smellshorsey

How Am I Supposed to Keep "Muddy" Clean?

Mom said that I could write a post. And I know that she has written a post about this before, but SHE isn't the one who has to deal with it...

Buddy likes to roll. Especially when he is clean. Ugh. I know that I'm not the only person who has this problem, but I still find him frustrating...
Yeah, yeah, I know that he enjoys rolling and getting the itchy spots, and that I am a terrible person for trying to stop him. But would he mind not transforming from his normal chestnut color to a dirty grayish-brown color? And after I have spent 2 or more hours grooming him for a show?

I have an event next week. Buddy has to be braided, sponge-bathed, show sheened, and combed. I just spent 70 dollars (that I have saved up since the summer) on a blanket liner that I am going to use for shows only. His Sleazy Hood will cover his neck and hopefully keep the braids in overnight.

Lucy isn't going anywhere, and she stays clean. This is the one time where I wish Lucy would influence "Muddy".
I am trying to bribe him to stay clean, or at least to be partially chestnut when I go to get him the morning of the show.   

-Lilly

There's Possibly Something More Destructive than Horses

Buddy and Lucy spend a lot of time tearing up things (though not as much as Annie the pony did). When we were in NYC, I saw something that's possibly even more destructive than horses. Lily wants credit for taking this little video clip. I'd post it here if I knew how. Click on the camera -- it works!

You really have to see how big this thing is to appreciate his approach.
 

If Your Football Team Won, Would You Feel a Need to Paint Somebody Else's Dog Orange?

When our plane landed from NYC on Saturday night, we were greeted by the news that Clemson beat Carolina (USC). That meant it was safe to live one more day amid Carolina fans. (I'm a fan of horses, not football teams.) When a football team wins, people move from sheer joy to obnoxiousness in about three seconds.

Or at least we thought it was safe. Tell me, if your team won a big football game, would you feel the need to paint somebody else's dog orange (not even somebody who was a fan of the rival team -- just a dog minding his own business)? This is truly odd behavior. To help you further interpret this behavior, you need to know that Clemson's color is orange.

From WIS-TV's web site:

Chapin man's dog painted orange after USC-Clemson game

CHAPIN, SC (WIS) - One Chapin man says the big Carolina-Clemson rivalry was taken a little too far Saturday night when he woke up to find his dog spray-painted orange.

Mikey's owner, Bobby Brooks, says, "I noticed Mikey had something all over him. I thought he had rolled in something so I was complaining about, 'What you got into?'" It was "bright" and it was "orange" and pretty soon Bobby Brooks would notice something else - bright orange Tiger paws, up and down his road. (etc.)

There's also video on the linked web site.

 

What You Need to Know about Beet Pulp

We've been out of town on Thanksgiving break and just picked up Buddy and Lucy today. It's funny how terrible and empty our pasture was without them, though it was nice not to have Buddy harassing me about feeding him before I had my coffee today. What all this means is that I really don't have anything to say other than, "I'm back!"

I used to love to feed the horses beet pulp until everybody got too fat. I had this idea it was keeping the horses from picking up sand and preventing colic. It might have been -- but Lucy really did look like a pumpkin. A very happy pumpkin, I might add.

I've found a wonderful story about beet pulp everyone will enjoy. (I found the link on I will jump sweet jumps -- Beckz has been doing some awesome and very educational posts over there ever since her horse had to take some time off.) Though I love a good story, I'm really, really happy that this story isn't mine. I'd have to move.

Forget the Knight -- Give Me His Horse!

These are not paid advertisements nor do I get anything from the sales of these shirts. I just like them. Lily found this shirt to give to a horse friend for her birthday. It was a big hit, so, since you might be shopping today, I thought I'd pass it along. It says, "Forget the Knight, Give Me His Horse." Amen.
You can get it at CafePress.

And don't forget the great shirt at/from  I Gallop On, which would also make a great horsey Christmas present.

For more horsey Christmas presents, you might want to visit Regarding Horses.

