Lazy L Ranch

04/01/2024

💕 My wish for every animal is for their owner to see them through to the end of their life. They deserve it.

01/15/2024

😅

11/17/2023

😆

I was at the university a few days ago working on a draft horse who came out of sedation just long enough to kick me through a stall door. So, I’m taking today off to both feel sorry for myself and to draft out my experiences as a moving target.

Horse Kicks 101

Even when you work on very well trained and gentle horses, getting kicked is somewhat of an occupational hazard as a farrier. Sometimes it’s out of fear or pain, sometimes it’s by mistake, and on occasion even good horses have bad days. Whatever the reason, the resulting world of hurt for us comparatively soft and squishy monkeys is the same. However, just how badly one is injured can depend a lot on the conviction and breed of the offending (or offended) critter.

The breed voted most likely to knock you across the aisle way in high school would be the American thoroughbred. Like most things in Europe, the European thoroughbreds seem to have a more level head about them. Much like myself, the American TB (especially the on-track race horse) is a rather high strung critter whose environment has made them prone to both panicked flight and personal injury. When they kick it’s powerful, wildly unpredictable, but accurate, and always followed by the snapping of the cross ties as they gallop to perceived safety screaming “I’m a racehorse! I am a racehorse!” as they disappear down the driveway.

Next on the list of crazies is the Arabian horse, especially the Egyptians. It’s my theory that their small dished heads compress their brains, making them prone to hallucinations. The larger the dish, the more likely they are to mistake a blowing leaf for a horse-eating dragon. When they kick it’s completely unpredictable, light, but deadly fast. The Arab will also gallop to safety, but that’s likely 50 or more miles away. Also, one should be aware that when the leaf monster presents itself the Arabian has the ability to to teleport its way to safety.

The American Quarter Horse is the labrador of the equine industry. They are cool tempered and unexcitable. Snakes, rogue cows, or even that mounted migrant worker commonly known as a cowboy shooting off their backs rarely gets them to raise more than an eyebrow. If you do managed to get kicked by one of these guys you (or someone they felt very strongly about) likely deserved it. Unlike Arabs or thoroughbreds, when they kick something they meant to do it. While they might not be as fast as their caffeinated cousins their blows come down with the accuracy and might of Thor’s hammer. They always accompany their mighty blows with a inquisitive yet judgmental expression to suggest “did you learn something today?”

Draft horses are best described as gentle giants. They are kind, forgiving and dumb as a box of rocks. If you are unlucky enough to be walloped by one of these tanks it’s likely because they forgot you were there. What the draft horse lacks in conviction they make up for in brute force. Accuracy and speed doesn’t really matter that much when dropping nuclear warheads.

Ponies… I am convinced the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse will be charging in on the burning fury of pony hooves. It really doesn’t matter what you did or didn’t do, ponies will kick simply because they can. They are a weapon of equal opportunity. What they lack in brute force they make up for in quantity. So much quantity…

Donkeys/mules are not horses, and they will be sure to remind you of that fact should you forget. They are even tempered, but unforgiving. It doesn’t take a very big donkey to carry a grudge. When they feel you are deserving of capital punishment they have no qualms about dishing out. They are the ninja snipers of the equine world. One shot, one kill is the donkey’s motto. If one of Hell’s own minions fires a shot at you and misses it was only a warning. When they strike their hooves rip the very fabric of time and space to arrive faster than the speed of light.

(Please understand that not every Arabian is crazy and not every draft horse is dumb. These are lighthearted stereotypes that come from my personal observations and experiences gathered over my 20 years standing behind the anvil. I know they will not be true of every horse. )

Carry on.

10/21/2023

Suffering from laminitis is a 💔 for all horses, of course. It is just a huge statement when we see how even a horse like Secretariat did not get appropriate treatment.

