The Heart of the Matter

Monday July 7 2014

His stomach dominates his existence, though I like to think I occupy a little corner of his affections, squeezed in behind the hay, rice grass, kosha weeds, and treats.

I think he loves me, even though, since he's FAT, I lock him up at night and restrict his hay intake. Even though I saddle him up and make him work every day. Even though I make him huff and puff and drip sweat.

Dudley's 12, and has only a single 55-mile completion on his endurance record, back in 2008. He road-foundered after that one, and has had bouts of laminitis and a tendency toward FATNESS over the years. Steph raised him, sold him in 2011, and he came back here in 2013 because, well, he's kind of part of the family, and you just can't help but love Dudley.


We were pretty good buddies when he left in 2011, and when he returned here last year, I was happy to see him, but he seemed… sad. As if he felt he'd been abandoned by us. He wasn't mistreated by any means in his new home, but I think he felt we didn't like him anymore, so we sent him away. (Oh, if he only knew how much it broke my heart to see him go.)

In the trailer ride back here in 2013, he bit a horse in the back rendering him un-rideable for a while. (I think Dudley was feeling rejected yet again, being sent away in the trailer again; I think he was acting out.) Back in the herd here, he was no longer herd boss but was chased around by many of the horses, and he often spent time standing off by himself away from the herd. My welcome-back pets and my hugs didn't really seem to sink in for a while. I swear his feelings had been hurt, and he didn't trust that he'd be staying here.

Over the months though, he regained some status in the herd, and over the winter he slowly morphed back into the old Dudley, as his confidence grew that he'd be staying here. He once again became the old Dudley forever scheming how to Get More Food, plotting how to escape his Fat Pen so he can Get More Food, working those big brown eyes and innocent expression so we'd feel sorry for him being so hungry and he could Get More Food.

After he got FAT over the winter and I started riding him again in February, every day, we've developed a strong relationship. Even though he can sometimes be lazy on a ride, even though he can spook, even though he can bolt, even though he can be a chicken occasionally and not be thinking of me (and would instead run to save himself, not me, if, something scares him), Dudley loves me again.

My modest goal for him is to ride him in and complete a 50-mile ride at the City of Rocks ride in August. If we make it, great; if we don't, I'll keep riding him every day, because The Dude needs it, he's my pal, and I know he loves me, almost as much as food.

Attentive Dudley studying a trail map Steph is drawing in the dirt.

The Dude Meets Jenny Craig

Saturday February 22 2014

The Dude is starting a serious diet and workout plan.

For a while it wasn't possible to regulate his intake and exercise, so, naturally, he blossomed. In every direction.

These are NOT rippling muscles

 Rolls, I tell you.

 

LOTS of love handles

Tail fat deposits!

"Dude!" I say to him, every day. "You're FAT!"

Every day, he blinks at me, and sighs, I know, but I'm still handsome.

Gotta give him that.

Now his diet is restricted. Now he puts his time in the Fat Pen. Now he's started working out.

Today he took me out on a ride, maybe 4 1/2 miles, the furtherest he's been in, oh, several years, and he didn't have a heart attack doing it. He did get sweaty and foamy, but he had a good workout.

You can't see the sweat running down his face in this picture, but it's there!

I don't think he'll ever be as slim as a racehorse, say, like Stormy was in his racing days, but maybe The Dude will at least trim off some blubber on his Owyhee Jenny Craig plan.

'Toons: Shrinkage

Monday March 14 2011

To Be (Fat) Or Not To Be?

Monday November 9 2009

Alright, help me out here. Look at that picture up there. Is Stormy fat? I can see his ribs from the side through his winter coat.

Now look at him from this angle.


I think he might be having twins! Maybe he swallowed 2 beach balls. I swear that Princess was not this wide when she was pregnant with Smokey this summer. Stormy waddles when he walks!

Connie says that I'm in denial that he's fat. I'm not in denial; I just love my horse however big his paunch is, and I just prefer to look at him from the side, where I can't see the protuberance.

