Edward

As summer begins its descent into fall, as the mornings grow a little hazier and the evenings come a little sooner, as the air takes on a crisper quality, some people begin to think about vampires. It’s not as outrageous a thought as it sounds! ‘Tis the season for pumpkin spice and draping yourself in a sheet to go ask for candy, and plus, the week of September 14th is the ‘Twilight Forever’ festival in Forks, WA, and so perhaps there is no better time to give an update on our own Edward, whose name may or may not have been inspired by a certain sparkly vampire.

Our Edward is certainly closer to the Cullen variety than the Nosferatu — while he arrived at SAFE as a rail-thin, unhealthy gelding, his body condition worsened as a result of his asthma, he has since filled out into a shiny, handsome, copper-colored lad. In his personality, too, he has made strides about as far as a baseball-playing vampire can jump (which is to say, incredibly). In recent conversation with Casey A, who has been riding Edward for the last good while, we caught up on what they have been working on as of late. She sung his praises while currying his flank, that of a very mellow and relaxed horse.
“He comes right up to me when I go out to get him,” she told me, which is an astonishing fact if you have any familiarity with Edward’s storied history of being, at some points in his life, near impossible to catch. “He likes attention.” And it was true, demonstrated right there before me, as he stood with his head down and his eyes sleepy, seemingly happy to be groomed forever.

He is an easy horse to saddle these days, and generally speaking great for all manner of ground-handling: leading, picking up his feet (he’s become an angel for the farrier, calling into question if he was ever anything but), brushing..

But Edward’s kryptonite (sunshine?) is that without consistent work, he is liable to slide back into old, less pleasant habits. He does not vacation well, and when thinking about his forever home, he will need someone who is looking to work or ride frequently to keep both his body (and more importantly) his mind in shape.

He is also going to do best with a confident rider. Edward knows the ropes by now well enough, but his demeanor and personality is such that he will really benefit from a strong leader who is able to help him make smart choices and support him through uncertain situations.

As Casey bridles him, we chat a bit about the two matching scars on either side of his face, around his poll area. It’s no secret that Edward has a bit of a pull-back spot, one that is exacerbated after extended periods of time off, and she muses on the possibility that the scarring has something to do with it. But the two of them have put in countless hours working on getting him through that poll sensitivity, and he’s come a long way.
“I just take it slow,” she says, sliding his ears carefully beneath the crown piece in a singular deft movement. Today, there is no evidence of a horse who evades being haltered or bridled. This also gets us on the topic of how Edward is the type of horse who, once he gets to know you and establishes trust, is willing to put up with more. Like a child with a security blanket, Edward can more easily face his fears and insecurity when he is supported. During those days when he was especially struggling with being caught, he all but required someone he knew to come and get him. His trust goes a long way.

Under saddle, Edward is a comfortable ride. Casey has worked a great deal on helping Edward find balance, though in this realm, she says, there’s more work to be done. They also are working on punctuality — Edward has life, but can still be a bit slow to respond to his rider’s requests at times. Moving out with more freedom will also help Edward’s expression, which can get a bit sour.

Casey and Edward have been spending quite a bit of time on Edward following her line, and on this front she says he’s doing very well. The pair have done most of their recent riding off the rail of the round pen, turning figure-8s that Casey defines with her legs. However, all this time spent away from the rail means that he’s a bit less certain when asked to stay out and follow it. She makes corrections with her outside rein as they go around, helping guide him back to where she’s asking him to go. There’s a lot going on around the arena as well — horses are being moved from their turnouts to grass, horses calling, some kind of pressure-washing project up at the house. In the face of all of this, and with a confident rider to support him, Edward remains calm, but his unwillingness to ride the rail may be somewhat related to outside circumstances. “Something to work on,” Casey says as she directs him back to where she wants him.

Indeed, there are always things to work on — that’s what makes horsemanship so great, there’s no end — but these little kinks to work out are not big enough to prevent him from moving to his future home. Edward is certainly ready to meet adopters. He will, at this point, need a confident intermediate rider who can give him consistent time and support, but for this person he will undoubtedly be Their Horse. As I mentioned before, Edward develops a great deal of trust in his people, and to be on the receiving end of that trust is truly a special feeling.

It has been a while since you’ve last seen Edward move, so here’s a video of that day, Edward working with Casey.

Since healing from his popped splint, Edward has been on the mend and back in work.

