It's not the knee

So after having the vet out yet again, we have determined that it is not Duck's knee that is giving her pain. It is still in the hoof. It's good that it isn't the knee, but it is bad in that it is another round of unknown slight grade lameness and that it has been off and on now for over a year. The vet says it may be navicular syndrome and for starters we are going to try putting shoes on her front feet to see if lifting her up off the ground helps. She goes so much nicer on the soft sand, so it is very apparent that with trail riding and such that she is going to need the extra lift of the shoe to make her more comfortable beyond the boots that I have been using to protect her feet. At this point I am up for trying about anything!

Beyond that though things have been going well. I didn't get to play with her over the weekend but headed out today.
But before I get to today's session I want to tell you what I did last week.

Trail ride! Yippee! Duck trailered very well and we rode on the trails for about an hour and a half with friends. She was SO good, even wanted to lead some of the way. And when a tree fell in the woods and was VERY loud (I thought it was a gunshot) She just tensed and didn't even try to go anywhere. All the horses were worried about that, but they all did very well. I was so proud of her! Even ended the ride by standing up on her

The chiropractor was also out last week for Duck. Her shoulders were a bit jammed up, which doesn't surprise me. Other than a few vertebrae here and there that were out though, she was in pretty good shape! That same day while a friend and I were talking with the chiropractor I was letting Duck graze. Well one of the guys at the barn came around by Duck with the really noisy tractor holding an 900 lb bale of hay in the front of it. I tried to tell him to stop but he kept coming closer to Duck and I knew she was going to spook. She took off with the 12ft line still attached and I figured she was going to run all the way back to her barn which is a ways. But I went after her and she only went about 4-5 strides before she turned back around to face the tractor, and me and then came right back to me. I was thrilled!

We have also been playing with the figure 8 a little on the 22ft line, playing with increasing our draw. So I send her out around the cone and bring her right back. At first she was very unconfident to come back. This was very revealing to me of how unconfident she can be about things. But repetition and lots of rest in between has really helped. Now we will be moving on to the whole figure 8 which is what i did today.

One whole figure 8. You wouldn't think it would be so difficult, but it seems to have eluded me after much play in this area. How do I know? Well if liberty is the truth then Duck was telling me that only the line was keeping her from leaving and that she really didn't know the pattern. So, I am breaking it down, and then going to rebuild it, hopefully stronger and better and with her feeling like she doesn't need to go away just to do a figure 8.

We also rode today and even got in some nice cantering. Some not so nice cantering the second time, but the first time was good. If I could just figure out what it is I am doing or not doing that is adding to the inconsistency that would be great. But most of the time we are going well for increasing lengths and that is huge progress!