He was eating 24 hours a day since we put free-feed hay out in preparation for the winter. Sometimes he had his head buried up to his withers in the hay and he didn't even hear me when I walked up and talked to him.

Steph suggested lunging him half an hour every day. Lunge him! I couldn't get him to trot for half a lap around the round pen, much less half an hour, if I tried with whips and electric prods. He is going to start riding again - get him working up a few hills or washes... though with his navicular, that can't be a strict routine. He's in the diet pen too now, getting access to the hay only morning and evening. Maybe when it snows this weekend (!!) he'll shiver a few pounds off.

I agree Stormy is a wide load... but is he really fat? He's not buffalo fat like Dudley was (was! Dudley is still looking good) - Stormy has no cresty neck, no dimpled butt - nothing but a huge sideways belly.

Or is it just all in your perspective? (As in, perspective from a side view, like I prefer, versus a front or back view).

Or is he just a good keeper?

What do you think? What's the solution? Suspenders? Girdle?

(Stormy is a bit peeved at all the scuttlebutt over his belly - he's very comfortable with his body.)

Where's the Beef?

Friday October 23 2009

Where's The Beef?

Who is this slim, shapely, handsome beast? Could this be Dudley, the perennial overweight buffalo-fat lard-butt pudgeball?

No matter what kind of diet he's been on, he can just gaze longingly at the big hay bales behind the fence and it goes straight to his hips. And everywhere else.

So in addition to putting him on a strict diet (AGAIN), we started him on this D-Carb Balance formula. It's for Insulin Resistant horses (we suspect Dudley is), laminitic horses (Dudley's had several episodes), and obese horses (DUDLEY).

The D-Carb is supposed to help the body use the feed as energy instead of storing it as fat. We started him on it on mid-September; he was in a large pen with Finneas - who drove him all day (somehow Finneas thinks it keeps the flies off his face to drive Dudley around all day long). They probably walked at least 10 miles a day, so Dudley was getting plenty of exercise, along with his diet of hay only, and the D-Carb.

During the 5-day Canyonlands Ride, Dudley was stuck in a small pen for about 8 days, and I thought he was getting a little slimmer, though that had to be my imagination, because he was getting zero exercise.

After the ride, he was turned back out to plenty of roaming around. I was gone for two weeks, and I come back to see: hipbones! Dudley has hipbones! And a neck that is not so cresty. The fat dimples over his butt are almost a memory. He's a horse that looks like... well, a horse!
I want to say he's not even so obsessed over food, because there are times I see him up the canyon just standing there and hanging out, and not looking for food, scheming for food, escaping for food, or scheming to escape for food.

I'm not saying this D-Carb stuff is a miracle, and I'm the world's greatest devil's advocate and skeptic, but, Dudley the Beefalo, for whatever reasons, is becoming Dudley Slim Jim.

SIX HOLES!!!

Tuesday May 19 2009

It's been excruciatingly hard work, but Dudley did it!

I got back from travelling again in mid-April after being gone about 2 months, and the Duds was a Pudge again: round as a bowling ball and dimples everywhere. I'm not talking about the cute dimples over his eyes when he gives you that cute innocent look. I'm talking about the Fat Dimples on his butt above his tail and the Fat Dimples along his cresty neck.

He went back on a painful (because it was strict) diet, and he started getting ridden again. Then he had another little break from riding when he ripped a shoe off his crumbling feet (which are finally growing out from a laminitic episode) and got a sore suspensory for a while.

Now he's got shoes on and he's back on a regular riding schedule; but while he is still on the diet and getting exercise, he still wasn't quite losing any of his circumference. We'd always been stuck on tightening the cinch up to 5 holes (OK... and that IS with the extra big cinch).

But today was a momentous occasion:

WE GOT SIX HOLES!!!!!




But we aren't stopping here. Next, we go for the Magic Seven.