Deli's "other person."

I’d like to give a shout out to my boyfriend, Brian, and how he fits into the adventures I have with Deli.

He has a way with animals even though I am the “animal person”. It’s probably because he oozes calm in many stressful situations. Random dogs on the street will come up to him and sit to be petted. My 20 year old cat has since claimed him as “hers” despite only living with him now for a year and a half. Deli, being one of those Anxious Arabian Over-Thinkers ™, is definitely drawn towards his energy. When she was still getting clay poultices every other day on her injured leg and I had to go out of town for school, he was amazing and went out to the barn daily to not only to remove her poultice or put one on – and it’s no easy task to bandage the upper hind leg of a fidgety mare even for an experienced person – but he gave her medicine, took her temperature, cold hosed her leg,  and gave me frequent updates. Did he enjoy it? No way. I don’t enjoy wrestling with goo and bandages and cold hosing a bored horse either. What’s more amazing is that she let him.

This is interesting because Deli is not (no way, probably not ever) a beginners horse. She is too sensitive even if there isn’t a mean bone in her body (well, very few mean bones at least!). But she has always had the utmost care for him. Where she runs away, resists, fusses or otherwise makes it known that she is not happy to even experienced horse people, she will usually behave with more patience for Brian. And Brian alone. She won’t let him do everything, of course — truly scary things still need my more experienced touch (try clipping this horse, I dare you) — but she clearly thinks of him as her “other person”. When she was being anxious and pawing in the cross ties the other day, he grabbed her lead and lowered her head. He had apparently been paying attention to her “calm down” cue. I got some compliments on how great he was with her, especially in that it was good that he was aware of Deli’s space needs as he strategically moved to one side so she didn’t remove his kneecaps (she is a very talented pawer).  When things get stressful I can hand him her lead and ask him to take her out to graze and I can feel confident they aren’t going to hurt each other.

One thing Deli absolutely loves is to have her mane and tail bushed out. She loves it when you take the hard bristled brush and scratch her neck and shoulders with it. She even loves having her face curried carefully around her eyes. Grooming is Brian’s favorite part of horse care. If he’s with me, Deli gets the royal treatment of having her hair brushed till it shines, and her neck scratched until her eyes roll back in her head. Come shedding season I’ll beg for him to come out and groom her all over because he likes to try and strip her departing winter coat off in one go.

Right now Brian get s more actively involved in our adventures by joining us on our trail rides on foot. Now that Deli is boarded next to some amazing wilderness trails he is more than entertained by the gorgeous scenery. He also provides good company for us by adding another person to our circular conversations. And Deli gets a friend to roll her eyes with when I burst randomly into off-pitch songs (it's to scare off the cougars, I swear).

Not surprisingly, his favorite horse breeds include those that are known for having quite a lot of hair. He has promised that if I ever get him a horse with extravagant fetlock feathering he will keep them groomed and looking nice. You better believe I will hold him to that promise because fussing over poofy feet is not what I want to be doing when at the barn.

Sometimes I feel a little annoyed that he is one of those natural riders. His posture is better in the saddle than it is walking down the street, and he can sit the trot (still working on posting) like a dream after only a handful of rides.

Then again, it’s pretty neat.

I sincerely hope he sticks around and continues to be part of Deli’s family and staff. Who knows? Maybe in a couple years Brian will get his own horse and we will hit the trails together. At the very least I’m buttering him up to crew for Deli and I if we ever do achieve our endurance-riding goal.

Deli has staff to dote on her.

I just had Deli massaged – something I consider an essential part of her rehabilitation.

She also loves her “spa days”, so I consider it a mental break for her as well.

Deli’s injury involved a severe tear of her groin muscle, as well as tears to the hamstrings on her right side. When the injury was new I felt like I was in a race against time because her leg was incredibly swollen. My job at that point was to get the swelling down or else risk, at the very least, all the tissues in being stretched out to the point of usefulness. I actually cheered when blood and fluid pooled on her belly in an edema instead of going down into her leg — it couldn’t do any damage other than look strange (like a furry water bed). At one point excess fluid even dripped from her swollen udder.

