etti's told me to keep the poles to a short distance, so four of my feet together, and walk over them a few times, either ridden or in-hand, as this will get him to lift his legs up more. 

Etti's also going to have a chat with Alex as she thinks it might be worth trying Pea on a bute trial where we put him on bute for four weeks to see if that helps him at all. It's a bit of a pain that we can't pinpoint one thing being wrong with Pea but fingers crossed if we do do the bute trial, then that might help, although I don't really want him to be on bute full time :/ 

For now, we're just going to do lots of pole work and not school him too many days in a row so maybe instead school him one day, hack the next, then maybe school again before lunging the day after. This way, his muscles have a day of recovery and it means that I can keep Pea happy in work without causing him to get too annoyed! 

Thanks for reading,
Laura xx

Pea's Physio Treatment

Pea had a visit from the physio today as he's been a bit stiff behind over the past week or two and I wanted a different opinion. Etti Cook is highly recommended where I live and she comes on a regular basis to the yard so it saves paying travelling costs. 

Etti took Pea's background and then saw him walk and trot up as well as turn on a tight circle. She agreed that he seemed slightly stiffer on one leg compared to the other but the stiffness was shown in both hind legs. As she felt along his back she noted that there was some tension, more so on the right side than the left, but she feels that it stems from his hind legs. When she picked his hind legs up to stretch them, he had a bit of a grumpy moment when she did it too much or too high which re-iterated the fact that his stiffness definitely stems from his hind legs. Last year, I had the vet out to Pea for his vaccinations and also got him checked then and he mentioned potential stiffness in his stifles. 

The plan is to gradually build his work back up again and do pole work in walk to get him to really use his hind quarters and lift them up which will help with his back. Hopefully the weather will warm up as well which will help but if he's not a great deal better by March then I'm going to get the vet out to have a better examination of his stifles as that is probably where the problem is. 

Fingers crossed it's not too serious but he should hopefully feel looser, he just needs to lift his hind legs more! 

Thanks for reading,

Laura xx