See ya, 2014.

1. What did you do in 2014 that you'd never done before? 
Left the country, took Shadow off the property for a trail ride at the horse park, started school for dialysis


2. Did you keep your New Year's resolutions, and will you make more for next year? 
I don't make them because i never keep them :) 


3. Did anyone close to you give birth?
Jessianne to my godson Nikko, and Sharlyne to handsome DJ

4. Did anyone close to you die? 
A very dear, close family friends passed tragically and too soon.



5. What countries did you visit? 
MEXICO!!

6. What would you like to have in 2015 that you lacked in 2014? 
a career


7. What date from 2014 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
June 28th, the day Nikko was born, such an emotional day!  

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? 
Keeping Shadow sound!

9. What was your biggest failure? 
Buying a new saddle, my dream saddle that I had to sell. Remind me never to do that again. -_-

10. Did you suffer illness or injury?
i had shingles at the ripe age of 25. only me. 



11. What was the best thing you bought? 
hmmm, i don't think i bought anything that great, since will bought my saddle.. 



12. Whose behavior merited celebration?
My Dad's. He did a complete 180 and I thank god everyday for helping him and keeping him on the straight and narrow. 

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? 
Family. Family. Family.

14. Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year? 
of course, but we don't need to go there, it's a long list. 


15. Where did most of your money go? 
In shadow's stomach and on his body. 


16. What did you get really, really, really excited about? 
Going to Mexico and taking Shadow to the Turkey Trot in November.

17. What song will always remind you of 2014? 
Oddly enough, "Turn Down for What" lol 

18. Compared to this time last year, are you:
i. happier or sadder? Happier
ii. thinner or fatter? Fatter
iii. richer or poorer? Richer, a little.

19. What do you wish you'd done more of? 
Riding and spent time with my nephew 

20. What do you wish you'd done less of?
Spending money 


21. How will you be spending Christmas? 
With mine and Will's families.


22. Did you fall in love in 2014?
I fell in love in 2009 and fall more in love everyday :) 

23. Did your heart break in 2014? 
I'm sure it did, but it couldn't of been anything too serious because I cant remember.

24. How many one-night stands?
none, duh. 


25. What was your favorite TV program? 
Sons of Anarchy


26. Where were you when 2014 began? 
in my bed sleeping I believe.. lol 

27. Who were you with? 
William and I don't think i made it to midnight but his sister and her fiance and their dad were with us too, at some point.

28. Where will you be when 2014 ends? 
no plans as of yet, probably home!

29. Who will you be with when 2015 starts?
William

30. What was the best book you read?
I don't have any time to read and it is really hard for me to find a book that keeps me interested.

31. What was your greatest musical discovery? 
remembering how much i love country music and how much everything else annoys me. lol


32. What did you want and get?
a new saddle

33. What did you want and not get?
new boots, not yet anyway

34. What was your favorite film of this year?
i don't think i really saw anything that i thought was really great.


35. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you?
my actual birthday was a Sunday and I worked and then spent the day out with Will. The night before we went out with friends for dinner, I turned 25 #overthehill


36. How many different states did you travel to in 2014?
i stayed in NJ until we left the country for the first time ever in October.


37. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2014?
I only get dressed on the weekends, haha


38. What kept you sane?
William 


39. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Charlie Hunnam


40. Whom did you miss?
Will. I know, i know, we live together but we work all day and then I go to school all night and we are so busy playing catch up on the weekends that we hardly have time to do anything together.


41. How many concerts did you see in 2014?
None


42. Who were the best new people you met?
Kris and Greer


43. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2014:
Planning ahead NEVER works out.


44. What are your plans for 2015?
Nothing planned, besides moving Shadow to a new barn on January 1st, hopefully taking a giant leap in completing his training and not having to think so hard anymore. Finishing school in June and hopefully starting my career full time.  A house, maybe? who knows! I'll just continue to fly by the seat of my pants for now. lol

Wishing everyone a happy and healthy new year :)

Moving on

Since spring arrived the thought of winter was weighing heavy on my mind. Now that it's here, I cannot afford to allow Shadow to sit and do nothing all winter long again. It was such a set back, he needs to be in a consistent work schedule.

I finally decided to start looking at new places to board. This is something i never in a million years thought i would do. The thought of taking Shadow out of Bonni's care scares the life out of me. I know i never have to worry or if we need something it will always be taken are of without a second thought, but I just don't know what else to do. The winters are horrible and i just cannot ride outside in the winter in the place we are now. 

