Louize Needs a Massage

I went to the barn today. I haven't ridden much this week because I've been busy and it's been really humid all week, as high as 85% humidity! Riding when it's that muggy out just kills me so I usually just go for a visit or if I do ride, it's just a little bit. I went out to the pasture and gave Louize her medicine, then Yada and Louize both got some apples. Yada finally likes apples! In fact, if she can get to my brush bag and there are apples in there, she will try to steal one. When I first got her in April, she wouldn't touch apples! If I put any apple slices in her grain she would eat around them. Now she likes them. Most likely because Louize enjoys them and Yada is all about food so she must think they have to be good if Louize eats them.

I decided to switch things up so I rode Louize. I tacked her up and got her ready. I noticed over the past couple months some stiff stifles on her. She gets some muscle cramps in her back legs when my farrier is doing her feet and she used to pick up her feet really well, now she just takes the weight off and I have to DRAG her leg off the ground and up so I can pick them. Sometimes I have to let go of her foot when she starts cramping up. Poor girl. I did a little stretching with her legs before I rode to try to soften her up a bit. Those back legs didn't stretch much. I can tell she definitely has some stiffness. I got up on her back and walked around a lot in circles, changing directions, wandering into the driveway, and checking things out. A few times I tried to get her to trot but she really didn't like that. She'd stick her ears back, get stiff, go for a couple of strides and then stop. She took a lot of leg to get going more than a few strides! I remember when I got her almost 5 years ago, it was a fight to make her stop! She's on a joint supplement and her joints seem fine for the most part. She doesn't creak or crack or anything but Jason has also been noticing some stiffness in the morning. After walking for a bit, Louize loosens up some and acts better. I'm considering getting an equine massage therapist to check her out and rub on her sore or tight muscles to see if that helps her any.

Until then, I'm going to buy some bute from the vet tomorrow and give her some whenever she's acting particularly sore or stiff. I can't give it to her every day as she already has a stomach ulcer issue and bute just eats away at horses' stomachs. Going to ask the vet for anything else I can to do try to loosen her up other than a massage therapist. I'm going to start doing a little massaging of my own, leg stretches to loosen her legs up, and ride her around every day or almost every day. Just walking to try to get some motion in and some blood flow to her muscles and joints. I won't do anything else with her for a while until she starts acting better. She started getting really stiff after the 3-hour trail ride. That might have been a little much but she really loved it! She did eat her grain fairly well after! I guess she felt better after getting some well-deserve attention since Yada gets a lot of my grooming attention lately.

Hopefully, she is just sore and a good massage and some bute will bring her out of it. I think she might be sore and stiff from A) Age, as she is 22 years old, B) Lack of exercise since I don't ride her often, and C) She has gained back 100+ pounds since the middle of March and without a lot of exercise she could just be getting stiff with adjusting to her weight. Another factor is that she does have high calcium levels (higher than my vet's scales can reach. They had to send her blood to another facility to read it) and that can cause muscle weakness and soreness. Poor girl. We'll do what we can until we decide whether or not massage will help her.

She was being really cute and loved the attention she was getting! Especially when Jason came back with his girlfriend's kids. They LOVE Louize to pieces! I had to try my hardest to not offend the little girl when she wanted to ride Louize. I honestly didn't want a small child on Louize when she was acting so stiff and sore.

Here she is, looking cute as ever! Sorry it's dark. It was poor lighting in the barn when I took this.

As a reference point to how much weight she's gained, this is what she looked like in February right before I moved her to make her healthy again. This was AFTER we moved her. Looking at this picture makes me want to cry, especially after the old barn said they didn't know what the problem was. "She's eating everything she's getting so I don't see the issue!" Really? I do. I can see every bone in her body! This was taken around the beginning of March.

Here she is, last week, soaking wet after a shower. Not a rib in sight, except for a slight outline as she was stretching down to eat!

Trail Ride!

Well, it's been a few days since I went on this legendary trail ride, but I have been busy and tired and everything else so I forgot to update but now I have more to talk about! Yay!

