A visit from the Gatos

Fawkes has been having a good week although we had a funny interlude last night.  I got to work after a rough day and apparently was still giving off a weird energy because when I walked up to his pen he immediately spooked hard.  I walked in and he kept snorting at me and backing away.  The quarter sheet I was carrying became a monster that was intolerable and must die.

Silly cute horse

It took about 20 minutes to get him to realize I was indeed not about to murder him.  During this time some other things that were terrifying: a broom, the crosstie rack, another horse walking towards him, a brush, the tack box.  Things that weren't scary: Carrots.

Luckily he settled down for a great ride.  He has become practically a metronome at the trot, his canter transitions were reasonable (little head toss, not a full lurch) and we did some poles without a reaction.  Hoping for a lesson this weekend but the weather forecast is quite snowy so we will see.

A jumping effort commensurate to the fence size?  What?

Anywho, J took pictures of the cats last night so I thought I would share a few.  Aragorn has been fighting a flareup of IBD and I seriously should start a journal of our food experimentation successes and failures so I can figure out what he reacts too.  This is a glamorous life I lead, trying to convince a damn cat to pleasepleaseplease eat his super expensive food and then maybe not vomit it back up or develop raging diarrhea.  Jealous? I thought so.

Perching atop the giant scratching post

Old man Griffin is hanging in there.  I have learned, much to my dismay, that there aren't really any pain medicines for cat arthritis out there.  So we are trying a supplement, Dasuquin, to see if that helps.  It is a powder we sprinkle on wet food for him.  He started Jan 13, no sign of improvement yet.

He can't really reach his hind end to groom so he ends up getting matted and we have to cut them out.  Getting old sucks but holy hell he is adorable.