Edward is a special guy. He is definitely the kind of horse who, if he knows you and trusts you, allows you to get a lot more done. Whatever happened in Edward’s past, a combination of being orphaned as a foal and poor handling in his time before arriving at SAFE, has not set him up for success. He has always been historically difficult to catch, with a wicked pull-away spot that took a while to excavate, but as is sometimes the case, such spots do not disappear entirely. Casey A, who has been spending the most time with Edward as of late, has done a lot to attempt to get to the bottom of this issue, working on passing the rope above his poll and doing loads of hooking on and changing eyes. And she has been seeing some great results. But while she might not have issues catching, leading, or releasing him, others who he does not know as well still do. In the right (or wrong) circumstance, his eyes go big, almost like he’s forgotten all the good stuff he knows, and he reverts back to the Edward we first met. It’s clear that, at least at this point in his life, Edward will need to establish a good rapport with someone in order to make the relationship a success for everyone involved.

We are working on finding the right set of circumstances to keep Ed as happy and safe as possible. One thing that has been crucial for Edward has been to be kept in regular work – he is not a gelding who vacations well, and it has made all the difference in the world for his behavior when he is in work multiple times a week. He also has been very much enjoying his time in turnout with buddy Jacob. In an ideal world, these two would find a home together, but until the day one or the other gets adopted, they will remain together. Being in isolation from people and other horses is not good for any horse, but being stimulated in work and in play is definitely crucial for Edward.

Edward and Jacob are never far from one another in turnout

In her work with him, Casey also found that Edward had a spot in him that led him to rear. She has been spending lots of time on the ground working to free up his front end, as what causes a horse to rear is a stickiness in the front. They don’t feel they can move their feet, and so they go the only way that seems available to them in the moment: up. She has found that helping him balance his movement has done wonders for this issue, and she has seen it beginning to clear. She has also been working to clear up a blind spot issue under his chin that was causing him to paw, and has been seeing similarly positive results. Spending so much time on the foundational basics of groundwork and excavating these spots has made Edward a lot more comfortable in his skin, and a lot safer for his handlers.

It is likely that Edward will take some of his baggage with him wherever he goes for the rest of his life, but through the help of people like Casey, that load is getting a lot lighter.

If there’s one thing you can be sure of, it’s that horses will find ways to injure themselves. Cuts, scratches, lumps, bumps – you name it, and sooner or later a horse will find a way to amass a variety of them. It’s written into their code, as sure as breathing air or drinking water.

So Edward was just exercising his right as a horse to injure himself when last week he popped a splint. The other thing about injuries and horses – there is typically a mystery involved in the creation of the former. Rarely is there a trail of breadcrumbs leading from the scene of the accident, and some injuries seem to prove the existence of ghost hazards, rusty nails and broken fence boards appearing just to scratch and gouge before disappearing, leaving us to wonder ‘how the **** did that happen?!”

We can make some assumptions about Edward’s popped splint. He had been playing with Jacob out in the arena earlier in the week, and the two roughhouse something fierce. This is not meant to sound like a bad thing, never in my life have I seen two horses enjoy each other’s company more. But I digress – it’s likely that Jacob was somehow related to Edward’s injury, either directly or indirectly, but when asked for comment on the matter, he plead the fifth.

A popped splint is a fascinating condition to me, only made this way due to its lack of severity, at least in this case. The splint bone, the remnant of a toe now shortened and no longer in use, lies snuggled up against the cannon bone. When some trauma happens to it, the splint bone can separate from the cannon bone. Dutifully, calcium comes in to repair the spot, and with time, all is ‘set’ right again. Typically, these types of injuries just need rest and relaxation to heal. In Edward’s case, this seems to be all that is needed. He was never lame on the leg, and while there was some tenderness and heat around the area when it was newly popped, it did not affect him the way one might assume if you were to tell them one of his bones separated from the other.

After being checked out by our vets, Edward was prescribed a regime of cold hosing twice daily to help with inflammation, application of a topical cream, and several weeks of rest. Stall rest does not agree with our Eddie, so it came as a relief to us all when a small rehab paddock space was deemed fine for him, with the added benefit of being next door neighbors with his buddy, Jacob.

Edward will bear the bump on his leg for the remainder of his life, but that’s not to say it’s a bad thing. Bumps and lumps add character, we feel, and it means Edward will have a cool ‘scar’ to show off when he’s back to work. But for now, he’s taking it easy, being a very good guy for his hosing and lotioning, and probably not complaining about having some time out from under saddle.

In preparation for an off-site clinic (and just in general for adoption), Edward spent some time practicing trailer loading and standing tied recently. These are important skills for any horse to learn, ones that set them up for success in their future home (a home they cannot reach if not by trailer!)

Edward proved a quick study, hopping on and off the trailer like an old pro. But trailering isn’t just getting on and coming off, but standing for the ride without being in a panic. This we achieve by spending lots of relaxing time in the trailer, showing that it can be a place of calm. There will inevitably be unexpected elements of a horse’s journey on a trailer — bumps and jolts and stops that vary with each ride — but to help show them that overall the trailer is not a scary place can be a huge help when the going does get rough.