My friend, Alicia, invited me to a trail ride on Saturday at her barn. It was really fun! I rode Yada and my mom rode Louize western (only way I trusted my mom riding her in case Louize acted silly). There were 8 of us total at first but one had to turn back because her horse was acting up and then the other turned back after a while because she needed to head back to the barn.

The first issue with Yada came up when we had to cross a stream about 10 feet across. She REFUSED to go across. It came down to me, Louize, and the lady who turned back after the stream and she wouldn't budge. Alicia got off Gizmo and tried to lead her across but she wasn't having that. She led Louize across hoping that would convince Yada but that didn't do the trick. After 15 minutes of struggling, I got off and into the water to get her across. I tried my hardest but she refused to move! After a few minutes, I realized I had a peppermint in my pocket so I used that to try to convince Yada the water wasn't so bad. IT WORKED! She went across and once she was in the water she could care less about it! SUCCESS! I knew it was good to not give up! I was refusing to give up on her!

We continued on and she did really well! She stepped over logs without giving them a second thought because we already practiced trotting over poles so she was a pro! She did well on the road with cars driving but, going around a gate into the woods, walking across the road, etc. On the way back, she started to get more irritated with the bugs and had to be glued to Louize's side. The bugs always drive Yada nuts! She hates bugs but seems to hate fly spray too, so there's nothing I can really do. At least she had ears on so they weren't driving them crazy too. Everything was going well and we were trotting along when Louize started cantering. It was my mom's first ever canter on a horse! YAY! However, this made Yada start acting up because Louize was running away.

When we got back to the stream, Yada practically jumped the whole thing! She will make a great jumper when she gets older! She caught me off guard, haha! She was NOT letting Louize get away, though. She got in and out of the water as fast as she could.

We even had a little face off with two drunk guys while we were headed back! Apparently we didn't realize the land belonged to someone else. We thought we called and asked permission to go on everyone's land but we missed one guy and his friends were really mad we were there! Guess he had security cameras and saw us. Oh well, that sucks. We finally talked them down and left and things were fine. Ali, the lady leading us, called the owner of the land and he was very upset. Turns out, the guys were pot dealers and I guess they were growing back there so they weren't happy we were "snooping". We didn't see anything so not sure what their issue was. Last time we go through there, for sure!

By the time we got back, it had been 3 hours! Yada and Louize were quite sweaty! We took them home and made sure they got some water and then went back to my friend's barn for the BBQ after. They had really great food there! By the end of the day, it was getting too dark and chilly to hose off the horses but they were happy just hanging out in their pasture. I did shower them the next day and now they're all clean and happy! I do need to wash their saddle pads, though...

In other news, my friend Calleigh left Coldbrook Equestrian Center! She's riding a friend's horses at Wild Ivy and working their now! Jill Schnedler still hasn't paid her for working but claims to pay Calleigh when she gets the money... like that will happen.

Also, apparently Jill Schnedler got another Great Dane adult and has a puppy that she's going to buy soon. Where she's getting the money from this, who knows? The horses are probably going without grain or hay or something. She never has money. She wants to start breeding puppies, I guess. Good luck, Jill. Her unneutered male isn't AKC so he shouldn't be used for breeding. I have no clue about this adult. She can't use the puppy because it's her male's half-sister. I don't know how she thinks she's going to profit from that. Plus, her house is disgusting and she thinks she's going to keep her puppies in the her kennel in the basement. The basement that leaks and has no heat. Her puppies will get sick and die! No one in their right mind would walk into her house and want one of her Great Dane puppies!

Oh well. It's only a matter of time before she has no business with helpers leaving, boarders leaving, and putting money into breeding dogs that just don't sell very well in Maine. Not everyone wants big dogs, especially Great Danes. They are great dogs, but most people are not big dog people.