I dragged my friend Greer out on Saturday after doing a weeks worth of research and only came up with 4 place to look at. Two in Jackson, one in Allentown and one in Cream Ridge. I am not going to mention any names, but 2 out of 4 were complete nightmares, one was manageable and the fourth one i didn't even bother going because my brain was fried and I was supposed to go the following day. 

I made the decision to go to one of the ones in Jackson. They had a nice big indoor, a nice outdoor, miles and miles of trails and they even had a dressage schooling ring at the back of the property. They're fields were very very very muddy, but there were two that didn't look so bad and the owner was more than willing to make arrangements for me. I was also allowed to bring an outside trainer onto the property with me. I left there feeling confident, but not 100% confident. 

I informed them that I would be coming in on January 1st and then i broke the news to Bonni. I cried having to tell her and even after telling her I had a very deep nervous feeling in my stomach, but i tried to ignore it and tell myself this is what needed to be done and i had to at least give it a try. 

Sunday came and I had the boarding agreement all filled out ready to be dropped off, but then things took a turn. I had remembered a while ago William mentioning to me that one of his friend's girlfriend was 'into horses', whatever that means. lol I happened to see that friend of William's on sunday and we started talking. Turns out, his girlfriend OWNS a property with a large indoor and outdoor,  large barn, hot and cold wash stall and a heated viewing room attached to the indoor.

Sounded almost too good to be true. It is only a few more minutes into Howell from where Shadow and I are now. I contemplated it for a little while, then ended up taking a ride later that day to go see it. It was dark out, but as soon as i walked into the barn it felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders. All of the horses were tucked in happily munching away on there hay and all picked up their heads to greet me. They all looked great, happy, healthy, shiny and fat! 

The more i talked to the owner the better i felt. I took a look at the indoor and the wash stalls, tack and feed areas, hay, etc. Everything looked great. I didn't get to see the property because it was dark, but it turns out that a girl that i grew up riding with boards her mare there. (small world) 

The owner and I finished our conversation and she said she would be in contact with me by the end of the night or next morning about pricing and other specifics. In the mean time i did some of my own research and have heard nothing but wonderful things. The owner and I were in touch by the end of the night and came to an agreement, how exciting! 

I am going back Saturday with Dom and Greer in my presence to take care of all the final paper work, see the field in which shadow will be spending his time and to get verbal approval from the two of them as well as showing Dom where we will be working. 

It really feels like a weight has been lifted. The atmosphere of this barn is very similar to the atmosphere I am in now, and there is nothing better i could ask for. 

I unfortunately had to break ties with the first barn i had decided to go with, but I hope that they can understand my situation, i need to put Shadow somewhere that I can have piece of mind knowing he is being taken care of to my FULL expectations. 

We will be moving in on the morning of January 1st, stay tuned.... :) 

Supplement Struggles

For those of you that follow my blog you know shadow has a past stifle injury and know that he came out of last winter pretty much dead lame. 

Once I had seen it (I was not aware of the issue until that point, as I was not told when I adopted him) I was able to start him on Prevacox and a better joint supplement than what I had him on and he had done great. 

So in anticipation of having another winter of no riding I have upped shadow supplements being sure not to give him to much of any one thing as we all know too much of something isn't always the best. 

So I kept him on his Prevacox and his complete senior smartpak (even though he isn't a senior, lol) because I love the benefits of it. I also added another dose of HA in addition to the amount that the complete has in it and I put him on a muscle mass supplement which will aid in bulking, obviously but will also slow the deterioration when they are out of work. I'm doing everything I can to keep him sound if he is going to be off all winter again. 

So he's been on this supplement for About a month now and I have been dealing with all this back and saddle drama which is finally resolved. Shadows back is 100% better and I have bought a Pessoa that fits him like a glove. 

I went out yesterday to try my new saddle and ride my boy since he has been off since the turkey trot because I had surgery on my mouth. Shadow, he had other ideas. 

I have noticed a change in attitude lately.  When I get there to see him he is so excited and right ontop of me. Don't get me wrong he is always happy to see me but lately he has been crazy, almost like "omg mom! Hi mom, what're you doing mom" following me back and fourth and all over the place. Bonni also mentioned that she was in the barn getting dinner ready the night before and he was in the field acting like he was losing his mind which he has never ever done. 

I tacked him up and decided to lunge before I got on and with Nikko cantering around the other field shadow took one step away from me and jacked his tail up the sky and his nose followed suit. He then continued to prance around me snorting like a dragon. Did someone forget to tell him he was 16? 

