Kenny Davis Clinic

I spent the week before the despooking clinic in Maryland visting my sister, so when I returned, Gali had a week off and was certainly fresh.

I decided to try to clip his feathers. He's certainly got the draft genes in his lower legs and feet!  His field is rather muddy right now, and I didn't want to risk him developing scratches, plus no feathers means it's MUCH easier to apply the DMSO gel. I did my best to get the mud off of them and then went to town with my new trimmer, the Wahl Detailer.    It did a fantastic job, despite being smaller than my hand and almost silent, it cut through the thick hair and caked on dried and wet mud without a problem.  If you're looking for a small, quiet trimmer that tackles the tougher small jobs, I'd recommend this one in a heartbeat.

The two days before the clinic were light work days, and I spent a lot of time stretching Gali and massaging his muscles.  I was surprised to find how stiff his right shoulder was - his favorite stretch has always been the shoulder-down-and-out, but this week he was barely able to match half of what his left shoulder could stretch.  One of my big goals for this week is to get that flexibility back, and figure out why he's so stiff on that side.  The good news is it seems like he is finally developing a consistent soundness - it's not 100% all the time, but if he's warmed up and stretched enough, he's sound for most of my ride.  This is a huge change from before, where he'd be sound for most of his steps, but take a few odd ones here and there throughout the whole ride.  I still have to talk to my vet about Pentosan, but I'm waiting until I'm back to work this week, and my paychecks start to come in.

The despooking clinic went pretty well, but it seemed to be more of a de-bolting clinic.  The concept was pretty basic: you aren't going to stop the horse from spooking, so learn how to control their spook, or in this case, bolt.  Kenny taught everybody a basic one-rein stop, which was the way to get the horse to turn towards the object they're afraid of, and watch the scary thing until it's not such a big deal.  The first session was spent working on the basics of a head-down command and installing the one rein stop. By the end of it, Gali was okay walking towards the big scary flapping flag, and understood the head down command.  The second session wasn’t as successful, because Kenny had a giant inflated beach ball. Gali could see the other ponies kicking the ball around from his stall, and he was panic-stricken.  I decided to do the next session in hand - because Gali is MUCH more manageable on the ground, and I'm able to think a lot more on the ground.  In a ring full of kids and horses, I felt a lot safer holding on to him in a halter.  Anyway, I got a lecture from the cowboy about how I’d be safer on him than next to him and that I should use a rope halter instead of a chain, and when he switched the horse to a rope halter, he demonstrated backing up and sidepassing in hand - which is all stuff Gali knows from the work I've done with him.  I did feel like took credit for how responsive Gali was… but Gali got over his fear of the big ball, and left much more confident than he had come in, so I consider that a victory as well. 

I don't think I would do another group de-spooking clinic again, because I don't think the individual pairs got to work on their issues, and it was a one-size-fits-all clinic, which wasn't as effective as I had expected.  I did give me some more confidence and helped me notice some things I should continue to work on.

This week is going to be entirely below freezing, so I don't think I'll do anything more than walk around enough to loosen up Gali, do some more stretching, and put him away with a lot of hay and a cozy blanket.