Post Season Slump

 With summer show season over, and Oregon hitting our hottest part of the year in late August-mid September, we had a bit of a summer slump. While at Tbird Cinder lost some weight, but Trainer M was on it and we upped her feed at the show and at home. She did gain some of the weight back, but then we had a week or so of ungodly (for Oregon, I know it was nothing compared to the east coast) hot and humid weather and she dropped weight again. She's always been a horse who doesn't handle the heat very well, so I wasn't too worried about it. 

I rode one of the lesson horses on a hot and humid day to give Cin a break and almost fell off laughing at how different 15hand grade pinto Delta is from Cinder. I did have a lot of fun though.

But Cinder never seemed to put the weight back on, and started looking a bit too thin, even when the weather sorted itself out and fall started to make it's appearance. She did have a minor gas colic three weeks ago when we had a string of a few days with lows in the high 40s/low 50s and daytime highs in the high 80s/low 90s. While Doc was at the barn treating her, we were talking about Cin's weight and general body condition. I told Doc I didn't want to be that person, but I was suspecting she had ulcers. With how wound up she was at Tbird, the weight loss and poor condition, and how she seemed to be struggling a bit after we got back made me suspicious. Doc agreed with me and we scheduled Cin for a scope. 

We did have one fabulous lesson mixed in there where we jumped the triple

And what do you know, we have ulcers! There were grade 3 and 4 gastric ulcers and suspected pyloric ulcers, but we weren't able to get a good look at them because Cinder still had some water in her stomach. We're starting with omeprazole, and might add some sulcralfate in at the end of the omeprazole treatment. 

I dogsat for my parents last month and their new dog Rosie was absolutely enchanted by the horses. Peebs was a Very Good Boy about her yipping and squealing as she tried to get near him

Cinder started her treatment over the weekend and I got a report that she was lovely for her trainer ride yesterday. Finger's crossed we continue on an upward trend and can get these ulcers under control before we hit the depths of winter and cold weather Cinder makes her appearance.