Tentative Date

Just got off the phone with my vet and made a tentative date for Dollar to be put down. June 9 is the dreaded day.

Why does it have to be so soon??

Picture Spam!!!!

I've been down to visit Dollar at least once, if not twice a week. Of course I'd love to go visit him more, but something about having a 7-month old kinda puts a kink in things.

Oh, and we're trying to figure out how to tell the Brody and Madison (the nephew and niece) about Dollar being put down. The simplest answer: he's gone to see Jesus. Basically to my 4-year-old nephew, anything that dies goes to see Jesus. I'll take that :) 

So in true picture spam fashion, here is a couple whack load of photos from the past couple weeks in no particular order.

Mars leading Dollar to me.

Brody leading Dollar into pasture for me.

Brody having a "discussion" with Dollar about leading :)

Brody trying to catch Dollar for me :)

Ok, you see where all the grain is by the fence, right? And look where he is. That's how far he dragged his treat bucket, once step at a time, and while I was grooming him.

A small little ride out to his pasture :)

The Phat One trying to hide in the trees :)

My Horse is Odd....

Since making the decision to put him down, I've been going out to see Dollar a bit more. And I think he's enjoying the bonus attention, but also likes to make me pull my hair out and make me sad at the same time.

When I went down there on Monday to see him for a couple minutes (I had V with me and nobody was home), I put V in the house while she was sleeping and went into the pasture to see him. Now Dollar is pretty content in pasture, but when he saw me, he started ambling his was back to the gate because in his train of thought, when Mom shows up, it's time to work. He did let me pet him a little bit, before marching off toward the gate and just standing there waiting for me and basically going, "Mom's here, work time!" I felt so bad telling him that he no longer has to work. He looked a bit dejected :(

Eating trees

My Old Man leading the way to the gate, followed closely by Mars

Then, when I went down today, I was with my niece and nephew, so they came with me to get him from the pasture and bring him up to the barn so that I could pamper him a bit. He seemed to enjoy that, and also toted the kids around a little bit. At least I can take solace in the fact that my Old Man can still haul the kids around, even if it's not real work for him.

What To Do...

Well, since the decision was made about Dollar, I've been humming and hawing over what to do with all my tack. I have 2 saddles (1 Western and 1 English), 2 bridles (Western and English), grooming tools, halters, etc.

I talked with Keith and decided to keep all my tack. I may look into getting another horse in a couple years (when I don't have a little kid(s) demanding all my time) and that way I don't have to re-buy all my stuff and spend a whack-load of money.

Sigh. And now everyone is having their spring sales and as much as I want to go a buy stuff for Dollar, I know it's pointless. Sheesh. Why does this have to be so hard??

Oh, and for this blog. I've decided to leave it up as a memoriam to Dollar and (maybe) start up a different horse blog for any that I ride and any possible future horse.

Not Good News (And Why I Spent the Day Crying)

So I got some not good news from my Dad today about Dollar. He had the vet down sometime last week to pull wolf teeth on the youngsters and had him check out Dollar because it seems as though his Heaves are getting worse. Well, the vet checked him, had Sam jog him in hand, and checked him again. Turns out that he only has about 1/4 of his lungs left to use (the tail end of his lungs), the rest has totally congealed (basically turned to meat) and that I'd probably have to put him down by summer-time, otherwise he might not make it through summer.

Sigh. Not the news I wanted to hear, ande especially not now. I was hoping that he'd make it at least until 25 and that V would be able to ride him. I felt so bad for him and I know it's selfish of me, but part of me really wants to keep him around. The other (logical) part of me knows that it's time for him to go, that he's lead a good life and needs to be free of his pain.

Luckily Hubs was there when my Dad told me this, and while I was crying away, he just looked at me and told me to saddle up Dollar. Which at first didn't make sense to me as I had just ridden him before getting this news, but then it clicked it. He was gonna let me take V for her first ride on Dollar.

So needless to say, I went back into the pasture to get him, with the niece and nephew following me and calling for him. He didn't seem impressed that he'd have to work again, but still came and let my niece ride him back to the barn.

Put my Western saddle on him, hopped on and then got V on with me. And off we went....
Dollar just walked ever so slowly while I held V as we rode. Sigh. Just tearing up looking at the video again. Dollar did awesome with her (duh, when is he not awesome?!?!) and even backed up and spun with her. Such a good Old Man.

Me and Keith decided later in the evening that we'll wait until after his 20th birthday in June to put him down. I know it's selfish, but I want him to see his 20th before he goes to greener pastures. I basically spent the rest of the evening in tears.

So not ready for this....

Easter Ride (Somewhat)

We went down to my Dad’s for supper and got there early enough that I could get a quick ride in on Dollar. So I made sure that V was fed and then ran to the back to get in a quick ride. Gave him a quick grooming, tacked up, hopped on and did some work at the walk/trot with some collection and bending in there to mix it up for him. I tried to get him to canter a bit, but he was dragging his lazy but, so I decided not to push for it. He was being really willing, so I was just happy with that. After I was done riding, I gave Madison a ride and had to bargain with her to get her off. She’d stay on her horse all day if she could.

Once I got her off, I decided to do some ground work with Dollar, making him do his showmanship stuff, but without me holding him. And good thing I had my crop with me as he needed some reminders about what I was asking him to do and being stubborn about it. He was being lazy when I asked him to jog beside me, but after a “reminder” all of a suddenly we remembered what we were supposed to be doing. Same thing with the pivoting. After a couple minutes of doing this, I had him beside me (without me holding him), going up and down the arena, doing what I was doing, when I asked him to do it. Yeah!

Good Citizen Pony Training has commenced. J

Teaching The Young Guy

Another beautiful day to go riding. Keith was working overtime again and had the car, so Sam came to pick up me and V so that I could go ride Dollar and V could spend some time with Poppa.

The Old Man showing off his 'hawk.

Got to the house, dropped V off inside and then went to go ride the Old Man. I realized that I had forgotten my saddle pad at home so I just grabbed one of the Western pads for today. Brushed Dollar up as best I could, but he’s starting to shed like a mad man. Which is a good thing, but he’s got a lot of hair! Got him tacked up while Sam was tacking up Buster, Natalie’s new horse. He’s quite good looking, just needs a lot of ground work done and today would be his first day out on the road to see how he does. Sam had a couple issues with getting him ready because he wasn’t trained to stand tied, but once he got over that, we mounted up and went on our way down the road. Luckily this time there were no kids asking to pet the horses, so we didn’t have to stop and go.

Buster hadn’t been near cars at all, so we stopped when the first couple passed us just in case he freaked out. But as our ride progressed, he got better with each passing car. Except for one truck that zoomed past us and made Buster jump to the side, but otherwise he was well behaved. We even got both of them jogging for a ½ mile. Dollar thought I was trying to kill him. He was wheezing again, but he had an energetic trot, so I know he has energy and it was just the damn heaves acting up. We ended up doing a lot of walking, but it was good for both horses.

Proof I rode :)

Sam on Buster.

Once we were back home, I worked Dollar for a couple minutes in the coral before untacking him and putting him away.