Secretariat was declared dead at the age of 19 by lethal injection, according to an article in the NY Times published on Oct. 5, 1989, stating he 'contracted' laminitis a month earlier, on Sept. 4th. It is incredibly unfortunate that so much of the horse world does not understand laminitis any better almost 35 years later. While Secretariat was diagnosed with acute laminitis on that day, no doubt he suffered from chronic laminitis (what Jaime Jackson refers to as WHID - whole horse inflammatory disease) for many years due, in part, to grazing in the lush grass pastures of Kentucky.

"Secretariat was suffering from laminitis, a painful and usually incurable degenerative disease of the sensitive inner tissues of the hoofs," wrote reporter Steven Crist. Unfortunately, many people still believe this to be true. And the reality is that laminitis is both treatable and preventable when you feed and manage horses according to the needs of their species (each horse is not 'unique' when it comes to what's generally best for them). Poor Secretariat was allowed to continue grazing in his grass paddock until the day he died.

10/05/2023

10/05/2023

I hope that all equestrians will find themselves so lucky one day to discover the truly difficult horse.

The horse who demands such fair and respectful treatment that their refusal to put up with unfairness initially takes you aback, leaving you unsure of how to respond to them in training. Leaving you questioning everything you knew.

The horse who forces you to reflect on your training toolbox and to consider why resorting to physical punishment as a go to for unwanted behaviour may not be the best method of problem solving.

The horse who, ultimately, results in such a systemic change in you as a horse person that every horse you touch afterwards is better for it.

Sometimes, we just need a truly difficult horse to force us to reflect on our areas of weakness and reawaken why we got into horses in the first place.

This type of horse is one who refuses to give in to unfair treatment. They will demand from you kindness, fair work hours, transparency and respect. They want to know what is in it for them. Such demands can be exceedingly uncomfortable initially.

Many horse people may react to these types of horses with anger and choose to blame the horse for being too naughty, too stupid or too disrespectful. Doing so is taking the easy way out and lacks accountability.

For those who are ready to commit to self betterment, though, they will respond to these horses with curiosity and start to look inward and adapt to reach this horse and help them succeed. Even if they aren’t able to have this response initially, they will eventually get there.

And thus begins the journey that will change your perception of horses as you know it. It will help you adapt your training in a way that allows for you to work with all types of horses. You will learn important deescalation tactics and realize that explosive stress responses are often created from human intervention, not the fault of the horse.

These horses teach us traits that make us better people as a whole and they are ones that we will always remember and hold dear, no matter how much grief and frustration they initially may cause us.

I am so incredibly thankful for these horses. For without their demands, without their strength of spirit; I would likely have continued to enable myself in lacking flexibility in training, in engaging in lazy training methods that come at the expense of the horse.

Their strong wills and clear communication were the catalyst to a necessary change within.

So, thank you to the difficult horses. The horses who demand more from us and don’t succumb to poor treatment, even if it initially results in unfair treatment to them. They keep on demanding, they keep on communicating, until they are finally heard.

These are the horses that ignite the change in the very fabric of horsemanship. Even amongst the horse people who initially try to ignore them.

Thank them for their difficulty.

03/29/2023

Just shakin’ some hay before we put it out on the track for the horses. This particular cut of hay has VERY high levels of iron in it (400+ PPM), which actually shouldn’t even be fed to horses (I don’t know about other livestock), but we don’t really have much of a choice. Shaking it is one way of reducing the iron content. Spraying it off as well would also help to reduce the iron in it. But given our temperatures right now, we’ve elected to just shake it as best as we can. This particular cut of hay also has a very high calcium:phosphorus ratio, so we will balance the iron with supplemental zinc and copper and add phosphorus in the form of wheat bran to balance the calcium to phosphorus ratio. Having horses with Equine Metabolic Syndrome has been a real eye-opener for us when it comes to horse nutrition.

Did you also know that horses that aren’t on fresh pasture need supplemental Vit E? They also need omega 3’s and salt.

