Meet Arnie
We are no longer building saddle trees. We have two saddle fit videos available on our westernsaddlefit.com website. Western Saddle Fit - The Basics, aimed at riders, is available either on DVD or streaming on Vimeo while the six hour series Well Beyond the Basics, aimed more for professionals but understandable by anyone, is available by streaming on Vimeo. (We left this website up because we have had many requests to keep the information available.)
Yes, we really do have a skeleton in our basement!
Arnie belonged to a neighbour of ours. He was a minature horse who was getting on in years and was obviously very arthritic when he was put down in April of 2010. (He has some interesting changes in his bones.) Our niece Rachel came for a day to learn basic anatomy, and we cleaned all the meat off the bones then. Later, we boiled out the bones to get them totally clean. It takes about two, twelve hour days of boiling every bone to do this. Since they didn't all fit in the container at one time, it took a few days. And no, we didn't do this inside! Rachel came back in the summer and we took about three weeks to get him all put back together again.
Over time, I plan to write about basic anatomy and how it functions as I tell you how we put him all back together again. Although I always enjoyed learning anatomy, it has been a few years since vet school, so we all learned a lot with this project. Besides, having a skeleton in your basement is kinda cool! And yes, Rachel did get extra credit at school for doing a special project. She sure put the hours in!
