As of, oh, three weeks ago, the vet cleared Stella for a larger turnout (which I'd been doing anyway, oops) and handwalking. Now I'm no stranger to ligament injuries: for long time readers of this and the old blog, you'll remember Ernie sustained two different suspensory ligament tears in his right hind that added up to a total of over a year of stall rest. But this one worried me slightly more given Stella's less-than-stellar hind leg conformation and the fact that we're talking about damage to her hock, the most complicated joint in the equine body and the one that most often has horse owners wanting to headdesk.
So, naturally, I didn't want to mess this up. And yet, as I thought to myself one day when I was unpacking and watching her hightail it into her stall away from chasing flies, if she was going to do more damage, it certainly wasn't going to be from anything I'd be doing. She clearly doesn't need my help.
And yet I've done no handwalking. I find it pointless, to be honest. This mare does enough laps around her paddock andher private pasture to equal a hundred handwalks a day. Twenty more minutes with me on the end of a leadrope is going to do very little in the way of real rehab. Instead, I've been slowly putting together a stretching and massage routine paired with long lining a couple times a week. The issue is less a lack of movement and more a lack of purposeful movement. I need to get her thinking stretchy, flexible, round thoughts while she's moving, instead of just poking around at the end of a line.
All thing considered, I like how she's looking right now. She's gained some weight back, she's shiny and dappled out and the thickened fluid in her hock (that the vet said would likely take months to go away, but that shouldn't affect her long-term) is mostly gone. I haven't wrapped her legs in a few weeks.
She's still got no topline, surprise. What little there was went the way of the Dodo when she got hurt (and even moreso with the tail injury, which I'm happy to say is fully healed and hasn't seemed to cause any lasting damage other than some atrophy along her dock; she's got full tail function though). We finished the Vitamin E concentrate and have switched to a Vitamin E powder for maintenance, which she'll stay on most likely long term.
Now onto the newest bits. My therapist happens to live on a huge farm about 45 minutes from where I live now. Said therapist, aside from being an amazing counselor, also does Equine Assisted Therapy and has several horses on the farm that he and his partner use in their sessions. I discussed with him a week or two ago the fact that I haven't moved anywhere with Stella in some time. For a while, I was tossing around the idea of selling her: it occurred to me that there was a distinct possibility that we just weren't a good match. She needs someone with skill and time: lots and LOTS of time. I just doesn't have the latter at this point in my life, and while I have enough of the former, my confidence has been shaken with her more than once to the point where I don't feel comfortable starting her back up on my own.
Said therapist, after listening to me gripe about how awful I feel about the situation I'm in with Stella, smiled and said, "Did it ever occur to you that this isn't all your stuff? That Stella is her own entity with her own personality and issues? That maybe she's just learned to relate to you in this way, but that it's not her reacting to you in the moment?" My jaw about dropped off.
What? You mean it's NOT all my fault? You mean every time I go to work with her and I see her nostrils flare and start to hear her breathing more rapidly, that when I see that lower lip get tight and start to flap, that when her eyes get big and concerned and she starts to fiddle and squirm and look irritated and upset, it's NOT all me?
Fast forward an hour and we'd weeded through some options as to what to do moving forward. For those who are wondering why I'm discussing my horse with my counselor, it's simple: *psychologist hat on* we've figured out that anything that causes me emotional stress negatively affects me sexually (sorry if this is TMI, folks, but we all do it). When it comes to intimate situations with a partner, emotional stress is a killer. It transforms into pressure, and when I'm placed under pressure or feel like I'm lacking control, my whole sexual being shuts off. So we've had to start addressing my issues with intimacy from a more holistic perspective, not from just the angle of sex.
*psychologist hat off*
Basically, my therapist offered me an amazing option: he'd talk to his partner, K, about having her work with me and evaluate both myself and Stella from an entirely training-based perspective. I could share with her information from our sessions but I wouldn't have to if it didn't seem pertinent. I could trailer Stella there and work with K, get her opinion and potential training advice/a direction to go in, and then go from there. We discussed boarding Stella up there for a few days every couple weeks or so, or having K come here. Either way, I about jumped at the idea. I had found a really great trainer a while back, but she's since moved farther away and isn't as available. Not to mention my schedule has changed dramatically.
We'll be discussing this more, and I mentioned to him the physical limitations Stella has at this time (vet still wants us to limit movement above the walk and a little trot in straight lines, so roundpenning would be a stretch...) but hopefully within a couple weeks I will finally be getting someone else in on this. It's about time I stopped taking this burden on my shoulders and accepted a few things, namely that this horse is her own being and has her own way of dealing with things and relating to the world. Dumping all of what happens with her on myself only leads to guilt, which leads to serious emotional complications for me.
On a final note, I've relocated. I finally moved out of my parents house (which was a disaster, but that's for another day) and moved into the little cabin on the same property that Stella is at. It's been wonderful to be so close and cut out an hour commute round trip just to do chores. Between the two jobs and working a full seven days a week, I need all the time I can scrape up, and this has freed up quite a bit.
More to come as things develop.
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