The last day or so I have been kind of “in my feels” about Ruffi. She can be so frustrating and aggravating. She is willful and ignorant, so much so that it can be borderline dangerous. I feel like I am at my wit’s end. I also feel just super overwhelmed because people are being helpful and I am getting a lot of feedback on her.
I am also just super angry because the horse I got back is not the horse I sold. We had worked through so many of these problems and come out better on the other side and now she has just regressed. I am happy her weight is back and she is healthier, but mentally, she still has a long way to go. I feel like I am going through another wave of grief over this. I thought that when the physical would heal, so would the rest, but now that she is feeling better, her mental well-being and its issues are just coming to the surface.
At this point, we are going to go back to groundwork, lunging, and longlining her to get her fitness back and work on her mental health. She might physically look like she’s ready for work, but she simply is not. And really, who was I kidding? She has been home for only 6 months. Did I think we could put the weight back on her and be back to where we were a year and a half ago? She was locked in a pen and forced to fight for food. She was being underfed and essentially starved. They admitted to hating this mare. Like no wonder she’s an anxious mess.
So now the plan is to get her on a calming/anxiety supplement, get her on some gut health supplements, get the vet out to do her teeth, a lameness eval, re-x-ray her back and feet, and go from there, in addition to scaling back her training and taking her back to basics.
If you made it this far, get yourself a cookie, you deserve it.
A