September in Review

Many things happened this month at the rescue, and I hope I can remember everything! First and foremost, I began training Jesse, the now almost three month old foal. The main thing I worked on with him is halter breaking, or teaching him how to wear a halter. Learning how to wear a halter is a vital start to his training, since it is used to lead him, and without it, he would just be completely free.

The things about foals is that they are extremely high strung, squirmy, and despite being little, are still quite strong. It took lots of wrangling to get the halter on him.

Another exciting event that I unfortunately had to miss due to being required to be at school for the day was a rescue mission. There were 3 horses, and a mini pony. The poor animals were trapped in a barn for over a year, most of the time with no food and water. Two of three horses were sent to a foster home, and the mini was already adopted. The third horse, a Paint mare (named Cheyenne) is currently staying at the barn for training (by me.)

I also began working with Cherry, the gray Arabian mare that had surgery last month for a fracture in her leg. The main things I have been working on with her so far are backing up, as well as going over the many obstacles. I have been extremely impressed with her determined personality, as she has gone through all of the obstacles with no hesitation.

The last major event that has happened this month was an outbreak of Strangles in the barn. Strangles is a disease that has the symptoms of abscesses in the lymph nodes of the head and neck causing coughing fits and difficulty swallowing. Although it's not usually deadly to horses, it is extremely contagious, and it on average takes about a month to go away. So, for the time being it's a lot of cleaning and disinfecting of things. Luckily, only a few of the horses got sick, and the ones that are have not been seriously ill.

One way I have showed initiate this month has been with the disinfecting of everything. Every day, I disinfect water and feed buckets, stall cleaning materials, and even the stalls. It might be overkill, but I am making sure that the disease does not spread to any healthy horses.

The definite highlight of this month was working with Cherry, as I was shocked by how willing she was to work. She is also a total sweetheart, which is an added bonus. Her new owners are going to adore her.

I have learned many things this month. I learned how to halter break a foal, and also how to teach a horse to get out your bubble. Barn management wise, I learned how to handle an outbreak of disease at the barn, take care of sick horses, give oral medicines, and treat swollen lymph nodes. A very important thing I learned, however, was watching horses I am training more closely. I began working with Cheyenne, a horse with an unknown history, and I got over confident and cocky, not realizing that I was overloading her with information. And, she decided that she was sick of me, and I ended up getting kicked right in the stomach (which was not fun in the slightest.) As painful as it was (also my friends thought I was dying), the experience taught me that not all horses can be trained the same way.

The biggest challenge I faced this month was dealing with the Strangles outbreak at the barn. Because of it's extremely high infection rate, I had to be careful which things I used with each horse, since certain things were designated with sick and healthy horses, and using the wrong item could mean infecting not sick horses. I also had to make sure to thoroughly disinfect my hands, boots, and clothes before doing anything with my own horses, so that I would not get them sick too.

This month has been eventful, to say the least. Currently, I am trying to get as many hours as I can at my internship before the winter, in case I cannot go there because of bad weather. Next month, I hope to continue working with Calvin and Jesse, and possibly go on a rescue mission, since I had to miss the last one.