Things I Am Thankful for -- I Think

I have so much to be thankful for that I don't know where to start. A husband who's supportive and encouraging of our horse habit, a daughter who'd rather be at the barn than at the mall and two great horses who are mostly willing and certainly able.

I also have a truck and trailer. Now, you will not envy me on this. Even if you don't have a truck and trailer, you will not envy me. But that truck and trailer mean that we can go to nearby farms. And that makes all the difference.

"Ben," the truck (he came named -- "Ben" for Sub-ur-BEN) can qualify for S.C. antique license plates next year. Or maybe he's already qualified. The people who had him loved him and took excellent care of him. They had a book where they kept track of every tank of gas he ever drank and every repair ever made. The lady drew a sad face with tears and wrote "Goodbye Ben, We Love You!" on the last page of this book before selling him to us. His interior was re-done before we got him. (After a while you get used to calling your truck a "him.") He does have a drinking problem, though. Heaven help us. I might sometimes get over 60 mpg on my Prius, but I more than make up for it with Ben.

The trailer I own with my niece. It needs re-painting. I touched up the rusting spots with Rustoleum, which makes it look even worse. One day we will paint it. Surely we will.

Anyway, Ben has lots of personality and Tim, my mechanic, says, "That's a great truck." It is. It's even kind of fun to drive. No problem finding it in a parking lot, either.

But I have to say when I pull up besides people's fancy trucks and SUVs and trailers with dressing rooms and awnings and potted flowers, I do feel like country come to town. Actually, there's another term I'd use but I won't.

Other people's trucks and trailers might be painted to match. Ben and my trailer have rust spots to match.

We're lucky to have nice horses, tack, boots and lessons. I like to think of it that we're just being environmentally friendly by using a truck and trailer others would have passed on.... The most environmentally friendly thing you can do is to use things as long as possible, right? No landfill and all that? (There is Ben's drinking problem, but I can't help that.) I could have bought something other than the Prius that would pull a trailer, but I decided on the Prius because I don't pull the trailer but once a week, but I drive the Prius everywhere every day.

Anyway. Ben's got a lot of personality for a truck. He came with lots of stickers on him and a front license plate that says "U.S. Army Retired." I left everything as it was. The stickers might be holding him together! I'm really glad the people weren't NASCAR fans or I'm sure he'd have an "8" and a "3" on him. For some reason, the sticker that said, "My daughter is in the U.S. Navy" just drove Lily over the edge, so I let her cover that sticker and another one. I am not one to put  bumper stickers on cars (my Prius has none), but if somebody else has started it, well.... See for yourself.

I live in fear that Ben is going to leave us on the side of the road one day. I guess when that happens we'll unload the horses and ride on home.

Ben, you're an old, old man, but I'm still thankful to have you, even if I am afraid to drive you very far.

How to Teach a Child a Dressage Test

It's hard to get a child excited about a dressage test. Or about dressage at all when there are other things, such as jumping, that she could be doing instead of dressage.

For Lily's first horse trials (I think the coming one will be her third) I really had trouble getting her attention about the importance of dressage, let alone the concepts involved. Now that Lily is older and understands that her place in dressage will determine where she stands in the competition, she's practicing her test every night. Thank goodness I'm not a good housekeeper or I might have thrown away the things essential for this practice.

If you want to teach your child a dressage test, I suggest you do it in three stages.

1. Indoors using a Breyer horse and a shoe-box lid;
2. Outdoors doing the test on her own two feet while you judge; and,
3. Finally, on horseback.

Here's what you need for part one:

Take a shoe-box lid, cut out an entrance at "A" and use a marker to put in the other letters. Here's an aerial view of our shoe-box dressage ring.

Then, get a noted Breyer stablemates "dressage horse" (we're using Seabiscuit because we couldn't find Pumpkin -- they're not in frame and don't bend in the corners but Buddy probably isn't going to either) and start riding the test.
Here's Seabiscuit from an aerial view and entering at "A."

