We are all healing after Ana's death. Jen was very, very distraught for quite some time. It was really amazing (and very sad) to watch the herd dynamics. Lakota took care of Jen for 3 days after Ana's death. On the 4th day, she told Jen to get on with her life. Jen was very funny for awhile, but soon she began to heal, also.
Jen seems to have taken on some of Ana's personality. She now seeks me out for attention, and loves to be scratched on the belly and the brisket, just like Ana. She plays, and canters, and buck, which I have never seen her do in the past year. I think that Ana is keeping Jen company, and helping her to learn to trust humans again, and teaching her how much fun we can be.
Jen and April have buddied up, and they spend all their time together. It really came to fruition when Jen ran a stick into her coronary band early in April. It was in a good inch and a half, and I didn't discover it until the 3rd day. I was soaking the hoof, thinking the lameness was an abscess, but on the third day, the soaking with Epsom Salts had drawn the stick out enough that I finally felt it. Jen was confined to a small pen, and on bute for 3 days and anbitiocs for a week. She ended up on Doxycycline after having an allergic reaction to SMZ. She was quite frantic, stomping, and itching her entire body. Banamine set that straight quickly. While I am generally a very natural-oriented person, Banamine is like a wonder-drug! I wish it weren't so darned expensive.
Jen had her bandage changed on her hoof 2x/day, with antibiotics injected into the hole, and of course her temperature was monitored. We got through all of this with a lot of treats :-) While Jen was laid up in her pen, April immediately rushed the fence, and spent the entire week in the pen with Jen. No matter what ugly faces Jen made, April never left her side for all that time. They have been inseparable ever since. Jen even shares her hay pile with April, and that is a BIG deal for Jen, she only shared her hay with Ana occasionally.
I have started taking Jen out to the roundpen, and we started with some clicker targeting exercises, to build her confidence. Soon I hope to start some round-pen relationship work, and see how she reacts to that. Jen has really warmed up to me over the last few months. She softens and likes to just stand with me, and be with me. She seeks out the companionship.
While Jen is supposed to be my daughters horse, I think it is good that Jen is learning to trust all humans again. At first I had thought I would step back and let them build their own realtionship, but with school hours, homework schedules, my daughter doesn't get to spend as much time as she would like with the horses, and Jen was feeling left out, I think.
Jen is also moving so much better! She is bucking and cantering, and she is moving engaged and with natural collection. Her poll and sacrum no longer seem to be sore, and she rolls all the way over, now. Thanks, Pam! She is moving engaged, and very happy and comfortable in her body now. I think she just needed to build the muscle necessary to carry herself. I think her old, inverted movements were due to atrophied and cannibilized muscles, unnecessary muscles that were sacrified for survival, but their absence caused her to not be able to move properly for so many years, that her body didn't know how to move correctly again without the NMR help.
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