Jill Schnedler also is having a Judy Westlake clinic in August! I posted on the Coldbrook Equestrian Center page about my interest in going just to drive Jill crazy and so did Alicia (who also left Jill's on bad terms) but Jill hasn't responded. Weird. She also hasn't responded to my comments on her video or picture of Domino working with Connor! She was thanking him for the hard work he's put in to make Domino a good pony. Sorry. That was me that helped him. I didn't work with him and desenitize him for two weeks straight and get no thanks in return. I'm the reason he's rideable now! Oh well, according to Jill I didn't pay board and I used her, I guess. I was the one being used and she still owes us money. She's twisted.

Whatever. What goes around comes around, Jill Schnedler.

I would also like to point out that I've had this account since 2009 and I have had 34 views in that time! 32 of them being within the past month! WHOO!

Show Update (sorry it's really late)

So Yada's first show was great! She did an amazing job and everyone there LOVED her! It was only her second time riding full western and she did great! The judge commented on how great she was the entire time on only commented on keeping my hands tighter on the reins or in western, not switching hands. I'm new to western, so that's fine. Also, she needs to work on backing up but considering she's only done it 6 times, she was kick-ass at it!
For the results of the show:
English Equitation: Third
English Pleasure: Second
Western Equitation: Second
Western Pleasure: First
Costume Class: Honorable Mention (it was a borrowed costume with wings and Yada didn't care! She's completely relaxed!)
Trail Class: Fourth (never walked over hula hoops, backed through poles, or walked through pool noodles. Scary stuff yet she was fearless!)

Considering it was her first show, I couldn't be more proud of her! Also, we brought an old friend of mine, Alicia, and her horse, Gizmo, and Yada and Gizmo fell in love! They were so cute!

Here they are napping together before the trail class! Yada is the one with the brown leather bridle.

Here Yada is in her full western gear!

Since Saturday, Yada has had it really easy. Sunday was really hot so I gave her the day off. Monday, I stopped by to give her some love and treats, and today she had the day off because I was out with my friends celebrating Dollar Tuesday at a local theater where movies are only $1 and we go swimming for $5!

Tomorrow, as long as the arena isn't filled with hay, we're going to get some work in since I haven't really made her work a whole lot. Saturday was the "toughest" day she did and it was mostly standing, eating hay, and walk/trot. Hardly work, really.

However, I have discovered one new thing about Yada. On Saturday, she encountered her first miniature horse and miniature donkey. Apparently minis are TERRIFYING in her mind! She finds them horrifying! The only thing I have ever seen her spook at and then run away from! They were really cute (and both naughty) and to Yada, they were NOT okay! She spooks at minis but not giant purple wings hanging from her shoulders. What a silly little girl! I love her!

While Yada has to work, Louize gets the luxury of hanging out in the pasture. I might ride her a little tomorrow, too. I don't work her much since she's getting older. She just gets lots of love and treats! I looove Louize!

I will update you more later! Sorry this was late, been a busy week with my best friend, Sarah!

Old Western Film

I felt like I was in an Old Western film today buying a consignment western saddle and trying out a new western bridle on my OTTB, Yada! She has never had a western saddle, western bridle, or western bit before in her life! She handled it well after a little bit of playing with the bit. It's a Myler barreling bit. Got it complete with a bridle and another bridle with a different western bit at a yard sale my high school music teacher held! She gave me all of her horse things for $50! There was a saddle rack, 2 bridles with bits, a breast collar, saddle pad, water bucket heater, sponges, leg wraps, a padlock, 2 lunge lines, a lunge whip, 2 crops, a bunny feeder, gloves, and other miscellaneous items.

This is the type of bit I have:

The "new" saddle:

She wasn't huge on the fact that the bit has the part going on top of her tongue and kind of holding it there, but she soon got used to it. The other part of the bit was how the reins were connected. A little bit of pulling puts a lot of pressure on her mouth so I used very slight movements to not hurt her and not make her hate her western bit. Besides, I hate it when people pull on horses' mouths. More pulling makes the horse experience pain, discomfort, and can desensitize them so they the horse requires even more pulling! I want her mouth to stay happy and sensitive. Makes her easier to ride in the future when we start doing harder stuff like jumping and really fancy dressage stuff. She's still only three years old, so jumping is a couple years off but might as well get her ready now!

