Horse Health: Checking Your Horse's Vital Signs

Every horse owner should know how to check a horse's vital signs.  This can alert you to trouble, give you some indication of how serious it is, and give you important information to relay to your vet if you need to call them.

Here's a great guide to checking your horse's vital signs, and a pretty nice wall chart to go with it.

The only thing I would add is you also need to know your own horse.  Every horse is an individual, and normal vital signs may vary slightly.  It's also important to know your horse's normal demeanor and behavior, as even small changes in behavior, stance or appearance can signal trouble brewing.  This includes things like normal behavior around other horses, in the stall, at feeding time, and when grooming and riding; how the horse holds its body and positions its legs; and the horse's expressions and attitude - the face, ears, eyes and lips can tell you a lot.  Horses can be stoics - this makes sense since a horse showing pain or illness would be attractive to predators - but they vary on this spectrum as well.

Fly Crescendo

A crescendo in music can't go on forever, can it?  Monday afternoon, all of a sudden, the flies - or some type of fly - got just plain terrible - a couple of us tried to ride outside and the horses were kicking at their bellies, and just plain beside themselves, so we went back in.  Pie grows a lot of foot - we're just at 5 weeks since his last trim, and there's a lot of extra hoof wall already - I've never met a horse that grows so much foot - and while he was stamping in the aisle (concrete with no rubber mats, unfortunately), all of a sudden he was going stamp, muffled "squee", stamp, muffled "squee" - at first I couldn't figure out where the sound was coming from.  He'd clearly made his feet sore stamping, poor guy, so I gave him a 500-lb. dose of Banamine before I left.

I didn't ride any of my horses yesterday.  I went to the barn in the morning to ride Dawn, and when I drove up, no horses were visible in the pastures - where were they?  I looked, and both the mares and geldings were clustered at the gates, desperate to get in - this was about 10 a.m. in the morning when they would have usually been out in the pastures grazing.  The horses were sweating, and upset, and stamping and swishing - the very bad flies were still at work.  Red was at the gate with Pie, and insisted on coming in right away.  Dawn even whinneyed to me in her desperation.

All the horses ended up coming in - they were really upset - some had bloody spots all over their chests and bellies.  A number of other barns in the area had the same 24-hour problem, with horrible flies and horses driven crazy.  Last night the flies were much better - just normal flies - and the horses were happy in the pastures all day today.  We suspect some sort of unusual flie hatch - perhaps a specific fly species - we're just all glad they're seemingly gone.

Yesterday Pie's left front was all cracked, with a large piece about to break off.  My farrier/trimmer can't come until Thursday, so I was lucky to catch another farrier who was at the barn yesterday and get him to rasp off Pie's broken piece. Luckily, the crack went no further than the sole, and taking off the piece should stop the crack.  But I didn't ride him today.

Dawn is back to normal - we had an excellent ride this morning where we did some nice walk/trot/canter work, including some nice loose rein and also softening work.  She seems to be accepting me again, which is a good thing . . .

Red and I did more walk/trot work under saddle.  He's still a bit stiff starting out in trot, but is working well and is very willing and able to move out.  I'm delighted with his enthusiasm and work ethic - he absolutely insists on doing something with me every day.  As soon as he can walk up and down our steep hills under saddle, we'll be starting tours of the pastures in preparation for trail riding . . .

The Horse Comes Back . . .

I was very proud of both Dawn and Red yesterday.  They both came back to me after being very worried about something, and looked to me for guidance and direction, and were able to calm down again after being worried.  This is a big deal for me, but you can't make it happen.  All horses can become worried, afraid or spook, but it's what happens after that that matters . . .

Dawn continues to do well - we actually got a few moments of relaxation, although not many, in our ridden work yesterday.  I was careful not to hang on her mouth, but to maintain a following contact, even when she was rushing or not soft.  We also did a lot of circling at the trot - to help her calm down, I direct with the inside rein and let the outside rein relax.  My objective is to get her to lower her head and soften a bit and not rush.  I don't care a lot about the shape of the circle or whether her shoulder is popping out a bit or not - these things aren't a priority, relaxation and her not feeling trapped is.  By the end of our ridden session, she was doing better, and we got some intervals of medium trot without rushing and with some softness.

But the really good thing happened when we were tacking up in the barn aisle.  She's had some trouble there recently when she's by herself, since my daughter left about 10 days ago.  She got scared there (by a horse running and screaming outside) right after my daughter left and was determined to leave, and nothing I did was going to change her mind.  Things have been improving, and I've been able to groom and tack her in the aisle again without trouble.  Yesterday was shavings day . . .  The barn Dawn is in is set into the side of a hill, with a concrete ceiling and the hay and shavings barn above.  We were in the aisle tacking up when the tractor came into the shavings barn, dropped its bucket (crash) and ladled up some shavings (loud scraping noises).  This was directly over Dawn's head.  Now, she's dealt with these noises in the past - she doesn't like them but can cope - but yesterday she was alarmed - her head went up and she was thinking about leaving again.  A couple of days ago, she wouldn't have been able to cope, but yesterday, when I reassured her and talked to her, she was able to relax again - a very good sign that she's starting to trust and look to me again.

