step by step

It’s almost five weeks since Doozy’s little ill-advised misadventure, and… not gonna lie, it seems like FOREVER.

quality grazing time

Presumably everybody feels this way, but I just *hate* having a horse on stall rest — it makes me feel unbearably guilty and sad for them to be cooped up in a box all day. Like, sure, academically I know it’s for their own good, and that horses are amazingly resilient — far more so than we often credit. 

but why graze on lush grass when you could snarf around the drainage ditch???

But still. One of my main personally quirks charms is turning myself inside out, torturing myself over the littlest details of managing my stall-bound horse’s care… So for the first couple weeks of Doozy’s recovery, most days I was out twice a day for hand grazing, cold hosing, re-wrapping, all the things.

built up to an hour or two of this a day

It was an absolute mercy when my vet cleared us for increasing hand walking to prepare the horse for returning to normal turnout. 

which naturally led to shorter bursts of more intentional walkies

Tho. Lol, those of you who maybe remember Doozy’s earliest days might recall that… she’s not reeeeeally the world’s greatest hand walker haha. 

and farm explorations lol… i call this “reading the news”

Idk if it’s just bc she’s got such a big walk and gets annoyed when I can’t keep up with her, or if it brings back memories from walking around the track paddock before a race… Idk. Whatever the case, she was a handful and I was eager to graduate to the next step!

and eventually!!!!!

Still, tho, not gonna lie… I was just… Ugh, SO NERVOUS to turn her back out again. 

released back to her friends! quietly pretending that she *didn’t* just give me a heart attack running around like a loon

And even with all the trazodone and all the hand walking and all the preparation and all the things — she still ran around a bit anyway. Fortunately her pony friends only really played for a minute, they’d just had a rested section of pasture opened for them with fresh spring grass, and ponies gotta pony, right?

properly blanketed after the heat of excitement had passed lol

In the spirit of full disclosure (mostly bc the blogosphere is so empty now that perhaps even the trolls are gone?), it probably took me a full week to breathe, let alone release anxiety about whether I’d made a terrible mistake turning her out so soon.

in her element <3

The leg DID swell back up a bit for the first few days she was back out. But my vet reassured me (again and again and again, she has the patience of a saint with all the panicky texts / pics I sent!) that she wasn’t worried and to stay the course. It helped that Doozy stayed sound, too, and after a couple days the swelling was gone.

still bored and demanding tho

Idk what, exactly, I was waiting for to start tack walking, either. We had my vet’s blessing, but I was just super worried that, ya know, it’s not like I can guarantee a “nice quiet walk” with this horse, right?

It was Doozy, however, with her sweet and demanding engaging ways, who ultimately convinced me it was time. Every time I turned her out after another nice little grooming session, she’d stare incredulously at me from the gate, like, “Really tho? That’s it??”

but then!!

So. Fine! Let’s do it!

tack walkie grazies!!!!

It’s funny bc I threw on ALL of Charlie’s old tack — his l’Apogee jump saddle + his nice Millbrook Freedom Bridle hackamore — but the feeling of being “home again” was allllll Doozy.

my best pictorial representation of a deep restorative exhale

It turns out, after nearly 3 years together, this horse really is well and truly mine. And, for better or worse, she knows I’m hers too.

love it when barn mates grab shots of us just prowlin’ the grounds lol

More than a month out of work, and I threw a leg over to go hack the back hay fields (obvi with lots of stops for #snackies LOL) with my best silly little biscuit.

happy trails home again

Sure, she’s a wild and chaotic animal and there are very valid reasons why I always ride her with a neck strap LOL!

she seemed quite pleased to be doing activities again <3

But she’s not mean, and honestly not even unpredictable. She is who she is, and she didn’t put a foot wrong (so long as you can forgive her ‘barely contained’ vibrating energy haha), and it was a LOVELY first little walk about!

“see?? i’m a good girl, i wouldn’t just run away loose like a maniac!! that was some other redhead!”

And I think we BOTH felt like we could breathe a little easier afterward. Doozy is that special kind of horse who likes being busy, she likes activities, doing things, going places. And sometimes I think a lot of her tension is rooted in that anticipation and expectation.

“that hill, tho, it… calls to me….!”

Bc after a ride, she’s always at her most serene, most calm.* And go figure, me too.

(*Excluding unfortunate incidences when trash cans attack, obvi!)

still feeling cautious, but mostly just optimistic!

I still don’t know exactly how the next few weeks will unfold for us — honestly a lot of that will be based day by day on how Doozy looks and feels. And presumably my vet can still expect a few more panicky or paranoid texts, let’s be real LOL!

One step at a time, tho, and we’re checking off some important milestones!!