I will have pictures of her in the new western tack tomorrow for modeling purposes and to see how she does! And then I will ride her bareback a bit since, to my knowledge, she has never been ridden bareback before! I was going to yesterday but there was too much hay and equipment in the ring to even ride. Today I tried to go on a trail ride with my mom on Louize but the trails were overgrown and the ground was soft and squishy. Plus, I was only guessing where the trails were. I have no clue, really! I did find one area that looked promising but Yada refused to go forward. She just spun in circles and backed up. Apparently there was something there she REALLY did not like, so I gave up the endeavor. Maybe another day.

I also got new halters for my horses! They look so cute now!

These are the brightest colors for anything I have ever gotten for Louize or Yada but I thought it was high time for something different! I also figured the natural horsemanship of the rope halters might be better for them since they both get rub marks from their other halters. I had to have fleece on their halters before to keep it from stripping away all of their hair! These should be much more comfortable for them! Louize usually looks amazing in greens so that's what I usually got her but she does look pretty good in that super crazy orange! Yada looks amazing in just about any bright color. Blues are definitely her color but I think her purple, pink, blue, and green halter goes with her quite well!

Yada and Louize update! (Sorry it's late)

So Yada and Louize are settling in very well! Louize is eating well with her ulcer meds (her ulcer acted up again after the move and she wasn't eating well for a couple days). Her eye is looking really good! The swelling is almost gone and it hasn't been weeping! Yay! Yada is also doing really well. Haven't been able to practice our canter lately because the arena has had equipment and hay in the way. Maybe one of these days I'll just ride out in the pasture... except there are rather large rocks out there. Maybe that wouldn't work well. I do need an open, unobstructed space to practice. Yada needs room to gain balance and confidence in her canter. Or maybe I'll explore the trails and if there are any fields or straight-aways, I can canter there until the arena gets cleaned up. I don't know. She's a work in progress but I'm loving it, even after some frustrations.

Louize will soon get a really fun trail ride, too! I want to explore the trails so badly! It's killing me. I'm waiting for a day when I have nothing better to do than explore the trails. Maybe there are trails connecting Triple D and Stonewall so I can trail ride with my friend at Stonewall, Alicia!

Also, Yada is going to a show on Saturday! It's a fun equitation show so it's nothing stressful but it will be very good experience for her and get her out there showing off her stuff! I will have to do walk/trot, though. I was hoping I could work on her canter. Her left lead (the race track way) is okay! She's very confident at it on the lunge line but her right lead is not... I have only made her do it a handful of times. Hopefully Louize doesn't lose her mind being alone for most of Saturday... I will give her lots of carrots and apples before we leave and some more when we get back in the hopes that it might relax her a little bit. Poor thing is going to be lost all by herself!

On another note, Jill Schnedler pulled a nasty move on my mother today. She tried calling into the hospital and claimed that my mom broke patient-doctor confidentiality and tried to get my mom fired! What the hell?? Luckily, my mom was able to prove that A) Jill Schnedler has never been her patient, B) Jill Schnedler goes to St. Joseph's Hospital, not Eastern Maine Medical Center where my mother works, C) my mom doesn't have access to Jill's files, and D) my mom never revealed any medical information in the first place except for one small tidbit of information: Jill only has electricity because she has a prescription for a nebulizer (that requires electricity to work). She owes the electric company over $6000 and she has never filled her prescription for her nebulizer. She doesn't own one and has never used one yet she tells the power company she needs power in order to get her medicine. This doesn't breach any confidentiality information. She told me this in person when she had to call the power company to get an extension on her bill because it was going to get shut off if she didn't call them!

Oh well. It didn't work, Jill. Maybe next time you try to get someone fired you give a story that has even 1% of the truth.

