Baker training session 35- grooming and mane "pulling"

I worked with Baker yesterday for about 38 minutes.  It was a rather uneventful session, so this blog entry will probably be brief, but those sessions are so nice.  I brought him in to the cross ties and gave him a good grooming - he has really been filthy lately!  Meanwhile, I was multi-tasking and watering down the arena at the same time.  Where he was crosstied, he could hear the sprinklers very close, but he couldn't see them.  He was a little startled at first, but very quickly settled down and ignored them.  Once he was all cleaned up and flysprayed, I worked on "pulling" his mane.  He stood so quietly for this that I was able to get almost half his mane pulled in the time I had.  He barely fidgeted, and it was mostly to move around and get someone's attention as folks were coming and going in the barn.  Once my sprinklers were done running, I had to put Baker away and finish my barn chores before lessons started, so that's as far as I got, but it was enough for now.

On another note, I was able to turn him out in a paddock yesterday for the first time since his surgery.  Under vet's orders, he can stay out as long as he is quiet and not running around.  I was a little concerned about how he would be - he is a baby after all, and babies are supposed to run around, but he just put his head down and started eating grass.  His paddock has a lot of grass in it, and his digestive system is not used to getting that much grass, so I am only allowing him short spurts of time in the paddock until he has adjusted.  It is very important, with horses, to make any dietary changes as slowly as possible.  They have very sensitive digestive systems, and are so easily susceptible to

colic.  And that is definitely the last thing I need right now!  Because of Baker's surgery, I will always have to be super careful about his diet and any changes I make.  Another concern when a horse has not been on grass for a while is something called laminitis.  Horses are pigs and don't have any self control when it comes to all things edible, especially grass and grain.  Even though it's not good for them to gorge themselves on grass, they will do it anyway.  Grains and fresh grass have a lot of sugars.  If a horse ingests a sudden, large amount of sugars, it can cause a bout of laminitis, which is an inflammation of the laminae in the hoof.  This condition is very painful and can lead to permanent lameness.  I found a great article that describes the disease and its causes in great detail - http://www.animedvets.co.uk/laminitis.htm.  Needless to say, I don't need that right now either, so Baker's time in his paddock will be gradually increased until he can stay out there 24/7.  For now, he will just have to be happy with small amounts of time.  But he seems to take everything in stride anyway 😃.