Tying was also not a problem for Ed, who if anything just seemed a bit confused as to why he was being asked to stand in the arena by himself. We flagged him along the wall for a while after first tying him, showing him that he was free to move laterally if he felt the need to go somewhere, and he performed this exercise smoothly and without panic. Then, he sat for a bit tied and watched as his friend Rae practiced trailering. When we walked by, he would greet us with his typical low nicker, as if to say ‘hey, come over here and untie me!’ but without any hullabaloo whatsoever.

These two exercises help to sculpt Edward into a great horse citizen, and set him up for success in his future endeavors.

Edward has, as all horses do, an almost preternatural ability to read humans. When I think about a horse like Edward — really, when I give thought to horses in general — I am filled with amazement that they allow us to do even a quarter of the things that they do. So when they test their boundaries with us, I should really be more surprised it doesn’t happen more often.

Edward arrived at SAFE quite skeletal, a result of poor nutrition and poor luck — his respiration was so bad that he required daily nebulizing. Most times, when horses first get to SAFE, they are quite subdued. It takes some time for them to come into themselves, aided by calories and vet care and clean, stable environments. So for the first little while, Edward was to us a sweet, if not somewhat sickly, boy, who stood calmly for his medications and nickered when you approached his gate. Ventipulmin syrup, a medication administered to help with his breathing, was a particular favorite of his, and he practically couldn’t get enough of the syringe.

But as his health improved, his personality began to truly blossom. In his past life, he had been poorly halter started, and had experiences with people where he had learned that he was in control of their feet, not the other way around. So when people began working with him, he was pulling from the box of tricks that he had known his entire life — he knew nothing else. One of his trademarks was being difficult to halter. Half-way through haltering, he decided that he was actually not interested in the proceedings, and would make a quick getaway. Then it became a matter of approaching him again — easier said than done — once he chose fleeing as the move of the hour. There was a period of his life where only Terry had success catching him. Everyone else, he learned he could get away from, and would exploit that with frequency.

Reader, I have to admit, at one time, haltering Edward weighed heavily on me. My initial unsuccessful attempts to catch him had the deck stacked against me, and he absolutely had my number. I’m sure he could hear the nervous beating of my heart as I approached, and he could certainly sense the trepidation in my approach. I knew what he was capable of, and he knew that I knew. Catching horses is a funny thing — in most instances, it’s a mindless task, but in some cases, it is a challenge that overtakes your thoughts. Or, my thoughts. To get Edward more comfortable with being caught, he first had to get caught, and if the latter couldn’t happen, then the former wouldn’t.

But there are always solutions. Until he learned to be caught by others, he would have to wear a nylon halter, something that you could clip a lead onto without having to fiddle with the production of haltering from scratch. This provided a quick and easy way to catch him, and then practice with the rope halter. ‘Caught’ with the nylon halter, even if (and when) he tried to make a break for it, you could reel him back in and try again. Soon enough, he learned that his quick escape no longer worked the way it once did, and at the same time, learned with each knot tied that being caught by others was really not that big a deal. Soon enough, the nylon halter was retired, and good old Eddie was getting caught just like any other.

On occasion, with a new person, Eddie will reach back into that box of tricks and pull out one of his old moves, but the foundation we have laid for him during his months here at SAFE makes it so he comes back to his current self rather than living in the past. Each time we work with Edward, we help to empower him with a new set of tools so that he no longer has to resort back to his old box of tricks, and these days Eddie is quite a wonderful citizen.

This past week, Eddie had his first few rides — uneventful, just the way we like them. It took him a bit of time to give to the bend Joel was asking him for, but with the patience and great releases of a well-practiced teacher, he got there. He was also uncertain about what Joel’s leg meant when asking for hindquarters, but again, figured it out soon enough under Joel’s tutelage.

Times like these remind how important it is to hang in there and wait for the correct action from the horse before granting a release. Had he thrown in the towel before Edward had moved his hind over, or bent appropriately, it would have sent Eddie the message that a release could come for doing the ‘wrong’ thing. It is inevitable that not every release will be perfect, but we try our best to make the ratio of correct releases to incorrect ones skewed in the favor of the former. Especially with young horses who are just learning, these positive experiences can provide a great baseline of knowledge from which they can draw from. Clearly communicating with the horse starting with the very first ride helps to teach them expectations for subsequent rides.

And proof is in the pudding — on Edward’s second ride, he was more understanding than his first, and on his third, even better. Because he is still so green, this understanding between himself and his rider is somewhat tenuous — it would be easy at this point for him to get confused about what was being asked of him. However, with each ride he will continue to grow a bit more sure, and one day it will be difficult to imagine he was ever an un-started gelding with a bit of a wild streak.

