Thermal Imaging

I promised to share some of the thermal images of P that we had taken, so this is for just that.  I apologize in advance for the mediocre quality, I was in a fight with the scanner - and apparently lost.  Such is life.

I've had several conversations with my vet about the merits (and pitfalls) of thermal imaging as a diagnostic tool, so I was really interested to see first hand what sort of information she was able to gleam for the pictures as well as how the photo shoot (for lack of a better term) would go.

If you'll recall, the day that we took the Thermals of P, we went on a nice trail ride then turned the beast out and let her play with a new herdmate who was just being introduced.

Vet was adamant that Pia had at least 30 minutes to relax in pasture before we took images because even a low key trail ride that doesn't warrant a sweat causes a pretty serious change in blood flow to muscles and whatnot.  I picked up early on how critical it is for the subject to be as clean and dry as possible.

Dry I could arrange for, but please recall that yak-mare looks something like this at the moment:

There's only so much a 2 minute curry can accomplish when fighting against 9 months of pasture time...

The reason why "clean and dry" is essential is because unlike thermal images of... oh say... a baby's bottom, the furry coat on horses does a fantastic job of insulating them and masking true variations in blood flow.  On top of that, any change in hair pattern, cowlick, matted bit of sweat or damp spot reflects the heat slightly differently and will result in an irregularity in the image.

This is why it's critical (IMHO) to be in front of the real live horse when reviewing thermal pics.

Vet has expressed her frustration at being sent sets of images remotely to examine and then expected to try and guess which cold (or hot) spots are due to blood flow, and which ones are manure stains from an afternoon nap...  It's hard.

So I was grateful to be present when she took pics of P and was able to explain her methodology to me.  First, an image:

As you can well imagine, these images are of P's shapely bottom, and then a bird's eye view of her spine (head away from us).  You can also see my creepy (apparently warm) eyeballs glowing in the top shot...

The scale on the right shows you what the colors mean as well as the range of temperatures that the camera is reading.  What's cool about this is that you can basically control the sensitivity of the camera to the point that if you see a "hot spot" on a leg, you can "zoom" in by stretching the color scale out over a smaller degree range.  The top pic had a range of 49 degrees to 90 degrees, where as the spine picture ranges only from 66 to 84. Essentially this provides more detail in the temperature variations.

When you find an interesting spot you can set the range to just a few degrees and get a much sharper picture of what's going on...  (based on blood flow).  You can literally tell if the heat in your horse's tendon is a strain, or just a concussion from whacking their leg on the fence...

That is pretty bad ass in my opinion and would be a really handy piece of information to have before whipping out the checkbook for ultrasounds... plus it's just cool to see.

What these couple pictures of P show is that our fantastic Vet isn't making anything up.  P's "hammies" are tight in her butt (a side effect of her compensation for tight shoulders) and she has a hot "cross" on her back that is basically her spine and a stripe across her shoulders.  This isn't the best picture we have to illustrate that, but it's the best one I have a copy of :)...

What's even cooler is I was able to look at comparable images from other horse's in order to see how much cooler their spines/withers are and see how P's body is unique. 

Here's one more example of the thermals:

Top picture is a side shot of her wither/shoulder (the purple blob at the top is a piece of mane) and the bottom picture are her front toes.  I don't know if you remember but it looked like P had blown an abscess that day (she hadn't been sore) but we couldn't quite tell if it was an abscess or part of the blister that her (mean, nasty, awful) boots gave her.  You can see the flaming white hot spot on her pastern from the boot (I felt so guilty), and just below you can see a different heat pattern in her hoof which pointed toward abscess.

just as a side - we did then "zoom in" on that foot and get a more detailed shot which literally showed where the abscess had been in more detail.  Vet said that she considered this image a very "general, almost fuzzy" image that she would always follow up on.  Once again.. how cool to think "gosh, does my horse have an abscess?" then be able to take a thermal image and see the compressed heat and know for certain that an abscess was the answer... so interesting.

I definitely came away from the process with more understanding of how careful you have to be when taking pictures.  Directional sunlight is enough to warp the results, as is pretty much any sort of recent activity, mud, water, or sweat.  But, I feel like taken with enough consideration, the thermal images are a great additional tool for a vet to have in their tool box.  Certainly provides an interesting bit of information...

P wasn't so sure though.  She thought the camera was definitely a snack....

Double Down (payments)

So, while I was supposed to be casually soaking on the sun on the white beaches of Zanzibar (I mean seriously, doesn't it sound like you're supposed to be thinking only of tropical fruits and poetry?)  I couldn't quite get my brain to shut up about things like trailers and the mares and why do I own two horses that I don't ride... and what about sparkly browbands... I can't believe NEITHER mare has a sparkly browband...

Okay, so maybe some of the musings were more important than others, but really, the two biggest "these aren't tragic issues" issues that kept rolling over in my pea brain were

1) new trailer, get one.
and
2) BBM, Why aren't you riding her 5 times a week yet. Isn't that why you got a second horse you silly, silly girl

So.  This gray and drizzly Monday I bucked up and did something about it.  We have officially put down a deposit on a trailer (pictures and explanation to come) that we will be picking up this weekend in the heart of Washington Wine Country.  Lucky me I get to celebrate a friend's 30th, go wine tasting and then hitch up a new trailer on our way home (YESSSS).

Also, I just popped a check in the mail securing a spot at a LOCAL (15 minute drive away) barn for Prairie.  It's not the perfect DQ barn, but it does have lots of turnout, a few people I know and a decent indoor and outdoor ring for us to clock some hours in.