These kinds of injuries only happen in horses when they do the “splits”. That is a movement horses are not built to do! I’m convinced that she was rolling in the deeper sand near her paddock gate at our old barn and got her leg caught between gate and fence while on her back. I’m sure she freaked out, struggled, and in the process tore her psoas (groin) muscles and hamstrings on the right side. I suspect she even has small tears in her upper-leg tendons.

As I can attest from my own severe muscular and ligament damage after being hit by a car in September 2009, recovery for these kinds of injuries takes a long time. Soft tissue is problematic – for severe tissue damage inflammation needs to be controlled because in the extreme, blood flow is impeded. To heal, blood flow is needed. In some respects Deli is lucky that she injured her upper leg, because there are ample vessels surrounding the area. Of course, a horse’s lower leg does not have muscles at all, and tendon injuries in the lower leg tend to take quite a long time to heal because blood flow in the lower leg is dependent on movement. Fresh blood flow flushes old blood (often collecting in hematomas) and chemical buildup from torn muscle away, and brings in oxygen and nutrients to the area to aid in the repair of damaged tissue. With muscle, fibers need to be laid down a certain way for the muscle to work best. To get the muscle to lay down in this optimal way is difficult when there is a severe injury like Deli and I have suffered – it requires work and rest. The work is to get the muscle being used correctly to get those fibers to lie down smoothly and prevent excessive scar tissue development. The rest is to give time for that muscle to repair and heal.

As an aside: you can probably guess from this analysis that I am not a proponent of stall rest except in a very narrow set of circumstances. For Deli, “rest” means she gets to hang out in pasture with her buddies, get hand grazed or massaged. If she wants to trot around and play in pasture, that’s okay. She’s not the type of horse to push her body when it hurts. Additionally, all physiological evidence points to blood flow is encouraged by the normal function of a horse’s foot – simply put the flexion and act of walking turns each foot into a little pump. When they say “no hoof no horse” I like to think of each foot as a miniature heart that services the horse’s legs.

On top of her training in horse physiology, my masseuse has a useful “toy”: a thermography camera. This device is incredible: it shows the heat in various places on a horse’s body by indicating different temperatures with color. These photographs she took during our most recent massage session showed that there was still inflammation along the psoas and hamstrings that Deli tore. The camera allows us to pinpoint the where the tissue needs help and work, which is superb. In particular, you can feel the difference once you know where to look – the inflamed groin muscle feels hard and unyielding compared to her uninjured left side.

Overall the camera tells us that Deli is doing better: the inflammation is pretty much confined to the injured area rather than spreading out to the surrounding tissues. Any minor injuries have healed. It’s a case of what we see is what we get when using thermography. And with regular re-assessment (planned for every 4 weeks right now) we can see how Deli is healing if faring under her rehabilitation and adjust it where appropriate.

Given all this information, Deli’s current rehabilitation program is to work then rest. We are going to hit the hills for at least one intensive workout a week (assuming the ground doesn’t get too slick!) and work on lunging in a way that gets her to use her hind end instead of being protective of her injuries. Our under-saddle time in the arena will reflect this as well, with a focus balance and use of her hind end in a productive manner. As for our rest days she will get some (less professional) massage from me. I also have plans for further ground-work (she likes having her brain engaged) and do some work on learning how to open and close gates in-hand so that training in that area will come easy when she is under saddle.

It’s going to be a long journey to get her back to 100% again. I’m still feeling weakness and pain from my own injuries, even though they occurred more than a year ago. Deli’s rehabilitation probably won’t take that long. Or at least I’m hopeful that it won’t since she has improved steadily since being injured about four months ago. For one, she is a natural athlete and I am not. For another, I injured tendons, ligaments, bones and muscles throughout my entire body when I was hit by that car, whereas Deli’s injuries are localized. Regardless, “rest, heal, stretch and strengthen” is going to be our mantra for some time.