So once he calmed down ( or I thought) I got up on him and he was still trying to run around with his tail up and snorting and trying to gallop the fence line with Nikko. So I took him to the other side of the ring and walked him until he was calm. 

I then decided to lunge him instead of riding him so we lunged for about an hour or so and he was moving beautifully. 

I am so glad he is feeling so good, but I would just like to ride my horse! 

So now begins the trial and error of supplements. 

I called smartpak and spoke to them about having any other cudtomers mention anything about the muscle mass stamina making their horse hot and they have nothing other than it making them "feel good" so she suggested I cut down the dose. 

Shadow next smartpak will come with a lower dose and I will have to keep an eye out for an attitude adjustment. *fingers crossed*

                      My new Pessoa 

RESULTS

I'm not sure how, but Kris and I got put in the wrong division at the turkey trot and ended up with a second place finish. 

If we were placed in the correct division we would have had a 4th place finish!

Either way a win is a win. 

Go Us!

(i can't stop laughing) 

Trial and Error

After my last post, Shadow stopped getting the higher protein hay.

He had off Monday and i rode Tuesday with no improvement. As a matter of fact i couldn't even ride him Tuesday. He lunged like a pro, he looked great but as soon as i got on him it was a totally different story. His walk was very short and choppy and when i asked him to move forward he would grunt, put his nose to the ground and spin into the center. Needless to say i left the barn in tears after lunging him for an hour, i was beside myself.

Dom came back out Wednesday after I told her I didnt know what else to do, luckily shes was close to me this day and could make a pit stop before heading home.

The plan was to put shadow back in his old bridle and his new saddle and see if maybe the bridle was causing the issue, eliminating one thing at a time.

Right before i was about to saddle him I asked Dom to check his back just for the heck of it and what do you know.. he was so back sore, like extremely. After not showing any signs of any soreness anywhere for the days leading up to this and of course now i felt like the worst horse mom there was.

We put the new saddle on him and re-examined it, and it did not fit him at all looking at it again.
We put my dressage saddle on him which he has been ridden in before and that we know fits and got on him to see if his attitude changed. It changed ever so slightly. He looked a little better for Dom and he was still a little bit of a mess for me, but i think because he could sense how upset i was/had been the last few times i was with him.

My brand new HDR went up for sale that night and i made a chiropractor appointment immediately.

The chiro came out Friday night and adjusted my boy and confirmed the saddle issue for me. Im really sad that the saddle i always wanted i cant keep, but what can i do, i need to make sure shadow is comfortable, that's what important.

Of course all of this was happened the week of the Turkey Trot at the horse park and I was not sure we would be attending anymore which was bumming me out also. The chiro told me to give him off Saturday or to ride him later in the afternoon to see if his attitude improved and then it would be safe to bring him on Sunday, which was the good news i NEEDED to hear.


Our ride saturday was better, but still not the usual. His walk was relaxed and he was calm, walking around on the buckle. He was still having trouble moving forward and still kind of being rude when asked, but better. He was still showing back soreness too, which is to be expected.

This morning he was given some bute just to be on the safe side and I checked him before we left, He was still showing some soreness so i rubbed his back with sore no more and we loaded up with kris and arrow and off we went to the turkey trot! We got all tacked up and ready and he was very excited and acting rude again. I walked him over to the ring and had to have someone hold him while i got up and he immediately started running off with me threatening to rear. I brought him down and put him next to arrow and we walked on. He was still acting up a little before we were sent out onto the trail, but he seemed to be getting his head back on a little until we got to the first part of the trail where there was a bridge.

Shadow was not having this bridge, he was not crossing it. He was trying to turn around and run the other way, literally. So i pulled his head in and circled him around. The circling then turned into spinning, a million miles and hour. I thought for sure I was falling off. I was so dizzy. My friend sam who was also with us, came back over the bridge to get us. Her 3 year old mare came over like a seasoned pro to hold shadows hand over this awful bridge. Shadow must have been a reining horse in his past life. LOL

 Once we made it over it was smooth sailing, he finally calmed down and we were walking through these trails on the buckle. He handled it great, the footing, the up and down hills, he was really a good boy and long as he was behind arrow. He loves his arrow. lol He even walked through a stream, jumped some logs and jumped a puddle. Thats my boy! Then at the end of our 4 miles we came out into an open field and we all trotted back. He was a little forward but moving beautifully. We were walking back to the trailers and I decided to ask him to canter, so i picked up my reins and he transitioned from the walk into the canter beautifully.