I'm on to bigger and better things. I have better things to focus on than trying to ruin lives. I have a job interview soon (YAY!) and I am having a blast with my horses!

Goodnight everyone! And remember, if people ever try to drag you down with them, just walk away. It's easier to leave them in the dust than to get tangled up in their net of self-destruction.

So it has started...

So quite a bit has happened since Tuesday.  Tuesday she said "I still value your friendship and I hope we can talk this over when you have cooled off". Yeah, I'm not likely to believe that. Well, I was posting on Facebook about moving my horses and many friend inquired out of curiosity. Jill posted on one of my statuses "Good luck to you. Hope all goes well with the girls." My mom posted back with "Too bad Jill didn't like to pay her employees. Funny how she has money for an expensive Great Dane puppy but not for hay, grain, electric bills, roofing, fixing the plumbing to have running water in her house, hauling the rotting trash away or registering/inspecting her truck, but she can spend a fortune on ANOTHER Great Dane she can't afford to feed or do vet care...." Shortly after that, Jill blocked me. Oh, my friendship meant MILLIONS to her, clearly! So I blocked her on Louize's profile back. After I posted on her wall "Two can play that game. Consider this bridge burned."

I decided to post my previous blog post on Facebook. I posted it publicly so the entire Facebook community can view and share it. It's already had 2 shares by two of my friends who have had bad run-ins with Jill. It's apparently had many views already! Good... the truth needs to be spread since the other 3 people I know decided to keep their stories private so Jill could drag them through the mud without being able to defend themselves. No fair.

Things started to settle out and things were calm until Jill posted a status one of my friends took a screen shot of and sent to me. It said "What a NORMAL boarder, can it be???!! I won't know how to act!!! Welcome back Nicole, bullet and Jazz!!! It will be nice to actually get paid for a change!!!" I'm sorry. She was paid in full for every month I was there. The day we moved Louize we paid her board that very day including a $20 tip for trailering her. In March my mom gave her a $200 bonus for feeding Louize 5 times a day chopped apples and carrots. It was a payment and thank you for going the extra mile to help Louize in her time of dire need. In April, we paid full board for Louize and a pro-rated amount for Yada when she arrived the 16th. We paid full for May for both horses. For June, we refunded the money we lent her for hay and grain by deducting it from board. For July, we deducted the $200 for my early rent from board to refund that since we knew she wouldn't pay it back and didn't have the cash. And then we were only there for 3 days in July do she got $464 extra for that month after we left.  She can't dare say we didn't pay. Even if we hadn't, that $464 extra from July would more than cover most of board for 2 horses.

I took this very status screen shot, posted it to my wall, and let my friends have free access to it! Then I posted a screen shot of the status, my caption, and my mom's comments of "It is nice to not have a barn owner who uses the supplements I bought for Kille's horses on all her horses, who doesn't expect me to "gift" her multiple bags of grain extra every month or to pay for entire trailer loads of hay as "gifts" which weren't gifts! I don't know of anyone who has a good story to tell at the end of it all about Jill Schnedler and CEC!" and " Jill would know about not paying bills, since she owes the electric company $6500 and only still has power because she fraudulently indicated to them she uses a nebulizer. She has gone into foreclosure/Chapter 7/Chapter 11 for not paying her mortgage, and people like vets and farriers won't come out for her animals because she doesn't pay her bills. She doesn't register her car, doesn't have a valid safety inspection - who is SHE to judge normal anyway?" to her Coldbrook Equestrian Center Facebook fan page for everyone to see including every student and parent who likes the page on Facebook. If she deletes it, I can just tag the page in the picture and then everyone can see it still!

Now, I'm just waiting for the Fireworks to start. Two can play this game. For future reference, don't piss off a Branson. Just not a good way to go. She should have just shut her mouth and played nice and I would have shut mine. I didn't even post my note until she started getting nasty and one of her helpers tried defending her with the lies from her mouth.

