February Pyro Update: Onion Boy

 Despite being the shortest month of the year, February felt like it lasted an eternity. Once again, I worked with Pyro every day of the month, and I felt like I spent the whole time trying to uncover the layers of my onion of a horse. 

Onion boy. Like an onion, he has layers. (*Insert Donkey saying, "you know, not everyone likes onions"*)

• Ground work: 15
• Ground drive: 6
• Ride: 7

The month started off rough. I had the a.m. shift at the co-op stable, and it was -25F that morning. Of course, Pyro chose to be incredibly challenging, so I worked him at liberty in the paddock until he could get his mind right.

I can work him at a safe distance at liberty in this little alcove of the barn lot. 

The following day, I rode him (while wearing my insulated riding skirt... so grateful for that piece of equipment), and he threw an absolute temper tantrum when I first asked him to canter and insisted he get off my right leg. 

I persisted, and he gave me some decent work.

After that discussion, he had about a week of good behavior. He deferred to me, respected my space, was willing, and showed no resentfulness towards his work. We did a lot of ground driving work that was honestly quite fun.

Fresh trim with a dose of side eye

Loved seeing that ear on me as we long lined.

I think he'd make a beautiful driving horse.

Practicing standing in the halt

I've been working on holding the reins in one hand... but am not quite there yet.

Letting him stretch out at the end of the session

Biiiiiiiig yawn

How can we make this interesting? By adding pipe insulation "shafts"!

The shaft wraps on this saddle made it really easy to attach them. 

He literally didn't care about them flopping about.

I'll have to upgrade him to pvc shafts here soon. 

As he neared the end of his omeprazole treatment, I decided to give him a Tribute Constant Comfort block in his stall. It is intended to be offered free choice as a stomach buffer that horses can choose to use when they need. He already gets a serving of Outlast twice a day, but so long as he didn't overconsume it, I was willing to give him this as an option to help prevent ulcers too. 

He took to it immediately, but has not eaten it too quickly. It cost about $10, and he still has plenty left after a month with it in his stall. If nothing else, it adds variety to his "salt bar" that doubles as stall enrichment. 

Also in that timespan, I started testing muzzle setups that would limit his grass intake while also allowing him to eat his grain and loose hay in his stall. While it's not ideal to have him muzzled 24/7, in an effort to mitigate risk to fellow co-op members, I'm not going to ask them to muzzle/unmuzzle him daily for turnout. However, Pyro is an easy keeper, and even in constant work needs limited grass intake. Logistically, a dry lot isn't an option, so here we are. 

After some testing, the GreenGuard halter paired with Flexible Filly muzzle appears to be the best solution.

To aid him in figuring it out, I enlarged the hole on the muzzle, but have a new muzzle with a 3.5cm hole on hand if more grass restriction is needed.

He exhibited some frustration during the first attempt to eat grain through it, but with practice, he is figuring it out. 

Initially, we had an issue with the grain getting pushed to the corner of the feed pan where he couldn't reach it through the central hole of the muzzle. I resolved this by putting a metal bowl with a gradual curve, rather than a corner, in the feeder.

Back on the work side of things, I was still having fun asking new questions of him while ground driving, like going over obstacles or past the cart.

He has started nickering to me when I walk up to him at the end of our driving sessions, which is incredibly endearing.

There were days I legitimately put him away with a smile on my face. However, about a week after his last temper tantrum under saddle, he was once again offering sassy head tosses and rude kicks in my direction when at liberty in the paddock as I was trying to bring in. I was able to safely corral him into his stall without releasing pressure for the rude behavior, and he got a good, long ground work session that began with him quite sticky, but ended in a place of soft connection. 

Reaching/leaning into my space

When he started listening again

Ground tying without issue after the work.

I started noticing a lot of tension over his topline, especially loin and glutes which were also sore at times. I thought I might be seeing a pattern of him being more comfortable when he worked daily and less comfortable when he had days "off" (only doing manners work in the stall, etc.). Being the worrier/overthinker that I am, I began to wonder if he might be dealing with something like Polysaccharide Storage Myopathy (PSSM). 

The genetic test for PSSM1 is an inexpensive ($45) hair test that looks for a mutation in the GYS1 gene, which causes abnormal glycogen accumulation in muscles. This can cause tying up, muscle stiffness, and reluctance to move. I was definitely observing the latter two in Pyro, and I suspected he may have tied up mildly once back in December when I worked him VERY hard a couple days after biting me. I had NOT seen any dark colored urine indicative of muscle damage, but it would help explain why he seems so greatly impacted by decreased movement and cold weather. It also is sometimes linked to thumps, which we have struggled with in the past. So, I sent off some of Pyro's hair to UC Davis and decided to see if 20 minutes of low intensity exercise daily (a common management practice for horses with PSSM1) would have any impact.

I committed to at bare minimum hand walking or lunging him 20 minutes, rather than just doing work on manners in the stall on my low-energy days. Some days I rode him in the indoor, others I hacked out or walked him in hand up and down the hill of the driveway. One day we even ground drove out in the wild! 

With my best girl

Keeping it interesting by changing up obstacles in the indoor weekly.

It didn't take more than a week of work like this for his topline tension to resolve. (I greatly enjoyed seeing his muscles jiggle in a way I hadn't in a long time.) Unfortunately, his pectoral muscles then became sore. There was heat on some days, especially in his right transverse pec, and he was rather guarded and defensive. I adjusted what I asked of him to not aggravate it further, but still kept him moving. He gave me some hope that he was learning to "use his words" to express his discomfort in a way that didn't put me in danger of being bitten. When I would lay my hand on his pec, he would tense and brace, but not nip at me. 

He would reach into the contact and carry me forward at times, but others he would try to quit on me.

I was still sometimes dealing with reluctance to move forward, both under saddle and on the ground, but he had no issues playing with the Gelding Gang on his own time. 

When February came to a close, I was still waiting for PSSM1 test results and working Pyro every day. Our work was mostly walking, with maybe 2-4 minutes of trot on some days. When asked to trot, he would often toss his head and root the bit when he first pushed up into it, but I could get him to relax over his topline within a lap or two. His pecs bothered him off and on, and I adjusted my asks based on his level of soreness in an effort to be fair to him. He completed his course of omeprazole, and girthiness resolved.

In all honesty, it was exhausting, but it did feel good to be consistently dedicating time to actually *working* him, rather than just scooping poop. I also felt like I was uncovering layers of what makes this complicated boy tick. There were days that he was challenging, but there were also days that, if asked if I was enjoying him, my honest answer would be an easy "yes". 

Trying on his new noseband for his driving bridle

This update is a bit late, and a lot has happened in the first week and a half of March, so I'll try to do another (smaller?) update soon.