Milton’s Magic Mixture

Posted byVirtual Brush BoxPosted inThoughts

Awareness of the outside world. Doing my part for science, Johns Hopkins COVID Long Study. Filled out my quarterly survey. [Summer Is Here]

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Rodney has been promoting putting Milton on Regu-Mate, a mood stabilizer for mares that can be used for geldings. Rodney would like his roommate to chill. Regu-Mate is complicated to work with. Instead we are trying Mare Magic, an OTC version. Essentially raspberry tea.

We aren’t doing this because Milton is “difficult” or because he is not conforming to human standards of behavior. We’re doing it because he’s not happy. Previous Horse was a curmudgeon. He was a grumpy old man the day he was foaled. However, he still spent the majority of his time simply hanging out being a horse. Milton doesn’t. He seems to be cranky and jumpy. Not all the time, but more often than I would want to go through life. Plus, he still doesn’t like to be touched, something that no one has been able to explain.

I feel that we have never really gotten through to Milton. Riding? Driving? Training? We are average amateurs. Horse management? That part we are good at. By now we should have a better answer to the question that is Milton.

Raspberry tea anyone?

Onwards!
Katherine

6 thoughts on “Milton’s Magic Mixture”

  1. We have a Milton. Not jumpy, but definitely grumpy and he hates to be touched. Anywhere. We’ve had him since he was three. He’s twenty three now. To the best of my recollection, his attitude changed when he first got Lyme. I say first, because he’s been treated for Lyme twice, about ten or twelve years apart. But I can say with certainty that he didn’t start out grumpy, and he liked to be brushed. I’ve heard some horses can develop tactile sensitivity when they get Lyme, but I’ve never heard that it lasts forever. So yeah, kind of baffled. And yes, we’ve re-tested him multiple times over the years thinking maybe he was having a flare or a relapse. Nope. Go figure.

    In addition to that, since losing my mare this spring he seems …. melancholy? I dunno. I don’t like to assign human emotions to horses, but he does seem a bit “blue” and lackluster to me. Which is so weird because he was always the low man on the totem pole and the mare never had a kind gesture toward him his entire life. She sort of liked to push him around a bit, just because she could. Not outright mean, just bossy. We used to joke that he seemed to like her snarky ‘tude towards him. My guess is that she kept him in his place, which made him feel secure. Who would have thought we might actually have been right about that? And the gelding she was closest to? He got over her loss in a few days and moved on. Or maybe he just hides it better? I dunno. I’ve had horses my whole life and I’m still amazed by how much of a mystery they are.

  3. I have a colt that was irritable and aggressive with a partially undescended testicle from a line that produces a fair number of undescended testicles. I was giving him licorice root for an unrelated issue and presto chango… his testicle dropped and he became much more playful and less irritable. Hmmm. its given me food for thought so I decided to share.

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