Photo by Ty Holland
Wyatt has been lame on his left rear leg for some time now. We're not really sure why but, we're treating it as a stifle injury. We have been instructed to walk him over cavaletti poles to strengthen and rehabilitate his leg. For the last couple of weeks I have been walking him by hand. He is doing pretty well and only shows lameness when trotting downhill. I've been increasing the amount of trotting that Wyatt does in these sessions in and effort to continually challenge him. The only problem is that it is a lot or work for me to trot a horse around. Very little effort for the horse, lots of effort for me.
Today I wasn't able to take him on his walk in the morning because we had to weigh all the horses (a monthly chore that drives the feed schedule). Since I also had to exercise Charlie in the afternoon, I decided to kill two birds with one stone and ponied Wyatt behind me. I walked Charlie over the poles and pulled Wyatt over as well. For some reason, Wyatt was better able to walk the poles than Charlie. Between the pole sets, I would trot both horses around the jogging track. It all went pretty well accept that one time Wyatt decided to walk around the cavalettis instead of over them. Charlie's if-he-goes-any-slower-he-would be-going-backwards trot is perfect for exercising Wyatt. Since Wyatt is putting on weight due to his inactivity, I plan to trot him more and more. Now that I don't have to do it from the ground, I'm much happier.
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