a close to Berlins story….

I didn’t realize this blog was still up and running. I owe an expanation for the absence.

Berlin was euthanized near the end of 2007 due to  HYPP attacks (apparently her QH side has Impressize bloodlines). She kept having her seizure type episodes that nothing could control. The final straw was when she was having the seizures repetitively and I found her outside on her side exhausted and sick with colic for being down so long. Her feet had dug trenches into the earth where she has been struggling to get up. Berlin was humanely put down that Saturday afternoon in peace with her loving pasture mates at her side.

No more suffering for this big girl. No more pain caused by us cruel humans. Time for you to run in the sunlit pastures with all of your beautiful foals you have created.

RIP my beautiful Burley girl. I’m glad I could make your last few years of life enjoyable and as easy as possible for you.

xoxo

My heart is broken that the majority of her life was spent as a slave to the pharmacutical company. She was an incredible animal with an amazing aura. My heart is broken and I have yet to find another horse that can compare to her genuine pure spirit.

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PMU horse owners unite!! :P

I’ve gotten a few emails from fellow PMU owners but I would LOVE to hear from more of you out there! I know your lurking about! I would enjoy hearing the trials and tribulations you have encountered with these “special needs” horses and the wonderful progress and milestones you’ve accomplished with them as well! Just leave a comment here and tell me about you and your horse 🙂

life has been busy

Well I honestly haven’t done much work with Berlin the last two weeks. It’s been miserable weather except for two days. I started putting the fly mask on her and the introduction was an interesting one. She sure as hell wasn’t about to make it easy for me the first time I put it on! lol. Other than that I’ve been studying up on the barefoot trim. I’ve decided I’m going to invest in a rasp and nippers and become self sufficient in the hoof trimming world. I’ve been doing a lot of research on the “mustang roll” and how to shorten the hoof wall to avoid flares from sticking around. Theres SO MUCH info my head is spinning. But with Berlin I think this route will be best as she just barely allows me to pick her hooves up, let alone the farrier. I’m excited about this! Once I get accustomed to this, I can start doing Corinas mares feet and possibly start offering my services!

She’s picking her rear hooves up finally! :)

Well it’s been 2 weeks since Berlins health crisis and she seems to be doing very well. None of the signs have reared their ugly heads as of yet, so I figured I would proceed with her training.

I decided hoof work is still the most important to get down, so again, we started on the quest of picking those rear hooves up! With Berlin it’s not so much the picking up part as it is with standing still when I go for them. I’d say 4 out of 5 times, when I go for the rear feet, she side steps so I can’t get a grasp on the hoof. I’ve tried putting her against the fence, having someone hold her and she just moves a different direction. So this time around I tucked the lead rope into my back pocket so she couldn’t wander off and started with the “hoof” cue. If she lifted her hoof and steps the opposite direction I just kept my hand on her rump telling her “whoa” the entire time until she stood still. She slowly started catching on, I think realizing it’s MUCH easier to just sit still that fuss and jump around. After about 20 mins I think she got pretty tired of fighting me and everything seemed to suddenly “click” with her. She visibly relaxed, started lifting the foot before I gave the cue and quit moving away. The next step was teaching her to quit struggling when I grasped her hoof. She wouldn’t panic or anything, she would just try to get it away from me after a few moments of holding up for me. All I had to do was cradle the hoof between my pals with my fingers laced, basically making a sling to hold her hoof up. When she struggled she got a little give but I did not let go. The second she relaxed and held it still for a minute or two, I released the hoof slowly and lavishly praised her. She was so cute because she would bend her head around to sniff my outstretched hand after every praise. She was getting it. And it was so obvious it was entirely thrilling! I repeated this over and over until I thought it was sunken in a little deeper and while I still had her attention. I wanted it to end on a good note, so on the last “hoof pickup”, Corina managed to snap a quick pic of Berlin and I. Note how relaxed she is~ but you also notice she’s paying attention to me. GOOD GIRL!! 🙂

Meanwhile, my back, arms, and neck hurt like hell! haha. She sure didn’t help me out much with her weight on me!