But fun fact, Saw Chuck and Carrie Dixon at Triple D today! They were smiling and joking and having a grand time! I haven't seen them that happy in a long time! No wonder, Jill speaks poorly of them behind their backs. She complains about their riding technique, teaching, horses, personalities, the way they work their horses, and everything else she can think of. Apparently they used to ride there back when they first met years ago! They had their horses there and helped build the house on the property and everything. They have wonderful memories of the place! Wouldn't it be great if they boarded there too? I really hope they change barns. They deserve to go to a place where they can actually ride without summer camp always in the way and where the barn owner actually respects them.

Louize and Yada's adjustment post will go up tomorrow. I want it to be separate from this. So stay tuned! Maybe more drama will pop up when Jill realizes I posted that picture on her page! Mwahahaha!

Leaving CEC from my view (without the lies that Jill throws out)

So before Jill Schnedler can slander my good name in the mud as she has done with many of her past boarders, I am going to clarify to the public my side of the story.
We'll start from the beginning. On February 29, 2012, I moved Louize out of Starwalk to Coldbrook Equestrian Center so Louize wouldn't be starved to death. You know the background to that one already.
Things might have been fine if she didn't think we owed her money all the time. If you give her a penny, it's a gift. If you loan her $100, it's a gift. My early rent of $200 was a nonrefundable deposit apparently. That wasn't the agreement on that. I lived there for 3 days. I want my rent back since her house was UNLIVABLE. My mom paid her in advance for riding lessons twice. Once was $100 and another was $200 plus two times that my mom bought her some bags of grain totaling at least $100 for grain. When my mom stopped taking lessons due to feeling uncomfortable at the barn, she wanted to be paid back in full so she deducted it from Jill. Jill got so mad and offended and said "You've been so generous, I thought those were gifts! You just handed me money so I just assumed it was a gift!" Sorry... when someone hands you $200 you can't seriously just think it was a gift out of the kindness of her heart.
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She hasn't even paid me for the two weeks of summer camp I put in. I should be getting $240 by the original agreement that I would get $150 a week but $50 per week would be "rent" but since I'm not living with her, I should get the full $150, right? Not in Jill's head. She took out $60 from my summer camp money for a Judy Westlake lesson so $300 - $60 = $240. Oh well. I know I won't get paid. She got two weeks of free labor out of me. And then she tried to tell the police officer we had with us that she was waiting for my mom's check to clear before she paid me because she thought my mom had stopped payment like at Starwalk. She cashed it Friday. She's lying. She tried to make the cop believe her. Sorry, I witnessed Jill open the check from the mail and head to the bank right after.

Well, in short, to get my $200 back, my mom deducted it from the $700 for board. She gave Jill $500 and explained it through an email. All was good until I never got paid for summer camp. So oh well. Jill can keep the $38 of gas money I lent her once, the $240 for summer camp, the $10 tea kettle, the $20 iced tea maker, the $100+ futon upstairs, and my $100 washer and dryer. I'm just going to walk away from those. But if she DARES have the balls to say I owe her even one penny, not going to happen.

Sorry Jill. I’m not going to keep this quiet. I want the community to know about this. I’m not letting you lead people into your plea of innocence and saying you’re always the victim and that everyone else tries to use you. Sorry, who’s using who? I was getting paid $3 an hour for summer camp! I think I’m being used. Oh, wait. I wasn’t paid. I was EXTRA used. Not including all those days March - April when I did stalls, bring in, hay, water, feeding, etc. with you EVERY fucking day. I didn’t ask to be paid for those, but after all I have done for YOU I don’t owe you shit.

Basics on Yada

So Yada is a registered Thoroughbred dark bay mare. She's super sweet and like a giant puppy dog! She loves her face rubbed and hugged and she's just the sweetest thing ever. Super willing to learn and please even though she's big! She was born March 20, 2009 and she stands at 15.3hh and possibly growing a couple more inches. She's an off the track Thoroughbred (OTTB). Poor Yada has to deal with the stigma attached to the OTTBs because usually Thoroughbreds tend to be crazy, fast, and everything else but she is the exact opposite. She has the potential to be fast since she was trained to race but she never runs off with me and has never tried. Her version of "spooking" is a slow trot. I've been in love with her since the day I got her!

