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laurahuff
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Name: Laura
Birthday: 12/31/1985
Gender: Female
Interests: working with, riding, training horses at the U of F, music, playing the flute in band, working at the veterinarian's office, pre-veterinary classes, and watching The O.C.
Expertise: Everything, of course!
Occupation: Student
Industry: Medical
Message: message meEmail: email me
Website: visit my website
Member Since:
4/18/2003
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| So this week has been so long and fast at the same time. One of
my friends moved out and is going home for the semester. It's
sad.
Then with school stuff, I did bad on my zoo test on wed. Oh, then
we've been line driving our colts and had a test Thursday. So, we
did pretty well on the rail work, but when we had to start the
serpentine pattern, she didn't want to go forward and kept backing up
and I couldn't get her to go forward. So then SHE LAYED DOWN AND
ROLLED WITH THE SADDLE ON!!! I was yelling at her and pulling on
the lines and it was bad. Yeah, and I think they got it on tape
too. How embarrassing. Once we got going using a lunge whip
to smack her with, we did okay, but then near the end of the pattern,
she wouldn't turn the right direction and wouldn't stop, and my ankle
gave out and I fell over. Ugh. Then she wouldn't stop
backing again. She was so bad that day.
Then the next day my owners came to watch her. I just lunged her
a lot and then started to get up and down on the saddle. I did
that a few times and she wasn't moving, so I sat down and asked her to
go. She sort of did and it was alright. She didn't try to
buck or anything, so that was good. I think I'm going to have
someone lead her around with me on her so that she gets the idea of
forward motion.
I really didn't feel that good today, but am feeling a little better
now. I need to go to the barn and work Dakota. I just don't
want her to regress and have to start over with things and fall
behind. Hmm, so blah. I just want to sleep today
though.
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| So since I haven't been writing in this very often, I'll just tell you
a little about what's going on here. The progress with the filly
is going pretty well. Lunging is better and she only reared up
once today. We are line driving now. Line driving is where
you hook two lunge lines onto the halter and run them through the
stirrups of the saddle and walk behind the horse as if there was a cart
there. So she is pretty light at the face and that makes me
glad. My last colt was so heavy. I could probably get on
tomorrow if I get a round pen, so that's cool. I need to clean
stalls tomorrow after feeding for the work weekend at the barn.
I went bowling last night for this toga bowling party for greek life
and a bunch of people asked me if I was going to join, and I said no,
probably not. ha, free bowling and pop!
Umm, yeah, other than that, it's been classes and the barn. It's
alright though. This semester I'm taking: Organic Chemistry II,
Zoology II, Animal Reproduction, Livestock Sheep and Swine, Animal
Handling, Colt Training II, Band, and flute lessons. Plus there
are labs for Ochem and Zoo. So, not that anyone actually reads
this, but I guess I just felt like updating this. I'm tired
because unlike the usual college student, I have to get up at 5:00am on
most mornings, and don't get to sleep in this weekend because of
working at the barn. I'm going to bed now, or wasting more time
watching bull riding before I do.
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| Okay, so I haven't updated in awhile, but haven't really felt like it
for reasons such as no boyfiriend anymore and that guys are
dumb!!! So anyways, here's some of what's happened today with my
colt and stuff.
In Zoology Ashley mentioned a story about this one-eyed cat with no
nose and then emailed the picture and story to me. It is weird. The kitten
only lived for a day though and it wasn't anyone trying to mess with
genetics. It just happened.
So Amanda and I got to the barn today at like 5:45 to clean stalls and
I got most of mine done before class and feeding started. I was
hot at the barn today and while other people had their coats and
sweatshirts on, I was wearing my tshirt. The owners came and were
nice. They brought the whole family. They must homeschool
or something, because she brought the daughter who is like 7 maybe and
then the son who is maybe about 13 and her husband too. I asked
Mark and Steve together if I should saddle today since they were here
and they said if she leaves by 9:30 and I'm like, well I have to leave
at 9:30. They left when I put the horse away though. Most
of the other people saddled today. Now this is the 4th day most
of these colts have been worked here! Anyways, we started off in
the round pen and she was pretty good. Jake told me to try to get
her to lope, and she sort of tried, but fast trotted a lot. It is
a small pen though and it would be hard for her to lope there. So
we did a lot of switching directions and she is pretty good at
that. So then we came out of the round pen and worked on some
showmanship and then decided to lunge a little out there. She
reared up a couple of times and kept backing up all the way to the gate
near where the stalls are. Emily, the intern who went here,
helped me though. It is funny because each instructor tells you
something different to do and then whatever you were doing from a
different person is wrong, or you should try their idea. That is
fine though I guess because you get to learn all the different ways of
doing things, but also frustrating because you're always wrong.
So anyway, instead of using the stick to move her over and just start
lunging again, she said to pull on her until she takes a step and then
keep doing that until she comes all the way to me and pet her
head. So at the end she would do that a little better, but she is
such a brat about just keeping backing all the way around the arena to
the gate. I did forget to use the other gate though today. I need to keep doing that so maybe she won't pull as much
there. I just keep forgetting because everyone else goes through
that one.
We went back to the stall and the lady said that she had worked with
her in the round pens some and she was good in there. She asked
if she could give her a treat of bread and I didn't care. So she
gave her two slices of bread. She said her dad used to have
cattle and would get the stale bread from the bakeries or stores and
they would feed it to them and her too once in awhile. I thought
that was funny though. This summer Fred wouldn't eat that apple
I gave him. He just acted like it was a piece of plastic that
wasn't supposed to be there or something. hehe I asked her
about cutting the mane, and she said don't cut it because she sort of
always wanted a long-maned-horse and I guess that's fine. It will
stink though for showmanship because they still expect us to band their
mane for that too even if it's long for finals. Oh, well. I
will probably try to braid it next time they come. She said she
wants to come visit her every couple of weeks, so wow. So far
they didn't tell me that I did anything wrong or anything. She
said that the horse (Dakota) kept rearing up and she had a Clinton
Anderson - Certified person work with her and she flipped over
backwords on the her back. She here she is at Findlay. Hmm,
so. I guess I am going to go back out there tonight in the
evening when there aren't a whole lot of freshmen still riding from
class. Emily said she would help me then tomorrow too after she
was done working, so she should be done at 11am with work weekend
supervising and stuff. I need to remember to get a girth from home. Duh, stupid me forgot
it and can't saddle yet anyway without it. Okay, so umm, that's all I can think of now, so bye.
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| Worked at the animal hospital today in Bellevue and shadowed and
followed around Dr. Zimmerman from the Westview AH in Fremont yesterday. It
was cool. A couple draft horses had abcesses, there was a steer
with bloat, and he "cut" calves. I'm going to follow him around
the first week of Jan too. I need large animal hours!
So Merry Christmas!!! Hope everyone has a great, wonderful, enjoyable Christmas! Yay!
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| So Julie and I went Christmas shopping this afternoon. It was
good because I actually got some people bought for now. She did
too, so that's good.
Yesterday I rode Sonny in the snow with my new saddle! It was fun
because each time he took a step, his foot sank all the way down
through the snow.  I cleaned
the other saddle that I've used all the time so far, so we can list it
on ebay or sell at school. I talked to Joe last night, but
haven't really been doing much lately. Hopefully I can get some
hours in at the animal hospital or maybe go around with a large animal
vet too.
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