Berlins brush with death…

Well we’ve had quite the ordeal since I last posted here. Two Fridays ago I got a call 5:30 am from my stable owner, saying Berlin was very very sick and shaking all over, that I needed to come right away and call the vet. So completely panicked, I woke chris up and told him Berlin was sick and probably colicking. I immediately called the emergency vet- Pilchuck Animal Hospital, and told them what was going on. I got Dr.McKnight, a young cautious doctor, who called me back and told me he’d be right up. Well when I got to Berlin she was in terrible shape. Her mouth was clenched shut with her lips drawn back in horrible pain, her body was completely hunched over, and she was quivering head to toe. I called the vet again saying this certainly didn’t look like colic and he told me she may have a high fever, and to check her temp. Well I told the stable owner I was going to grab my coat and get her out of her stall to walk her around in case it was colic. When I got back from the car, the barn owner was in Berlins stall trying to get her halter on when Berlin collapsed into her, crushing and pinning her in the corner of the stall. She was screaming for Berlin to get up but Berlin wasn’t responding. Finally after chris and I jabbed our toes into her back (she had fallen against the stall door corner so we couldn’t get in) she lurched up and I grabbed Berlins lead from her. I got her out into the arena and used a brisk pace, every 5 mins or so she would start staggering and try falling over. And mind you, this wasn’ t a controlled lie down, she was literally tipping over. Well the vet got there and the second her saw her he told me it wasn’t colic. She was looking her motor skills and mobility. Somehow her brain wasn’t telling her body to move properly. The vet asked us to bring her back into her stall so he could sedate her. Once in the stall Berlin tipped and staggered towards me and pinned me in the back wall corner. The vet pulled her neck around and yelled at me to get out a.s.a.p. As I inched around her she started moving towards me again and I was stuck in the opposite corner. I squeezed past her rear end and got out. At that point Dr.McKnight was leaning with all his might to keep her up but she was putting all of her weight into him and she went down. With that fall she hit her head and pulled her water buckets out of the wall and broke some boards. After 5 mins of pulling her up and getting her back on her feet, the vet quickly gave her a small amount of sedative and painkillers. Within seconds her body relaxed and she hung her head low. He asked about her vaccination records and I told him the previous owner claimed she was up to date. He then listed off the many options of what could be going on with her.

• Tetanus
• West Nile
• Vertebrate/head trauma

He took some blood and told me he would get the results back by afternoon to know if it were the first two. He seemed to lean towards the idea she had recently had a neck or head trauma in the pasture the previous day. He thought it was in the neck since she was hanging her head in a strange way and whenever she tensed up she would go into one of her “spasms” where she would break into a sweat and her mouth was clenched shut, and she would stagger in circles in her stall for about and hour until it passed.

Well the vet left without any better of an idea than I did about the matter. He said he had never seen a horse with these signs. He gave me Bute to give her the next few days and some steroids and told me he would call me in a few hours. Well the rest of afternoon was terrible. She regularly went in and out of these “spasms” and you could see in her face and body she was in terrible pain. The doctor eventually called me back with news her blood work checked out OK. Thus meaning he was more certain it was a skeletal injury that was effecting her spinal column. Bad news.

I informed him she wasn’t looking any better but she hadn’t fallen down since the morning. He then told me only about 10% of horses with spinal injuries. I cried and criedwhen he told me this. I didn’t want her to go through any more pain, and if his diagnosis were true, I didn’t feel she should suffer any longer. Through my tears, we discussed euthanesia and disposal of the body. He told me on his was out of the office he would call me and see if I wanted him to stop by to put her to rest. I told him ok. and that I would expect his call.

I told chris what was going on and that I thought she would probably need to be put down. He refused that idea! He told me absolutely not. He said less that 24 hours wasn’t enough time to give her a chance to recover. He went on about how strong of a horse she was and that I needed to wait at least until the next day to make that decision. He said I needed to have more faith in her and think positively about this. After that discussion, Berlin didn’t have another “spasm” for two hours or so and was attempting to eat a little bit. The vet called me and asked if he should come out, and I said NO. 🙂

After 13 hours of watching over my poor girl, I had become dizzy and sick feeling since I hadn’t eaten or drank anything since the day before. Chris said I HAD to go eat something. So we gave her 1/2 a flake of hay to munch on and went home for the night. I cried all night just knowing I would go back the next morning and see a horse in complete agony. I called my parents and told them about what was going on with her. I asked my dad to go with me the next morning to help me deal with all of it.

