March 9, 2007
Bad news first, Nova has sliced part of his ear almost off... And when I took pictures and showed the vet, it appears that he'll have to have that chunk taken off. Thankfully though, it won't look horrendous when it happens - he'll just have one ear with a slightly different shape than the other. Guess this will make him really 'special'! It's too bad it happened, and I didn't notice until a day or so after it happened, but it could have been much worse. So, we have to make an appointment for him and see how that goes.

The weather was gorgeous today and I had the time, I took Kaila and Nova out for another ride together. I put a rope halter on him today, because I figured it might stop him from leaning on it (either trying to get ahead, or lag behind). Not sure if it worked wonderfully, but it sure didn't hurt. We started off quite well, and it was cute when we reached the first slush puddle and he eyeballed it as we walked through it - same with the first soft patch of dirt/mud on the road. I was so pleased with how well he did for most of the ride. When he got excited a couple times he would try to get ahead of us (like when the horse-eating mini ran up to the fence) for a bit, but would soon settle down. And I've figured out that instead of trying to tug him back to be by my leg with the lead, I just turn Kaila into him a bit, and her head toss and ears back gets the message across a lot faster. He walked along beside us wonderfully for most of the ride though - head even with my boot and the rope loose as he trucked along. I was so happy when he did that! (Of course, that was always when no one was around to see us).

March 17, 2007
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Today was Nova's vet appointment for his ear. You know what this means don't you? It's the first trip with our new trailer! It looks so nice and shiny and new. Nova was a wee bit of a butthead about loading. He got right up there, stretched his neck out, and then almost tried to step in with his hind feet without first putting his front feet in! What a boy. With a little encouragement he did hop up and stand. There was also not pawing and fussing once they were in the trailer. (We took Su along as moral support.)

We get there, take him out, and he's looking around, but seems actually pretty relaxed. When we go to take him into the building, he had to pretend that the teeny puddle on the ground is going to attack him. Haha, but he hopped over it and a way we went. Get up there, and he takes a moment, not too sure about going in, but then followed me right in like a good boy. They have a box stall set up in there, so we just walked him in there. Poor vet (he's a newer one) tries to give him the first shot to sedate him, and of course Nova doesn't like him poking around his neck anyway, but this poor guy couldn't hit a vein for like three minutes. But finally gets it and Nova is soon pretty droopy. Not quite droopy enough, though. So we had to give him a second shot. And instead of trying again to put freezing in his ear, the vet just took a scalpel and sliced the chunk off. And then after looking at it again, took someone else and trimmed it a bit so it looks pretty darn good, actually. Of course, Nova didn't stand there perfectly for all this, but it wasn't too bad - the vet didn't mind at least!

I went to pay ($99.17) while Nova was starting to wake up. After letting him chill out for another 15 minutes or so we took him out. And he actually loaded into the trailer really well. I was in and had just walked over to make sure there wasn't anything for him to eat in the bin and I turn around and he's hopping in the trailer. He probably didn't want to get left at this terrible place where they cut your ears off.