Because you know what? the perfect trailer and the perfect barn weren't just going to materialize (at least not anytime soon).  So we found a great trailer (at a good price) and a good barn for us to go to.  If our needs change or we hate either, we'll make a move then.

I am feeling a huge weight lifting off my shoulders (and out of my wallet).

Just think! in three weeks I'll be using the NEW TRAILER to bring the new mare practically to my backyard.

About time if you ask me....

BBM - pre-honeymoon rides..

Okay okay... so I'm more than a little late on this post - and if my pre-teen attempts at keeping a diary taught me anything (other than the fact that the locks on hello kitty diaries can be picked with pretty much anything), it was that the longer I wait to write about actual events, the less likely I am to remember any relevant details thereby leaving the opportunity for wild creative and assumptions.

I had to check my iCal to confirm when we actually took these pictures, but apparently I last saw Prairie on the weekend of February 12th.  I'm pretty sure nothing else exciting happened that weekend, but my angst filled teenage self would prefer that I insert some of melodramatic side plot in order to enhance the somewhat basic lessons we had.

I'd indulge that sentiment if every shred of energy I had wasn't currently being focused on digesting the mound of bacon that I so desperately needed to consume at brunch...

So! the Mare:

True to our previous visits we slammed out two rides - one after work on Friday, and one Saturday Morning before coming home again.  Let's start with Friday:

We started off much better than our previous trip, although, as the picture above shows.. we're far from perfection.  Hollow? usually.  On the forehand? most of the time... stuck on my left rein? yuppers.

BUT! more importantly, we stayed mostly between my aids.  Legs were on and functional, and I managed to get the mare off my hand much, much better than before.  Small victories.  Which must be celebrated when I feel as though we're still careening around the ring like drunk toddlers.

Anyway.  We started with our leg yields against the wall (decent), which are quickly becoming my favorite tool for really making sure that I have Prairie in my outside rein and I'm not cheating (too much) on the inside.  Then we moved up to our figure-8's in the trot, which were so. much. better. than before.  our change of reins didn't always result in me dropping Prairie on her face (good for me).



Sidenote:  The Boy also played with this cool slow-motion feature on our camera... it takes 5 seconds of real time video (taken at a crazy high frame rate) and turns it into about a minute of playback.  It doesn't do well in low light (also the indoor's lights cause a painful, seizure-inducing flicker..) but something tells me this will be fun to play with in some better light!



Our canter departs were lighter and less disastrous mostly due to the fact that I got my ass out of the saddle and let the mare just step up on her own.

By the end of the lesson when we were cantering to the left (my bad side), my left rein was on full lock down.  My hand had turned into some sort of claw gripped to the rein and my elbow was braced.  Did I know it? yes.  Was I aware this was not an effective strategy to balance the mare? absolutely.  Could I release my death grip on the inside rein?

Not even a little bit.

Of course, then J pulled a mean old pony club trick and removed my left glove, exposing the somewhat raw screaming blisters that were already starting to form as a result of my clenched claw.

Mean.  But effective.  I literally had no choice but to let up and stop reefing on the left rein - which (to no one's surprised) ultimately helped soften the mare.  Sigh.

We squeaked out a few "good" transitions and called it a night.

Saturday we basically repeated the same exercises, but with a slight improvement (apparently my gangly, horse deprived body can be taught!).

Leg yield on the rail, into figure-8's with lots o' transitions...  After a few drama-llama moments, I was actually feeling pretty darn good.  I'm not exactly amping up the impulsion or lateral work, but I am feeling like I am at least getting a feel for the mare and starting to lose the sense that I'm out of control 90% of the time.  Am I repeating that fact? I apologize if I am, but even though I know it's not impressive - it's really contributing to me not feeling like a total moron.  Which I like.

She's adorable. I'm excited to get a ride in this week...

Here's a clip of our leg yield on the rail... I'm not doing a great job of catching her when she tries to avoid my outside rein... but I'm getting better and I can't cheat.. so thats good too..



here's some figure-8's from Saturday:

Annnnnnd We're Back.

The Boy and I managed to safely return to the real world sometime on Tuesday.  I think the plane landed around 4pm, but our body clocks adamantly screamed that the actual time was somewhere between midnight and 3am.

Regardless, we were both thrilled to be back home and get a chance to squeeze a few of our creatures ensuring that our clothing resumed having the appropriate amount of pet hair smeared about.

The horses have yet to see either of us, but hopefully that will change as soon as I stop craving lunch at 2am and successfully stay awake at late enough to watch Jeopardy....

The trip itself was over the top fantastic.  The animals were incredible, the scenery was storybook and our time together was really just fantastic from start to finish.  The low point was really not getting to ride either in a jungle or on a beach, but I tried to enjoy the fabulousness sans horses... (It wasn't actually that hard).

But we are back, the mares are good, and hopefully I get to see them soon.  The biggest downside of taking almost 3 weeks off work is that I have a ton of backlogged visits to our other locations to get done... and I'm pretty sure that's going to make it hard to sneak in midweek visits to the ponies.

I did figure out that one of my meetings next week is about 15 minutes from BBM.. so hopefully I can stop for a ride after.  I've already informed my colleague that they may have to endure a three hour pit stop brief delay so that I can squeeze in a lesson...

Can't wait to catch up on everyone's blogs! I promise I will soon!