Crystal

[3equines]

I did not get the bargain of the century with Crystal as my payment for all the training work I put on the other 2 Haffies. But, she needed to be here, with me, before her life got any worse than it was.

Part of this is on her care and sweet itch, the other part is on her training.

The sweet itch is getting better, I wormed her with a half does of Ivermectin (half dose because killing off the complete parasite load at once can cause severe edema and inflammatory reaction) and the next day the swelling in her tail and over her shoulders was almost gone, her neck is still swollen though (but that is where the adult worms live, and they do not respond to any kind of wormer). Her skin on the shoulder and tail is healing, most of the scabs are gone but her belly is still just one big nasty crusty bloody mess. I am just so SICKENED by the condition this poor horse was in. My fiancee did the initial trim on her hooves, there are pockets of rot halfway up the hoof and flare that has separated the hoof from the hoof wall on every hoof. We'll keep working on them and then get some shoes on her in another month to six weeks.

Training. What a hard case. She is calm when I treat her owies, flexes her neck and moves her forehand into me on both sides when I ask (without a lead rope), lunges perfectly on a lunge line - but turn her loose and she is a basket case in the roundpen. She does not understand how to stop, or even slow down, when pressure is released - just keeps going and going and going and going in circles even if I turn my back to her. I have tried tiring her out, putting tons of pressure on her hip and making her run for ten minutes at a time and then taking the pressure off. She doesn't get it. When she does finally stop, she doesn't face up right, either, She keeps her left shoulder and hip on me at an angle. If I try to correct her she bolts back into a run, more circles.

The worst part is, I can get her to turn perfectly to the right forehand but she will not, absolutely will NOT turn to the left. Gets her butt to me, head up and on the rail, and just FREEZE up, wants to turn into the rail. Nothing I have tried on other horses seems to work on her. The sheer irony is she will turn to side, perfectly and correctly with a light cue, when on the lunge line. :headscratch:

Yesterday I tired her out enough for her to want to face up to me, and worked on her flexion during face-up time. I slowly started getting her to flex to the left forehand on hand cue and then slowly sent her off, just breaking the whole move down into tiny baby steps. I finally got one single correct turn to the left before calling it a night. But I don't think she really gets it yet.

Some of my thoughts are: possible vision loss ? The parasite that causes the sweet itch can also affect the eyes. But I did a vision test and she reacted well to motion on both sides, and she willingly flexes when I am not working her in circles. Another thought is pain? Perhaps the inflammation on her neck affects the left more than the right? Past injury on the right side (which she does not want to flex and give to me when asked to turn on the left forehand?)? Just plain fear? One-sided horse? Or she just hasn't got it yet, and is going to take a lot more time than younger horses I have worked with.

[oursarge]

So sorry she is in such bad condition. Poor baby. I am glad she is with you. If you give her back will she get in the same condition she's in now? I know there is a story but my mind is blank, it comes with old age I think!

I know nothing about training but reading about her going good on one side and not the other I was going to ask about her eyes. I have a Haflinger mix and he's had Uveitis 3 out of the 4 yrs I've had him. He has lost vision in each eye at one time or another. His right eye is totally blind right now and is done, there is no hope for it. My heart is ripped out but he seems fine. I worry about him going totally blind and will he be able to handle it. If he can then that will be great I love him no matter what but if he goes nuts if he can't see then he'll have to be put down and because I am a worrier I worry about that. If something happens to him then my other horse that is here will go back to the preservation since loosing another horse will kill me. He is only 7 and he's so sweet except he's also a brat. I could always tell when his vision was not great or when he could see fine from lunging. If he went fine in both directions his sight was fine. If he panicked on the one side I knew his eye problems were flaring again. He would panic so badly and want to turn so his good eye could see where he was going. Again my mind is gone, have you ridden her? If you have how does she walk? Mine never walked in a straight line. It used to drive me mad, like what am I doing wrong, now we know his vision was never good so he was walking crooked so he could see. He is fine out in the field, no problem but when being ridden he always walked weird. I am not sure why he did that but that's how it's always been. I don't know if he wants to get out of work or if when he's free on his own he can choose to go where he wants and feels safer but when he's in a pen or has the saddle on then he's either being a brat or he truly is in a panic. I think it's panic.

I hope it's not her eyes but since I have been dealing with this for 3 years now any time I hear a horse acts odd on one side I wonder about vision. Good luck, she is in good hands, I am so happy. She is a cutie. Glad her condition is improving some. Oh yeah from what I have read about uveitis, worms can cause it as you know and then worming can make it worse so you can't win! Good Luck. I am sure you will get her going.

I forgot to say we could never tell if Sarge was not seeing great or if he was seeing fine except for the lunging, like right now even though he is blind in that eye he will still react to things. We thought he could see but when the vet checked him he said there is no sight there. The way he was reacting we thought there was something. Even waving a hand he'd blink and it is light sensitive. Thankfully he isn't real spooky, we have always talked to our animals so they get talked to and he knows words so he's been handling the one eye like he's got two. We do touch him to let him know we are there and we talk to him but we always did that.