Don’t take my word for it though. Take Dr. Eleanor Kellon Vmd’s advice. She’s done all of the homework for us.

https://drkhorsesense.wordpress.com/2022/10/03/the-three-things-every-hay-based-diet-needs/

02/27/2023

02/12/2023

“I don’t want much, I just want to groom once in a while and go for an easy trail ride here and there”-

This is a statement folks often make, which makes perfect sense from a human point of view. It doesn’t require much time, effort or skill gaining, and the expectation appears low- for the horse to just stand quietly, or happily trod along down the trail.

From a riders perspective, grooming requires relaxing and enjoying brushing their horse. Trail riding usually involves relaxing and leaving the horse mostly alone to enjoy the outdoors and company.

From a horses point of view, however, this is not so easy a task. To ”just be brushed,” the horse has to have enough confidence to leave the herd, the skills to lead well to the barn, the ability to stand tied quietly for a length of time in isolation away from friends, to stay focused enough to stand despite the distractions and movement around them in the barn.
That’s a lot!

To “just trail ride,” the horse has to have the afore mentioned skills, plus load in a trailer, ride in the trailer and unload (those are all separate skills), leave friends quietly and ride calmly past all kinds of input and stimulus- they have to know what rider input to tune into (legs and reins), and which to shut out (rustling around to get a granola bar out of saddle bags, yammering to friends). They have to manage terrain with balance, leave or join other horses, or ride past other people, dogs, bikes, etc. They often have little guidance from a rider who’s expectations and attention to the horse is low (who is relaxing and enjoying company or scenery, not giving attentive communications to the horse).

That’s a TALL order for a horse, and quite a drastic difference in expectation between horse and rider in terms of education, attention and workload.

Think from the horses point of view. Don’t skimp on the education, the awareness, and don’t leave your horse to their own devices for “simple tasks.” A horse is a horse, and not a human- and they see our world very differently. It’s on us to prepare and guide them.

11/20/2022

If we never make mistakes, we never learn. I can’t think of a single thing in life that I can do with any sort of competency without having made plenty of mistakes in order to even learn it at all, much less be competent at it. Horses are probably the biggest area in my life where I’ve made mistakes, and the biggest area where you find 25 different answers to a question! It’s REALLY hard to learn especially if your instincts are screaming at you because what you’ve been taught goes against your core values.

Luckily, horses give us lots and lots and lots of chances to fix our mistakes. 💕

I used to carry so much shame surrounding mistakes I had made with horses and it led me to feeling incredibly defensive and always on the lookout for potential attacks.

Recognizing the mistakes I made and moving on from them without shaming myself has been incredibly freeing.

People have very little to come at you for if you are admittedly on a perpetual path of growth and are open to being proven wrong and changing practices as needed.

Everyone in the horse world is still learning and growing, if they chose to. The ones who claim to know everything have stagnated in growth and allowed ego to overpower potential for change because they think they’ve learnt it all, something that is impossible to do.

My growth stagnated the most when I felt the need to put on the persona that I knew everything simply because I had existed in the industry for many years. It led to me denying science and seeking only confirmation bias, effectively limiting my growth as an equestrian.

The horse world is filled with so much judgment but the judgment is usually done with the wrong intentions. It’s become more acceptable to judge people for the brands they wear, the horses they ride or their equitation than it has been to base your opinions of people off of their horsemanship and if they practice what they do ethically.

Status also seems to protect people. Upper level riders are mostly untouchable and can do some pretty terrible things and remain mostly unscathed by any consequence, effectively condoning the bad things they do and sending this message to young up and coming equestrians who idolize them.

I don’t want to be anyones idol. I want people to realize that like them and anyone else, I am fallible. I make mistakes. I’ve made mistakes in the public eye.

But, now, I try to own them because I think it can be used as learning experience for me and others and take away the shame that comes with slipping up.

We all do it, so why do we try to hide it and pretend we’re more perfect than we are? It just makes the entire community feel less safe to make mistakes in.