I have not seen Kai for a few days because I was very sick after having an allergic reaction. I was still feeling pretty tired but I felt I needed to check on him.

When we entered the indoor arena I noticed that Kai was in a slight right brain mood. He had his skeptical face on. I began to groom him and pick his feet. He had a kick mark on his bum and  a few other scrapes.

I decided to then ask him to trot so that I could observe his movement. He was very reluctant to trot and he moved sort of sluggishly. I became worried that he was feeling sick too. I had never seen him like this. He had almost zero enthusiasm and wanted to slow down.

I decided to wait and see if he felt this way the next day and to do some slow things. I then played stick to me, asking him to pay attention to my energy. I then positioned him in the middle of the arena and began playing porcupine game. I worked on making sure he pivoted on his FQ and HQ yields and stayed very light and responsive. Kai offered a very light FQ yield and we quit on that.

I spent some more time with him before putting him back in the paddock.

Then it hit me. He was most likely feeling lethargic because I was feeling lethargic. It brought to my attention once again how much Kai mirrors me.

Today Kai turned to face me when he saw me in the paddock but did not come over the ditch to catch me. However he sweetly came to greet me once I crossed. As I was haltering him both of us noticed that there was something walking around just out of sight in the woods. The other horses didn't seem to notice so I guessed it was a deer. As we were walking to the gate I  felt that Kai was going to be in a right brain mood today. I then brought him to the indoor arena and started to groom him. Kai fidgeted a little during the grooming but I put him back where he was every time he moved.  

Next I set up a figure eight big enough for Kai to easily trot the pattern. I positioned him between the markers and asked him to yoyo backwards twenty feet and asked him to trot to the left. Kai went a little RBE and started trotting quickly around the markers. I smiled at him and waited for him to settle down.  Kai settled down quickly and then he became playful. I brought my energy to match his and sent him with a playful attitude. Kai did a leap forward and then he did a very nice figure eight. I was so pleased with how light he was. I decided to do one more figure eight and then do sideways.

I asked him to trot again and Kai got emotional and tried to canter which made him very unbalanced. I made a split second decision to wait until he was ready to connect with me again. And then Kai stumbled and looked like he was about to go down on his knees but at the last moment he picked himself up and stopped and looked at me. I breathed out in relief and Kai mirrored me and breathed out also. I then sent him back on the pattern.

This time I was paying attention to his movement to make sure he didn't hurt himself. Luckily he was fine. He got fast again but this time it was because he wanted to, not because he was nervous so I bumped him on the nose. Then he did a lovely figure eight--he was ''bouncing off my bubble'' so nicely, his changes of direction were balanced, and he was not running away from me. I exhaled and brought him in.

After a quick break we started to play sideways game.

Kai has the tendency to run away from me instead of staying connected, especially the farther away he gets. I tested him out by sending him sideways both directions. He was way better on the left side and he would stay connected enough all the way out to come back towards me sideways. I decided to work on two things, one was for him to keep his nose in the wall until I asked him otherwise, and two, for us to have good ''brakes'' when I exhaled and became neutral.

We started close range and slowly built up distance to about twelve feet. On Kai's left side he could go out and stop when I relaxed and then come back sideways towards me. On his right side he could go out twelve feet and keep his nose in the wall. He didn't seem to understand coming sideways towards me to his right. I quit there praising him for his lovely efforts and decided to work on sideways towards on his right individually.

I first got his HQ yields very good on both sides and then I stood on a bucket to make myself taller so that I could reach over his back and ask his hip to move. Kai kept moving into the pressure and would turn to face me instead of stepping over. It got to the point that he would turn his bum all the way around. I leaned over and asked him to yield his HQ back to where they were. I slowly increased the pressure and I bumped him with the stick. This repeated once more and I decided to try something new. I again stepped of the bucket and asked him to yield his HQ around. I then stepped back on the bucket, positioned him almost parallel to myself to set him up for success and leaned as far as I could over him so that I could reach his bum better and slowly started to bump his bubble ever so slightly.
I gave him lots of time to think it through. And Kai stepped over. I got down and showered him with praise. I waited for him to lick and chew and then I asked him again so that he could solidify his understanding of the lesson. When he did I gave him a scratch and ended the session.

Today Casper and I started right where we left of since last time.

I asked him to paw his right leg and then his left. Casper offered to paw higher that ever before. I was so happy with him.

The next step was to review the ''paw leg once, step forward, paw other leg once, repeat'' concept. I put him on the rail and asked him for his best and highest paw. I then positioned myself in front of him and asked Casper to Spanish walk forward. He pretty much got it from the start! I was so proud of him! I made a big fuss over him and gave him a break and then asked him to do the bending practice.


I then left him in the arena to get his breakfast. When I returned Casper became unusually pushy because he wanted his grain. I set down the grain and asked him to yoyo back. He did but not without protest so I brought him in halfway and asked him again. This time he was dragging his feet, making a point of not putting any effort in, so I bumped him with the rope. Casper turned around and tried to kick. I yank him back around using the power position and started to bump him with the rope repeatedly until he gave me two eyes and was backing up with effort. I then made my energy neutral, smiled, asked him to back up which he did very nicely. I pointed at his bucket giving him permission to eat. When he ate half of the grain I asked him to lift his head with my energy and then gave the rope the tiniest little wiggle. Casper respectfully lifted his head and asked a question. I smiled and pointed at his bucket again. When he was done we went back to work on the Spanish walk. Casper decided to try being sassy again and started to toss his head. I decided to ask him to move his feet on a circle to regain my leadership. I decided to let Casper loose because the indoor arena is small enough to act like a round pen and he would not get the pulling on the rope idea into his head. I asked him to trot to the left and when he decided to be disrespectful I tagged him. Every circle I did a change of direction at the trot until the were nice and smooth.

