Blog Hop: Fess Up To Your Mistakes

Here’s another Viva Carlos Blog Hop!

From L: We love our horses, but we are human. Being human means we are prone to mistakes, some of us try to gloss over and hide them. A lot of it has to do with education, horse ownership is kind of like trial by fire. I for one am all about transparency, I own up to my humanity so today I am gonna fess up to one of my biggest horse care mistakes. Will you Fess up to yours?

I’m not sure if this falls under the mistake category, might just be more of something I feel bad about. I always have a sixth sense of when something is wrong with my horses. Call it what you will, but I just KNOW.

So when Stampede started getting progressively more angry several years ago I knew something was bothering him. When Stampede started being extra spooky under saddle I knew something was not right. Finally when he started refusing to go forward at the canter on the flat and down the lines I knew something was definitely wrong. The issue was, no one could see anything wrong. I talked to my vet numerous times, she watched him under saddle and saw maybe just the tiniest off movement when I sat the trot and did a circle to the right, but Stampede looked great except for being angry. So I kept riding.

We know that in the end Stampede finally got worse and was diagnosed with kissing spines which is a journey on its own. Regardless, I feel bad for taking so long to figure it all out. I’m not sure that any other way would have worked honestly, but it doesn’t stop me from feeling bad for riding a horse in pain for over a year.

Boo on kissing spines!

I guess while I’m at it I will fess up to a second mistake! Falling for the hype of hair mineral testing and supplements. Not saying supplements aren’t good in some cases, but they can do harm, and they did.

This was during the time where Stampede was not doing well under saddle (before his KS diagnosis) and he was underweight and in general unhealthy looking to me.

I had the hair testing done after meeting someone with a great success story and got a multivitamin and another supplement to help stabilize blood sugar. I wasn’t even feeding them in full doses yet since Stampede is a picky eater. Yet someone at the barn saw Stampede have a seizure. I had the vet out and she took blood which came back high in various things. The vet had me stop all of his supplements (he was on an electrolyte too) and just give him salt and that’s it. He never had a seizure again and his coat improved on its own. After his KS diagnosis and treatment he started gaining weight too.

I would never give my horse a multivitamin again unless they weren’t on grain, because otherwise you are duplicating what the grain provides. To this day Stampede is on just salt and an amino acid supplement to help with his skin crud issues.

So handsome!