It really turned out to be a great day and I am hoping that now that we got this positive riding experience under our belt we can go back to normal. Now that he knows his saddle isnt going to pinch or hurt him any longer. I missed my good boy.

Now begins the hunt for another new saddle...maybe a pessoa, i tried one on him and it fit beautifully.

Wish me luck!

a hot headed standardbred... wait, what?

Last week, i got my christmas present from William. a beautiful new hdr saddle!

I couldnt wait for saturday to come so i could get to the barn and ride in it..Shadow has another idea.

He was super pushy on the ground, then dom arrived and helped me finish adjusting and fitting everything and he continued with his pushy-ness.

We started out lessoning on the lunge... dom's response "i didnt know you had an un-broke 3 year old! congrats on your new mustang"

he.was.crazy.

when he finally calmed down i got on, and he was acting like he had just came off the track or something. asking him to move forward he would burst into a canter and then pace. if i moved even the slightest bit, my hands, my legs, my butt, he was cantering. he didnt care.

OF COURSE. so now.. is it my new tack? what is going on? he was not himself whatever it was, he even had a different look in his face/eyes. like he was a crazy man inside there. 

i got down and dom rode for the duration all the while he was threatening to rear, spinning into the inside, bulging into dom's leg instead if moving off of it, all things shadow doesnt do. physical? behavioral? giving signs of both.. hmm. 

Lesson is over, dom is holding the gate for me and shadow come barreling out of the gate like a mad man and stops right in front of me. why? no reason. crazy horse. 

Sunday came and i had hope for better results. started on the lunge and he was better, but still not himself. Under saddle still the same rude antics, and a buck and kick to add to it. 

Switched saddles to my dressage saddle which i know he works perfectly fine in, and still the same attitude.

Had my saddle new checked, fits fine, a little low on his withers, but nothing a half pad doesn't fix to make it perfect. he was a little short strided in his bad leg, but worked right out of it. i checked him fore soreness, a little in his bad leg, but nothing out of the norm. I rubbed him down with thermaflex and went home.

I have seen this horse dead lame and still try his heart out so what is going on!!

Come to find out he has been eating left over dengie from one of the older horses, because he doesnt eat it all and shadow doesnt waste anything. 

Okay so maybe this behavior is from the weather change and this added protein in his diet? makes sense, right?

i gave him monday off... to recover from any lingering soreness that i may have missed.

Today his attitude on the ground is back to the normal shadow attitude, i checked him top to bottom to see if he was back sore or sore anywhere for that matter, nothing. i stretched him out, tacked him up and hoped for better results this time

 he lunged like a champ.. moving perfectly. what stifle injury, mom?

So with that i got on him. he was walking very short and choppy, so i asked him to move forward a little and off we went, into the canter and then pacing. over and over and over. i barley even had to move and we were running off and then putting our nose to the ground and cutting into the center.

I dont know what to make of this. 

Calls are out to the chiro and the vet to see if there is something i am missing. Have made sure he doesnt get anymore of the left over dengie and dom is coming back out tomorrow. 

ive already lost my mind and cried about it because i am at a loss and i hope that there is not something i am causing more damage to on him somewhere but he is showing no signs of anything. 

this girl is stumped.HELP.

WW: My heart horse

Even when he isn't feeling it, he gives 110%

<3

Updates!

I haven't had much time to blog, or do anything really, with school and work consuming my life.

Where to start...?


Oliver:

The office I work at, just so happens to be a house. In a neighborhood, in Lakewood.