Today Casper and I started by grooming. I checked his legs and discovered that although there is some black scabs left they did not spread much at all, as far as I could see. As I was picking out his hooves I noticed a funny smell that is not usually there. I got worried that he developed thrush but after further examination and me sniffing his hooves I realized that his frogs were not sensitive at all. However I still drenched his frogs in apple cider vinegar.
I noticed he moved in a noticeably relaxed way  after his massage treatment.

I then let Casper loose in the indoor arena and went to talk to Kaila and to get his breakfast. When I brought his grain I set it down on the bridge. As he was coming I asked him to stop about ten feet away with my energy. Casper thought about stopping but decided to keep moving towards his grain. I raised my hand and waited long enough for him to take two steps, I then blocked him with my stick and  asked him to wait for a second. Next I raised my finger again and asked him to yoyo back to where I originally asked him to stop. He usually yoyos back at very light phases and today he went back at only a phase one. I then waited for him to ask a question and then I pointed at his bucket and watched him walk over to it and start eating. I noticed he was making odd noises as he was eating which  I have not heard him make before. I made double sure that he was not choking. I decided to watch him eat the next time I come out and do my own research. But then again, what if I am overreacting?

I then let him back in his paddock for a little while because Kaila needed the arena. When I went to get him he came up to me and then all of a sudden he left me to go back in his stall. I went after him and walked around so that he could see me and asked him to disengage his HQ and he came back. I haltered him and then went to the outdoor arena. I then asked him to do the bending exercise at the walk and trot. Casper was putting in a great effort and bending in and stepping under himself so nicely! I then let him on a bigger circle and waited for him to connect. When he did, I asked him to canter a little in each direction so that I could observe his movement. I was very pleased to see that he picked up the correct lead in every direction. However his gait still looked a bit different to me.

It all began when I noticed Casper had sensitive skin on his legs. I brushed all the dirt I could off and then slathered on some MTG on all four legs. This continued for the next couple of days. Casper was getting more and more sensitive and would start to lift his legs to avoid me touching them. I continued to brush his legs as well as I could and putting on more MTG. Soon I realized that my method of treatment was not cutting it. I asked Kaila for help and she suggested a foot soak with Epsom salt and apple cider vinegar.

The next day we set up four buckets and started the miserable struggle of trying to get my poor pony to stand with one leg in each bucket. We finally got three legs in. Then, just as I started to lift up the last leg Casper skillfully  jumped out of the other three buckets and spilled all of then. Right.... Plan B was soaking both front feet in a rubber maid container for half an hour and then doing both hind feet for half an hour.  

I then proceeded to put on more MTG. While Casper did get some relief he was still very sensitive. The mud fever got worse and the growth got thicker and bigger. A couple of days later the vet was at the barn to check on two other horses so I decided to take the opportunity and have the vet look at Casper's legs. After the check up it was decided to put him on a course of antibiotics and to soak his legs again and to scrub his legs with surgical scrub.

After soaking his legs I took the scrub, slathered it on and started to gently massage and pick off the growth. It was horrible for both horse and human. It was all slimy and black in color and awful. I tried to explain to Casper that I was only trying to help him and that I would be done so much faster if he just stood still but he was having none of it. After a couple of completely agonizing hours I had removed every single bit of black growth. I then put on some more MTG and gave my patient, wonderful, amazing pony a stud muffin and a scratch on the withers and put him back in the paddock.

The next day I  examined his legs and discovered to my horror that the growth came back just as bad as before OVERNIGHT! I treated it the same as before and continued as normal.

This repeated for a few more days. Kaila moved him out of the knee deep mud to a stall set up in the arena.
 I became more and more fed up with the fact that Casper was not happy and that I did not see significant improvement. I googled some remedies with my dad and we discovered that not all remedies worked for all horses and came to the conclusion that baby diaper cream was worth a try.

On the way to the barn the next day we stopped at the drug store and bought some diaper cream. I washed Casper's legs and put on some diaper cream. I learned two things: one, that diaper cream smells bad and two, that dirt sticks to the cream like crazy. I then remembered a picture I saw on the internet of a horse wearing socks with the toes cut of. The heel of the sock perfectly cupped the horses pastern. I am pretty sure they did it to keep the bugs of the horses legs.

Anyway I took some socks that Kaila kindly gave me and put them in Casper's legs. I was laughing my head off at Casper's indignant look.

The next day I pulled the socks off only to find that most of the scabs came of with the socks and the dried diaper cream. I washed his legs and socked (with clean ones of course) them again.

I visited him in two days and decided to wash his legs and then not put the socks on. After leaving it completely alone to let the skin heal for a few days I noticed that the growth was coming off by itself!!!!!!
I am currently keeping it dry and brushing his legs gently.