Ranch work and 2 years of catch up

The Catch Up My dedication to this blog is remarkable, no? Snort. In no particular order: yesterday we scoped Angel, I think for the 5th time. She was the best she has ever been, except for one patch in one area. She has been on sucralfate 40mg/day and ranitidine 10 pills (?mg) day. We are going to quit the raniditine immediately on the theory that it has not had any effect, and wind down the sucralfate over the next week, as there are very few craters for it to attach to, just one little spot, really. We are going to go back to Ulcerguard, starting at 3 days of a full tube, followed by 4 days of 3/4 tube, 7 days of 1/2 tube, then forever or until next evaluation of 1/4 tube. She had also pulled a tendon about two months ago, so I can no longer really say she has never been lame, and the puffiness around her RH ankle is way down, practically not noticeable, and on the ultrasound you can see a little fraying about 2 inches above the ankle bone bump. Just a little. So I am to get her over 35 minutes' walk as many days a week as possible to keep the tendon improving, then in about 2 weeks I can ride for all of 10 minutes at the walk! I am so excited and high! The Ranch Work We have had to do lots of hand walking, not something I have spent a lot of time doing, and the first time I went out in the paths behind Kevin's place, she was a doll going out, and a fire blowing, rearing, bouncing maniac on the way back. So it was made clear to me that I had an opportunity to straighten out our groundwork. But the challenge is that I couldn't do it by making her work in circles or anything that would stress her RH leg. We started on the road in scary places, working with a long stick, practicing backing, moving away from the stick, doing a full 12-point turn going away from me, matching my pace, zagging left and right matching me and my stick, and that helped her to concentrate going past scary stuff. We made a lot of improvement although there are still some places we get rattled going by: the woods (S) of E. Killingly Rd. next to some houses and next to the white board fence of the Maple Glen Inn. So anyway, this morning we needed to get our 35 minutes in, despite the bitter cold and the fact that it was snowing and the driveways were too icy to cross. So we went in the woods, and gathered kindling. The virtue of this is that I frequently had to stop, back up, move myself or her, or ask her to stand in the path while I moved off to the side to grab a piece. It was clear to her what I was doing and I think it helped both of us to stay calm and focussed. It was a ripping good exercise, performed cheerfully and calmly without a hitch.