For the next step Lily does the test on foot in the pasture, where we've set up ceramic tile blocks (because we had some) that we've painted the dressage letters on. Unfortunately, we don't have any kind of arena wall. Paul got smart and embedded small concrete blobs in the ground at the four corners of the arena (small size -- no room) so that we don't have to re-measure every time.

We have used spray paint (the kind made for marking lines on the ground) to mark the arena boundaries in the past, but have gotten either too cheap or too lazy.

It's tempting to throw the shoe-box lid away after it's all over, but keep it. It's a handy thing. And Seabiscuit's getting pretty good at dressage, too.

Making Friends -- and Jumping Too High!

Buddy's first horse trials are coming up and we're worried about how he's going to behave (or not) on cross-country. No doubt he'll enjoy it. I'm concerned he'll enjoy it way too much.

Not much room here to practice cross-country in our yard, so we went to Jane's farm yesterday for a lesson and some trail riding. I took Lucy (my obese TB) since she never gets to go anywhere.

Lily and Jane went on a trail ride and I sat in the sunshine and did some freelance work, which was difficult because of the scenery that was so distracting and the very large dog heads that kept thrusting into my lap (English Bull Mastiffs -- I think you buy them by the pound.) Nice dogs. Bad breath.

Jane found or set up some fallen trees for jumps and they took advantage of the fact that I was not there. They claim to have jumped 3'9", which is great for building Lily and Buddy's confidence for their cross-country course, but makes my hair stand on end.

Just think about it. I'm sitting there holding my breath because I don't want to smell the dog's odoriferous exhalings  and I should have been holding my breath because Goodness! She's out there jumping that horse over 3'9" logs! A great time was had by all. And when they got back, everybody got to make new friends.

Here Buddy is making friends with a 6-month-old foal. Unfortunately, there's a 4-year-old mare in that pasture (no relation to the foal) with some out-of-control maternal instincts and she was not letting Buddy or Lucy get anywhere near that foal. Buddy and the foal immediately started doing some mutual grooming before the self-appointed baby-protector chased Buddy off. Click on photos to enlarge.

And here's Lucy trying not to make friends.

Have you ever seen anything cuter than these mini-donkeys? Jane and her husband are hoping that the jenny is in foal. I might need that foal. Or maybe the whole set. They chase cats but the cat keeps coming back for more.

Lucy wasn't afraid of them at all until Buddy decided they were scary. Here's one of the few times he stayed close enough to the fence long enough to get a photo. Notice how very interested the donkeys are in Buddy.

Juicy's Out. Horses Plus Girls = Energy is In.

I Gallop On has done it! She's come up with the "Juicy" alternative. Girls have brains and horse girls have brains that are tied into one of the most important physics equations in the universe:

Horses plus girls = energy.

Cute design. Great message. The anti-Juicy.

Why Don't People Cook for Their Dogs?

Okay, so this is a blog about horses. Chances are, if you are a horse person, you probably have cats and dogs, too.

So when I, like the sheep that I am, followed Instapundit's link to Nigella Express: 130 Recipes for Good Food, Fast (and bought the book because I'm all about good food, fast), I couldn't help but notice a discussion forum going on entitled: Why Don't People Cook for Their Dogs?

This post must have been written by a friend of a dog-cookbook's author. Or somebody with way too much time on their hands. Here's what he/she said:

After all the information that came out about dog food you would think people wold be cooking for their dogs more. Dog food really is killing your pets.
The book WOOFING IT DOWN, opened by eyes, and my heart to my dogs. I will never again feed them food from a bag.

I have a lot of things I wish I'd do differently and a lot of things about me that I wish I'd change. But  cooking for my dog is not on that list.

Lily wants to bake horse treats, and our bran mash is almost like cooking for the horses (what a mess!). But the dog? Bless his heart, we love him dearly, but he can eat dog food and bone-free leftovers. I can't think of anything that would make him happier than leftovers -- and what if I cooked him something and he didn't like it? Would our relationship ever be the same? (He's actually very finicky because when he was a stray he acquired a taste for fast food trash and nothing, except possibly cat food, is as delectable as that.)

I do well to cook for the people who live here. Sorry, dog. But you can have the leftovers.