We woke up at 7am I was a bit relieved I hadn’t heard from the barn owner, as I had asked her to call me if she looked terrible in the morning. My dad came by and picked chris and I up and we headed down. By that point I had accepted that she very likely needed to be put down and I had all the phone numbers ready to do so.

Well we briskly walked into the barn and I called for Berlin to see if her head would pop up over the door. Sure enough, there she was!! We got to her stall and she was moving, acting, and eating normally!!! I couldn’t believe my eyes, nor could Chris! My dad thought we had made it all up I think. Berlin was NOT HAPPY to be stuck inside that day either away from her pasture mate Shasta. She was irritable and aggravated- just like her normal moody self 🙂 It was a miracle! She acted as if nothing had ever happened to her. The only remnants of all the weird “seizure spasms” were a bunch of knots along her back and shoulder muscles- her coordination was back, she wasn’t staggering or tripping- . What an incredibly amazing girl she is 🙂 I threw her some hay and gave her a mash of her pellets like the vet suggested and she acted as if she were starving! Wow, what a crazy 24 hours!

Two weeks later, she still has no signs of any trauma or sickness what-so-ever. When the vet called the morning after he was completely shocked to hear she was normal. He was at a complete loss of words and didn’t know what to tell me. I kept her on Bute 2 more days and everything is back to normal.

What an amazing husband and horse I have. I’m a lucky girl. Unfortuneately the stable owner injured her knee and shoulder in the whole ordeal, but is recovering quickly.

Work, work, work!

I just hate it how work gets in the way of spending endless hours with my horse! I am a full time equine artist, and I find at times I HAVE to just sit down and get to it. I use the horsey visits as my motivation to hurry up and finish some paintings, but lately I’ve been slackin and the visits have been taking too much of my work week time. So, no Berlin today, if I finish this current painting, then I’ll go give her some apples tonight. Blah. At least the weather isn’t very nice. But anyways, heres a picture of Berlin and I on a walk- taken by Corina 🙂

More hoof work…

Today I worked quite a bit on her lifting her back hooves for me. She started with a bit of a struggle and became more relaxed. She would first lift her hoof for a second when I grasped her leg and soon she was holding it longer. I gave her ToNS of praise for this. Soon I was able to hold her left hoof behind her for a few seconds. GOOD GIRL! We went back and forth a few times. She would get irritated with my cue and would give me a little kick in my direction. Every time she did this I lunged her pretty hard for about 5 mins until she was ready to cooperate with me. At the end, I was able to hold both rear hooves up for a few seconds. Good start I would say! I also sprayed her head to toe with fly spray, as they’ve started hatching out this way, with no fuss what so-ever! She’s also getting used to me giving her pats and praise all over her body. 🙂 She’s funny too, I know when I’m irritating her because she will swing her head towards me with an evil look in her eye.

Rainy day…

Today was an icky rainy day. Originally my friend Corina and I had planned on working our horses. Due to the weather we decided to head north to Mount Vernon and go tack shopping! Oh what fun! I only ended up buying some Cowboy Magic and fly spray. Corina walked out with much much more for her new horse. I worked with Berlin back feet again in the stall and she’s doing much better. She lifts her foot for a second and doesn’t move away like before. She’s progressing slowly but surely 🙂

Heres a pic of my friend Corina holding her Appendix QH Shasta, on the left, and she has Berlin on the right. Look at her new coat coming in! Im a little excited, can you tell? 😛

More arena work…

Today I worked again on the blanketing. Tanking it off and on. She tenses up a bit still, but she doesn’t move off, she accepts it and she’s getting easier and easier. Today I practiced throwing it on her, the way a barn hand normally would and she started to relax after a bit of repetitive work. I then took her out into the arena and worked on the fly spray thing. She tensed up at first like usual, but then relaxed after a few minutes and allowed heself to be sprayed. 🙂