However, things didn't start off that easy. I bought her through Bits & Bytes Farm (http://www.bitsandbytesfarm.com/). All I have learned through buying a horse through Elizabeth (one of the ladies who runs the farm) is that I will never do it again and I will never suggest their horses to anyone. I wanted one horse, Hobo, but he went back to the track so I had to start from square one again. When Jill Schnedler found out about Yada, she knew it would be a match. At least she got that right, Yada and I are a fantastic team! Everything ran smoothly with Yada. I purchased her and all was fine and dandy. I scheduled everything with the shipper, Tony Lapore, and all was good! That is, until Tony picked her up and Yada had a runny nose with nasty green boogers. No one told him she was sick and it could have been strangles!! If you don't know what strangles is, it's an air-born bacteria in horses that is highly contagious. All it takes is touching another horse's nose and BAM! He's got it. I called up the owner of Yada in Kentucky and she said she had given Yada 2 days of antibiotics. Wait, you knew she was sick before you shipped her? That changes things. It's illegal to ship a sick horse across state lines.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth got mad and tried to make Jill turn against me and convince Tony to drop Yada off at another barn along the way and then she emailed me trying to refund my money and force me to sell Yada back to her. NOT gonna happen. She was mine. Whatever I say, goes. So she arrived after 2 days in the trailer and 2 days of snot coming out of her nose. We had to keep her on full quarantine to not contaminate the other horses and she had to get 2 penicillin shots twice a day for 14 days. That poor horse. Barely 3 years old and she has to endure 56 needles in 14 days. She's such a sweetheart, she hardly flinched when she got stuck with the needles. I love her. I felt horrible but it was for her health and the health of the 17 other horses in the barn.

I emailed Elizabeth a couple of times and called her out on everything including the fact that she didn't send Yada with the x-rays of the cyst in her right stifle that were promised and I didn't even have a health certificate! It's illegal to ship a horse across state lines without a health certificate! We had a vet check which turned into a "flexion test". A flexion test doesn't have anything to do with health. A flexion test is for her legs and joints. She was probably sick at the time and couldn't pass a health check so they skipped it and called it good. Bitches.

Well, I have her now and we've been doing quite well! Working on mastering the canter, since race horses don't learn to canter, and working on making her bend and round her back and neck and just general things like that. Pretty soon, she'll be doing leg yields and all kinds of fancy dressage work!  Funny thing is, since race horses don't get fed treats at the track, Yada doesn't like many treats and she doesn't like apples. Her treat of choice is peppermints. Horses LOVE peppermints!

This is Yada the day she arrived! =D

Basics on Louize

Louize is an adorable mare. She was born in 1990 or 1991... not sure which. I have seen both written down, so who knows? Anyways, she's my 14.3hh chestnut register Arabian mare. I bought her on September 2, 2007 from a lady in Monroe, ME who had her in her back yard with Louize's filly (Morning Glory) who is an Arabian-Andalusian cross. She's a super cute dappled grey, born May of 2006.

Anyways, I got Louize and has always been fabulous for everyone. Everyone loves Louize... unless you don't like her speed or bouncy trot. Then you're out of luck.

When I bought her, I brought her to my barn in Hampden, Maine - Coldbrook Equestrian Center. We stayed there for a year and I left for school. I brought her to college with me where she stayed at Starwalk Stables in Orono, Maine I stayed there for 3.5 years. I never had a problem with them until this past winter I noticed small changes in Louize. She was more lethargic and she was getting thin! I spoke to them in January saying that Louize was getting thin and maybe she should get a little more food. Lisa just nodded her head and said that would be fine. February came around and Louize was still continuing to drop weight. I spoke to her again and then bought a supplement for Louize to add to her food to help her gain weight more quickly since whatever they were doing wasn't really working. By the end of February, I could see all of Louize's bones.

