The Results Are In

It's not good news. The second vet's opinion confirmed my vet's diagnosis of a fractured coffin bone. With a couple other borderline fracture's that were most likely caught in time. So this is the treatment plan. My vet wanted Fritzy put in a bar shoe with clips and my farrier came out last Friday and put on Fritzy's "special" shoe. Basically what this shoe does is act like a cast and prevents her hoof from expanding. Fritzy will be on stall rest probably for up to 6 months, depending on how the coffin bone heals. These fractures take a long time to heal and she needs to be kept as quiet as possible. She will re-xray the hoof in 6-8 weeks and see where it is at. So what does one do without a barn or stall? Well, we build a stall!

Temporary stall for a day and night.

We moved Fritzy out of her larger temporary stall that was put in one of our big run in sheds and we put her in a 12 x 12 panel stall. Then we had to buy stall mats and lumber to begin our huge weekend project. I had to work at the Arabian farm last week, which meant my OH had to start the stall project all by himself. By the time I got home on Saturday, he had scooped the old bedding out of one side of the 16 x 24' run in shed (new stall is 12 x 16', which my vet approved), put in a thick layer of gravel and put the stall mats in. He had also framed out the divider wall and got half of that up. The next day we finished building the divider wall, put up the stall front, put in a feed door and spread shavings. The only thing we couldn't get done was the lights. But it was complete enough to move Fritzy into her new "prison cell". 

Fritzy's new prison cell.

The feed door is great, not only for feeding her, but if it's a nice day out I can leave the door open and she can stick her head out and see Rio and watch what I am doing in the arena. Nothing better then a room with a view, right? She has a treat ball that she will spend hours chewing and I will add a lunch feeding to her feeding schedule to keep her occupied and her mind off being locked up. She has a couple salt blocks and I have a couple tie rings to tie her up and groom her. Once the lights are installed and it is a dark and dreary day, which happens a lot around here fall, winter and spring, I will be able to see what I am doing. The window also helps to let in additional light, especially if the sun is out.

I tried getting a picture of Fritzy hanging her head out the feed door window last night, but my camera phone has issues sometimes and when I go take a picture it shuts off. It is so frustrating because then I have to pull the battery to get it to turn back on and wait for it to cycle through all it's stuff and I try to take another picture and it shuts off again. It doesn't do it every time but it did it twice last night when I was trying to get a picture. Darn phone. 

In other news: When Rio first came home back in August, she got her lead rope off on day 3. Well, I think if she had not done that I would be a little further in gentling her. She is about as tough as they come. She is doing awesome in the round pen and will face me and walk 3-4 steps towards me. But I can't get her to come all the way in. I can still get up to about 2 feet of her. I quit doing stick work (where I touch her with a stick) because I don't think she was ready for that. She absolutely does not like the touch. So what we have been doing is at feeding time when we dump her grain in her feed bin in the shed, my OH puts his hand in the bin and she will eat around his hand. He is able to take a finger or two and rub along the side of her face. She does okay with that but sometimes turns and runs away. Well the last few days he has taken a lead rope and with the snap in his hand and holding the snap in the open position while his hand is in the feed bin. While Rio is eating he was going to try to slip the snap onto her halter. The first couple days didn't work and Rio knew something was up. Then last night as Rio was eating her grain, she dropped her head and the halter ring landed right into the lead rope snap and my OH let go, Rio freaked out and took off running with a lead rope flying behind her. She has had a lead rope on before and it never phased her, but this night, wow. I had a rodeo bronc show going right before my eyes. She was trying everything she could think of to get the darn rope from following her, even doing the most amazing 360 spins, she set right down on those hocks and spun around like she was a national champion reining horse! I just might have a reining horse on my hands!!! It was unbelievable. Do I see a little reining in my future? Either that or cutting. She is QUICK!!! It took her awhile to settle down. But she is doing good today. My hope is that while round penning her, I can eventually start picking up the end of the rope and getting stuff done that way. I am trying everything I can think of and she just does not want anything to do with touching. Here's something interesting I would like to share: Last Saturday night we went to the neighbors for a BBQ and a 7 yr old girl wanted to go see my horses (she has been here to see them before). So I brought her over and when I brought her up to see Rio, Rio knew it was a new person and started trotting around and snorting at the little girl. Rio does not do that with me or my OH. So that shows you how they do bond with "their" people and anyone "new" is scary to them. It took her a few minutes to quit trotting around and even then she kept snorting at the little girl. She has seen kids before, because my niece comes up to feed carrots every week or two. She will get exposed to as many people as I can expose her to. My dad is coming up tomorrow to visit and we will see how she reacts to him. 

Well, that's it for now. I better go get Fritzy's stall cleaned, Rio's corral cleaned and do some more Mustang gentling! Thankfully we have had unbelievably beautiful weather the entire month of September and today it's October 1st and the sun is shining! It is supposed to continue to shine the rest of this week. I'll take it as long as long as it keeps coming! We usually already have a few inches of mud and right now we have a few inches of dust! Love me some dust!!