August 3, 2011 - Not quite right but still willing

Two poles four and a half feet apart

 Today I set up two ground rails four and a half feet apart (the standard distance for trot poles) and one pole beside them.  Rory was good for longeing, but he didn't seem quite himself.  There wasn't anything really obvious, but he wasn't as happy and he kept dropping his carrot chunks, sometimes a minute after I gave it to him.  He took the carrots from me without hesitation and seemed to be chewing them.  The only other obvious sign was more saliva production than usual - to the point of dropping gobs of clear saliva when he opened his mouth.


Left lead canter

  The ride went all right and Rory quickly figured out the trot poles.  He would trot straight towards them without needing course corrections and then try to drift to one side or the other a couple of strides in front of the first pole so our path wasn't always straight over the poles.  We cantered on both leads, and over the single pole.  Rory was a good boy despite whatever was not right.


Cantering over a pole again - easy!

 I remembered a horse I knew years ago who we nicknamed Slimer because of the great gobs of saliva he always dropped on people.  It turned out that he was eating burrs and had some stickers stuck in the cheeks and gums of his mouth.  Rory had been fine when I fed him in the early morning, but he had nibbled the top off a weed that the horses normally don't touch.  I wondered if that was causing his gobbery mouth so I flushed his mouth with salt water in case there was something stuck in his cheeks or tongue. I had some trouble flushing as he swallowed the salt water several times!  The salt water seemed to help as he was back to normal by the time he got dinner in the evening.