Here is what she looked like when Louize first moved to Starwalk and what she looked like the day before I moved her. Louize has never been one to eat all of her hay. She always kicks it around her stall a bit and messes it up and decides not to eat it once it's been stepped on. In the picture to the right, there was some old hay on the ground of the arena and she kept stopping to eat it when I was trying to lunge her and so I let her eat. She was hungry enough to eat the nasty hay off the ground. She never does that. I had been lightly lunging her because I couldn't bear the thought of riding her and making her work because of how terrible she looked.

The day after this photo, I spoke to Lisa, one of the barn owners, to confront her about Louize's feeding because I saw "bring in hay" being put in the stalls. Every other horse had 2 flakes and she only had 1. I was so frustrated by that I exploded at Lisa when she said "Well, she's eating everything so I don't see what the problem is." Louize could have been getting 1 cup of grain (and for all I know, that's all she was getting) and you could say that she's eating everything and you don't see why she would be losing weight. Clearly, she doesn't know how to feed horses. I moved Louize that very day. I weighed her with a measuring tape. She was 765 lbs. She sunk for the next two weeks as low as 739 lbs. When I bought her, she was 850 lbs and was fatter than that when she got to Starwalk Stables, I'm sure.

I brought her back to Jill Schnedler's farm - Coldbrook Equestrian Center in Hampden, Maine where we struggled to get Louize to eat anything. She would eat one kind of grain once and never touch it again. We tried 6 different kinds of grain before found out she liked the Nutrena Black Bag! FINALLY! Jill Schnedler was giving Louize chopped up apples and carrots 5 times a day because that's all Louize consistently ate (she was fed apples and carrots at 8am, 12pm, 5pm, 10pm, 3am). We started getting Nutrena feed through Maine Horse and Rider, a new tack shop in Holden, Maine that has been nothing but helpful through our whole ordeal. In fact, it was because of Kathy there that we discovered Louize had a stomach ulcer caused by her malnutrition! She said to try giving her Maalox. If she gets that and she starts eating, it's an ulcer. Sure enough, the Maalox made her eat!

Now, Louize is a happy 840 lbs. We are starting to wean her off the ulcer medicine to see if her ulcer is gone, we're hoping it is since the omeprazole to treat ulcers isn't cheap! Starwalk told me that she was getting 6 lbs of grain a day of Demand, a Blue Seal grain. When I asked how many quarts, she said 4. 6 pounds of grain should be roughly 6 qts so somewhere along the line something isn't right. Also, the fact that a horse who is now 22 was getting Demand is ridiculous. She should be getting a senior feed, not a low fat grain most people give to OVERWEIGHT horses. And Lisa told the vet later (he went there to check on a horse that was at Starwalk and he started asking them questions about Louize) that Louize was "wasting" hay and so they started giving her less. They told me she was eating everything. If the vet goes there for another horse and starts asking about one that just left and her weight issues, you know you've fucked up. 3 different vets from Foxcroft Veterinary Clinic saw her within a month for blood work, shots, floating teeth, a choke she had a week after I moved her, etc. The vets know us by name now! We even have one vet's personal cell phone number! They all know about Louize and even had her blood work sent out to Michigan to test her calcium levels because they were too high for their machine to read!

Since all of this happening, Louize has finally leveled out. We did a parathyroid test on her. She had to fast for 12 hours and the vet had to draw blood for the parathyroid test and her calcium levels at the same time and FedEx the blood samples to Michigan to be tested. Both were high. In most cases in people, those two together can mean a tumor in her parathyroid. In human terms, if it's a benign tumor it won't affect her much at all. If it's malignant it could cause renal failure at some point. So right now we are just watching that she drinks water and she has plenty of urine in her stall and if she starts acting funny, a vet will be immediately called.

This is Louize now, happily grazing and loving life as a semi-retired horse. If she has a tumor, it's not fair to make her work much. She's a fun and trail horse now.