I was leaving work on a Friday, or I thought  I was leaving work. I walked out the door and to my left was this little white face staring at me. A cat.. great. I am so allergic to cats, but I am an animal lover through and through, so of course, I could NOT just leave him there alone and hungry. I came about inside and grabbed the only cat worthy thing we had in the cabinet for our lunch which was two cans of tuna and I fed them to him, gave him some water, said goodbye and finally went home, an hour later than I wanted to. I didn't know at this time if he was someones cat or if he was really a stray. I didn't get to close as I didn't want to bring any fleas home to Gucci, but he was purring away and trying to rub on me and talking to me. I came back to work Monday morning, and guess who was waiting for me? Yeah, that cat. So of course, me being who I am, I went out and stocked up on wet and dry cat food for this baby. Now assuming he was a stray because he was here waiting for more food after a long weekend of me not being there, so who knows if he even ate at all. I kept telling myself to just feed him and let him be, there was nothing more I could do for him. He was not a kitten, he was not neutered and again, I'm very allergic.  So i continued on just feeding him for a few weeks, then feeding him turned into him coming into my office to eat and then he would sleep on a blanket at my feet all day. He knew when it was time for me to leave for the day and he would gracefully get up and go back outside to wait for me to come back the next morning. When I would leave on Fridays I would try and leave as much dry food as possible for him so he would have something while I wasn't here, but I'm sure that didn't work according to my plan considering our resident ground hog is fearless and quite fat. This whole ordeal went on for about 4 or 5 weeks before I noticed that he was limping. I finally got a closer look at his paws and his one paw had a cut at the top of it and the other had a chemical burn of some kind on his pad. I obviously saw that he was in pain and I tried not to worry to much about it, after all i still didn't know if he belonged to someone and was just coming to me for food or if he was really a stray, but either way he was not my cat to take care of.  After a week or so of watching him limp, or walk or three legs, I caved. I came up with this plan, I was going to take him to the vet, get his paws fixed and then get him neutered and let him live his life at the barn free, fat and happy.
I made a vet appointment and I named him Oliver. Then of course things couldn't just go the way I had planned, it would be too easy. He came back FIV positive. Yes, I know that they can live with FIV, but under the right circumstances, which I did not have for this poor guy. I had already contacted rescues and shelters and tried to place him through friends, but nobody wanted a scruffy outside cat that was not fixed and the rescues are all so over whelmed with cats and kittens. I was faced with having to put him down or watch him go back outside and infect other cats and get more sick and eventually die outside, alone somewhere. So my friendship with Oliver came to an end on August 20th. I was devastated, I have never had to put an animal down and for at least 3 days after this all I could do was cry, I felt like i killed him. Like i should have just left him outside and never even bothered with him because now he was dead and it was my fault.

He was such a sweet boy and in the short time he was hanging out with me, i loved him and his company so much. I have never met a sweeter cat in my life.

Also in the time I found Oliver, i found a sick little kitten hiding behind him one day (he was not very happy about it might i add). So again, being me, I saw this sick baby hiding under a bush, I wrapped her in a towel, wiped her booger nose and rushed her to the shelter. She was very very very sick. When I wiped all the dried snot off her nose, it all came pouring back out like a waterfall, she was very skinny and seemed to have an eye infection. For her, bringing her to the shelter was her best shot, I couldn't have saved her. I have a friend who works at the shelter and on the following Monday i sent a text to find out how the baby was doing, and she had passed, the night i dropped her off (Friday). She just couldn't fight anymore. That made me really sad too, but I did the best I could for her.

My heart still aches of Oliver, but I don't know what else I could have done. I hope he understands that I made the best decisions under the circumstances at hand. My little angel kitty <3

Shadow:

He is doing fab.

He has started doing some work over cavaletti and he just wants to canter, canter, canter.

Trotting is nothing now, we could trot all.day.long.

His cavaletti work is not the prettiest, but he is working over 2ft, and doing a great job, we just have to get on the same page with timing and it will be fine. We are going to stop at 2'6" probably, as I don't want to push that stifle to hard. He is taking these 2ft cavaletti at about 3ft, but that okay, we don't need to actually do 3ft. lol

His canter transition is flawless and he just goes and goes and goes, he still needs some fine tuning, and some balance, but he is really doing great.

He is like a totally different horse from when this season started and sometimes I can't believe my eyes. Shadow is 16, going on 5. He we are working over the cavaletti he is so forward and so excited and he anticipates the cue to canter every corner, which I am trying to work him out of because i cant have him rushing corners and breaking stride to do what he wants all the time.

I had a wonderful lesson with him and Dom with past Saturday and the the Saturday before I wasn't there but Dom came to ride and Mike snapped some beautiful photos.

This spring/summer with Shadow has really put all my doubt as to what he can do behind me and he has turned out to be everything I wanted when I started my search for a horse. He is such a love.


here are some photos from Dom's ride with him two weeks ago:

Stretchy Trot!! He looks so beautiful!!!

Thanks for reading!!

WW: Whoops!

it's okay to forget how many legs we have sometimes, right?

Throwback Thursday/Happy Gotcha Day

Here is an older picture when from one of our first lessons with Dom, after Shadow came home with me.

Today is 1 year that I have had Shadow already, I feel like that went so quick. 

Looking back at all the photos from when we first started working together and riding him and watching him move now, is like two different horses. 

No matter what anyone thinks or has to say, we are a great team even when we are disagreeing and I wouldn't want any one but him in my corner. 

Happy Gotcha Day big man, I love you!!