Red also did very well.  When I brought him back into the barn aisle after our afternoon work session, one of the boarders had set her molded bareback pad upside down on a saddle rack in the sun at the end of the barn aisle.  Red's head shot up, he was snorting, and his eyes were as big as saucers with white around them.  He looked over his shoulder and fidgeted for a moment - he was thinking about leaving pronto - but he stayed with me as I reassured him.  He would even glance over at me - he's one of those horses that really looks you in the eye - for reassurance in between snorts.  I untacked him ground tied so he could move if he had to - he stood like a champ even when he was snorting - and then we slowly approached the scary thing.  He willingly came with me, step by step, and by the time we reached it, he had calmed down completely, and he was able to turn and go back to his stall without being worried about the scary object behind him.  Very, very good!

Update on Norman-the-Pony and His "Dating" Relationship

Here's a wonderful update on Norman the pony's "dating" relationship with one of the mares at his retirement home in Tennessee - hope you enjoy it!

He's Just Not That Into You

Very funny and some great photos!

Dawn Starts to Thaw, Red is Sound and Pie is Very, Very Good

It was another very good day with horses - have to love every one of those I get.

I worked with Dawn in the morning.  Things were beginning to improve - I think she's beginning to get over my daughter leaving - it's been about 10 days.  Her demeanor on the cross ties (by herself in the barn aisle with no horses in) was back to normal - she stood there while I groomed and didn't fidget and fuss.  And she even did some nose-resting - she didn't ask for it but when I asked her if she would do it she agreed.  We did that for a long time, and I told her that I missed my daughter too and understood how she felt.  That seemed to help.  Saddling was uneventful - no pinned ears or unhappiness.  We rode in the arena by ourselves, and she was completely willing, although not completely relaxed.  I was delighted with how well she was doing and didn't ride too long.  I turned her out and she walked off happily.  She seemed a bit sad in her stall this evening, but I think things are slowly thawing . . .

Red did very well in his ridden session today.  We did some more trot work after a long walk warm up - only trotting in straight lines although he was volunteering to go around the corners for the first time - and he was completely sound and moving beautifully, with his lovely, flowing, engaged trot.  We only added a minute or two of trotting to our regime, although he felt like he wanted to go on all day.  It's such a delight to ride him - his gaits are exceptional, and with his new work ethic and desire to please, there's a lot of good things in our future . . .

Pie and I also had a very nice ride.  We worked in the arena, using cones.  We did a lot of transitions, and shortening and lengthening at the trot, and serpentines in short trot and diagonals and long sides in big trot.  I did a fair amount of sitting trot, and it felt a lot better - Pie's trot can be hard and rough, but because he was carrying himself with softness, it felt very good and I was able to sit and let my back move.  At the end, I had him stand and walked all over the arena to pick up the cones - he stood beautifully - what a good Pie.  He had a sore spot on the point of his right shoulder - I noticed this during grooming and it may have been a glancing kick blow - so I rubbed in some arnica lotion (Sore No More gel) after our ride and he seemed to appreciate it.

Dawn Hates Me

I don't know if Dawn actually hates me, or if she's just ignoring me and hoping I'll go away.  She's clearly very depressed about my younger daughter leaving again - I'm clearly a second-best substitute - and yes, I do believe that horses can be depressed.  She hasn't attempted to bite me again - we had a bit of an altercation about that as biting is something I don't tolerate - making biting motions to express pain or displeasure is fine, but actual contact is a no-no.  She largely looks through me/ignores me when I'm interacting with her, and the soft eye isn't there - there's more of an abstracted/absent eye.  She's pretty compliant - we had a rinse off today - all my horses did as it was very hot - but she ignored me throughout and when back in her stall. I'm hoping we can recover our connection, and I'm hoping to ride her tomorrow - we'll see how things go . . .

Dawn, Pie and Red Photo Spam

As promised, photos of the crew.  I used my new iPad, and I can't say it was altogether a great photo shoot experience.  The iPad is difficult to use as a camera - hard to hold up and see what you're getting - but it might work better as a video camera, but I don't know.

Anyway, after a lot of cropping and editing, I got at least a few photos that are useable.  So here goes . . .

The only good photo I got of Dawn - she was surprised to see me and even more surprised to see me holding up an odd rectangular object:

A couple of pictures of Pie grazing:

Red grazing, with a flipping up tail:

Red demonstrating how flexible a horse neck can be:

Pie again:

The two boys together - this shows the differences in their builds and colors (somewhat - the exposures don't really show the contrast - Red is a deeper and brighter red than Pie, whose color is also fairly rich) - Red is in front and Pie is in back:

Red trotting in from turnout:

And airborne Pie trotting in down the hill:

* * * * * *

It was a good day with horses - I rode all three.  Dawn coped well in the morning - she still cannot tolerate being on cross ties in the barn aisle if no other horses are around, but she did very well otherwise and in our ridden work.  We ended up with a walk around in the mare pasture.  She's definitely in heat, based on her interactions with a gelding who's in a paddock next to the pasture - she's still in the squeal and strike phase.

Red and I had a nice walk and trot session, where we did about 3 minutes total of trotting, and then finished with my leading him on pasture patrol around the (empty) mares' pasture.  Pie and I did a nice pasture ride with two other boarders and then did a bit of arena work at walk, trot and canter using cones.  A good day with horses, indeed!