I then lunged her a bit in the arena. She did OK.. I wanted to make her work past the distraction of Corina riding Shasta in there with her and she got better and better about it. I couldn’t for the life of me get Berlin into a canter! She was so lazy today. Normally the “kiss” sound sends Berlin off the wall into a bucking frenzy, but today it just got a quick trot out of her.. lol. Oh well, we’ll save that for a day in the arena alone. She’s getting the direction changes down slowly but surely.and she has the whoa down pat.  All in all she’s coming along nicely. 🙂

It was a beautiful warm day today and Berlin was shedding like crazy. She’s turning out to be the most incredible rich red color. I used the pumice stone on her again and got a ton of hair out. She becoming quite the sleek beauty! I got a lot of pictures today of Berlin and my friends new Appendix Quarter Horse mare, Shasta. I’ll post some pics of her new sleeker coat tonight. The pics of Berlin and Shasta are so funny! They are similar Bays in color, but the difference in bone size and just mass is eye opening- especially when they are close to each other! If I work with my friend C and her horse for awhile, then turn back to Berlin, I forget about Berlins size! She really is a BIG girl! An incredible one at that.

More blanket training and an introduction to fly spray

So I knew today was going to be a big day for working with Berlin. It is the day after I put the blanket on her. When I arrived at the farm, all the straps were in place and she was covered head to toe in mud. Typical Berlin. She will not get through a day without a few good rolls in the wetlands 🙂

She allowed me to approach her no problem. I pulled on her blanket to adjust it as it was leaning heavily to the left a bit. She could’ve cared less! Yay! Then I got the brushes out and brushed the blanket off first then slid it off to give her a full groom. All in all, she allowed me to put it on and take it off no problem. Very good progress 🙂

Since it was such a lovely day out today ,the bugs and flies hatched and were bothering her relentlessly.  So I decided, what better time to introduce the spray bottle to her. I really want to get her used to being sprayed so she can wear repellant this summer. So I got the bottle out and started leading her around and spraying it in front of me. This was a bit nerve racking to her at first. The noise the bottle made just weirded her out. So we did this for about 10 mins until she calmed a bit.  I then, with my lead rope hand on her neck, began spraying it by my feet and slowly towards hers. All along praising her. If she took a step back, I would immediately ask her to take one forward and continue the spraying. Pretty soon she was used to the noise and the weird object. She was also allowing the spray to hit her legs without bother. One thing that helped a lot was when I saw her muscles tense right before she tried to move away, I would stop spraying the area that was making her nervous, and move back to a place she was comfortable with- this tactic worked very well. I stopped her for a moment for a ton of “Good Girl”  and a few carrots. She was getting it. I could definitely tell.  I then circled her spraying her legs and telling her how wonderful she was. Soon I moved the spray up onto her body and neck, by this time she was relaxed and getting what was asked of her. GOOD GIRL!

Then I decided to work on her leading skills. One of her issues is she will just balk for no good reason at all. She will just plant her feet, and not budge. If I try to drive her forward, as if lunging her ,she would just back up. So I recently purchased a natural horsemanship halter to use on her. It works wonderfully! The smaller rope along her poll really does put more concentrated pressure when she balks. As a result, she moves forward to relieve the pressure. As we stroll the pasture practicing her “whoas”, “go’s”, and “stands”, I decide we’ll try our hand at the pond. See how she takes to water. (When I first had gotten Berlin to her last boarding facility, she regularly slipped out of the pasture because the wire would ground out. Well upon visiting her one afternoon, she was loose in the farm owners front yard, chest deep in their ornamental pond splashing around.) Back to the current place: so I take Berlin over to the shallow pond at the back of her pasture and ask her to follow me… and she does perfectly. She slopped through the water with no hesitation! Nice! She even “whoa’d” in it and stood almost knee deep without an issue what so ever! This will be handy for trail rides in the future!