Edward, the skinny, asthmatic horse who arrived at SAFE last fall has been started under saddle. It has been a while since he looked like the gelding we first met – he has seen such dramatic improvement in both his health and his ground manners – and to see him with a saddle on, it is difficult to imagine his origins.

Out of his two companions, he fell right in the middle of the pack in terms of ease of saddling. Jacob acted as though he’d been wearing a saddle all his life, and Esme.. well, Esme is still getting used to it. Edward had his moments, but overall took to saddled life with relative ease. In preparation for a rider, Edward has been doing all of his groundwork under saddle, progressing through Buck Brannaman’s ‘Red Book,’ learning to give to pressure by way of a rope, and working on moving up and down softly through the gaits off a feel.

So far, our Eddie doesn’t seem to mind the ropes touching him too much. When they tighten up, particularly around his hind, he does get a little bothered (bunny hopping, a baby version of a buck), but he stands with a curious contemplation as Terry coils and swings and throws her rope — even when he is the target. There are a few wiggles in there, but for the most part he is quite stoic. All of this work on the ground will directly translate to when he has a rider on his back, something he is now well prepared for.

Edward, along with the herd mates he arrived at SAFE with, Esme and Jacob, were all named after characters from a certain mid-2000s book series you may be familiar with, featuring vampires and werewolves and rain, oh my! Edward, the horse, was named after Edward, the vampire, and it turns out that the two share more similarities than just sparkling in the sun; now at a healthy weight, on those rare winter days when the sun does appear, Edward’s coat is positively lustrous liver chestnut. 

At his most recent dental exam, it was discovered that Edward was hiding some serious sharp points. These points are typically caused by uneven wear on the teeth, and for domesticated horses who tend to chew far less each day than their wild counterparts, routine dental visits are required to check for and remedy such situations. After a bit of filing from our vet, Edward was back to being fangless – a much healthier and more comfortable situation for him. 

We might brag a little about how proud we are of this young gelding. A lot has changed for him over the last months since coming into SAFE and he has hit a good stride in his training and preparation for adoption. He had very little to no issue with our vet, getting sedated or having his first ever dental examination. Very proud of the good citizen he is becoming!

Check out this video of Edward bumping up to the rail — it was only the third time we did this exercise with him, and as you can see, he is a very fast learner and an incredibly smart boy!

Edward is a silly monkey! He is both a joy and a troublemaker all wrapped up in a handsome package. We’re approaching 60 days of nebulizing treatments for Edward. He manages these exceptionally well, given how green and untrained he was just a few months ago. We have slowly decreased the amount of medication and now do treatments a few times a week. If all goes well, he will be able to maintain effective respiration on a few times a week or just for “flare-ups”. This will be a big relief for our staff who have been standing with him for these 45-minute sessions daily. Edward is hesitant about anyone other than his primary trainer, Terry, haltering or handling him, and he can be intimidating and quick moving. However, we are introducing him to being haltered by others so that he can be safely handled by more people. Edward has a trouble spot when asked to do things he doesn’t want to do or is unsure about. In his life before SAFE, he likely was able to either bully his way to get people to leave him alone or they simply never asked him to do anything that wasn’t his idea. He is the more herd bound member of the trio that all came to SAFE together. He is fine leaving the other horses as long as he is with Terry but if he is left alone in his paddock he will call and run around until his paddock buddies return, particularly little Esme. 

Terry was able to saddle Edward three times prior to his first colt starting clinic at SAFE and only in the very first saddling did he feel the need to buck. Terry was able to keep him on the halter during the bucking and helped talk him through the bucking without letting him sort it out on his own. Once Edward settled, he remained in the round pen and found the walk, trot, and canter without much issue. By the time the clinic days came he was pretty easy to saddle and move out. During the colt starting clinic at SAFE we were able to work every day with saddling and moving out wearing the saddle. However, given his touchiness, the winter months ahead, and a three-month period until our next clinic with Joel Conner, we decided not to put the first rides on him. There is a great deal of helpful groundwork that can happen between now and the clinic that will make the first ride experience easy and successful for everyone. A set-back on a sensitive horse isn’t worth experiencing. Time and more groundwork can help mitigate any trouble in those important first rides.

A few weeks ago Edward had a little head bobbing and tender steps when weighting his right front. Much to our surprise, he allowed us to soak his foot in warm water and Epson salts then dry and cover the bottom of his hoof in an Epson salt paste with duct tape boot wrap. Amazing! Luckily the next day the abscess popped and he was back to moving without any pain. He even let us cut off the boot without TOO much trouble.