[WashingtonBay]

It may be too soon to think it's her eyes, but keep your own eye on it and watch. Some horses are just extremely one-sided.

[BlaiseGlaze]

i feel so bad for her. but i bet you a year from now, you will be saying ur glad u gave her this chance, she will be the best horse ever.
hope I'm right.

[3equines]

Crystal is mine, to keep or sell, so I am giving her my all. I was hoping to sell her, after training her and seeing what she turns out to be. Time will tell about her health, I will do all that is in my power to get her healthy and sound. If she does turn out to have a chronic condition then it will be a matter of deciding to either keep her (which my fiancee is not really wanting to do) or re-homing her to the right person, even if it means I get nothing for the time and money I put in to all 3 of the Haflingers from that herd other than the satisfaction of knowing one of them has a great home.

[Fork]

How long have you had her now?
Has she been in a round pen before?
Does she know any voice commands?

I would focus on gaining respect with her so that she listens to you and considers you her alpha. I think her turning her butt to you is a huge sign of disrespect. She might feel as if she has free reign of you when she's off the line because she no longer has to listen to pressure or cues.

[Tiz]

She just doesn't know what she's doing, is my guess.

[Remali]

I think she just needs more time. She was not in good condition, so she needs to heal first. Also she hasn't been with you very long, and she is an older horse, so she just needs some time. And like WB said, so many horses are very one-sided. Also, I never found that tiring a horse out helped, at least it didn't with any of mine, it seemed to have the opposite effect actually. She sure is a nice-looking mare though, I think with some extra time and patience she will be a very nice horse. :)

[TheBadLands]

You have a way with horses that I don't think many can rival. I am sure you will sort this out in due time :)

[Petra]

3E do you remeber my Bullet? What you decsribing is exactly what she used to do. She had no vision problem. She just had trust issues. There was no way to walk up to her. She would always turn her butt to us.
In the round pen the only way I could stop her was out run her and not let her go right or left until she finally stopped moving her but facing me with her head just about sticking over the rail. If I tried to came closer she'd bolt.

I don't want to tell you what to do, because you have way more experience training horses than I do.
But I can tell you what worked with Bullet.
I didn't reprimand her for turning her back to me until she learned to trust me. (I know this is wrong in every book) I'd slowly tried to walk up to her as close as I could and just stood there. Next time I got closer. I thought it was accomplishment that she was not moving. I always paid attention to her body language and walked away before she decided to move. It took a while before I could touch her. At first she would only let me touch her butt. So I worked with what I had. I'd rubb her butt, than moved to her back, shoulders, face... It took a long time. She wasn't even halter broke, and once I got her used to halter and taught her to walk with me I'd lead her around round pen.
Eventually she was a dream to lunge. She just needed to get over her fear.
As I said, I'm not telling you what to do. Just wanted to tell you what worked for me. It took about 6 months before I could walk up to her anywhere in the pasture and she would let me touch her face.

[3equines]

I think fear is a big issue here. But, today my baby steps got bigger. She turned correctly about one out of every three times, but I had to actually step all the way back to the far rail on the roundpen to get her to slow down, stop, and THINK about turning. It got to be two out of three towards the end.

Still can't get much whoa or slow down but she is turning when I back off so it's a start. I put her on the lunge line and worked on whoa and facing up, maybe tomorrow things will start to click. I still have not ruled out vision issues. She wants to keep her left eye on me.

I'm going to go ahead and hit her with a full tube of Ivermectin tomorrow, she tolerated the lower dose so I am going to cut to the chase and give her weekly doses for a few weeks.

[Fork]

I didn't reprimand her for turning her back to me until she learned to trust me. (I know this is wrong in every book) I'd slowly tried to walk up to her as close as I could and just stood there. Next time I got closer. I thought it was accomplishment that she was not moving. I always paid attention to her body language and walked away before she decided to move. It took a while before I could touch her. At first she would only let me touch her butt. So I worked with what I had. I'd rubb her butt, than moved to her back, shoulders, face... It took a long time. She wasn't even halter broke, and once I got her used to halter and taught her to walk with me I'd lead her around round pen.
Eventually she was a dream to lunge. She just needed to get over her fear.
As I said, I'm not telling you what to do. Just wanted to tell you what worked for me. It took about 6 months before I could walk up to her anywhere in the pasture and she would let me touch her face.I had to do this exact thing as well with Mitch. I tried to reprimand him for being disrespectful and it made me reverse 10 steps. He started to recognize me as a predator and I was in a worse place than where I began. I took every sign of me getting close and him not moving as incredible progress. When I could stand within 10 feet of him with him not moving, I knew I was doing something right.

I think you're making really good progress already with Crystal, in that she's starting to turn toward you.