Riding after injury; dogs in Poland

[orthent]

A character in one of my fics has been left with a severe, permanent limp after a riding accident. Assuming that she can still manage to ride, what kinds of adjustments might she have to make

Comments

[sirriamnis]

Russian Wolfhounds? They look like bigger, leaner deerhounds, but neither breed really looks terribly wolf-like. Alsacians (spelling), might, or Belgian Malinois, but I don't know how recent either of those breeds are.

[orthent]

I'm not sure about a reason for her to have Alsatians running with her while she's riding--weren't they used for herding when they weren't used as guard dogs? Some sort of hound seems might be a little more probable, but as you say, they don't look terribly wolf-like. I'm afraid Russian wolfhounds aren't an option, since this character would abominate all things Russian...but I'm grateful to you for pointing out that I'd need to check the date of origin of any breed I used. Hmmm...I wonder how you go about checking the date of introduction of a breed into a given country...

[sirriamnis]

I used to have an AKC encyclopedia of dog breeds that listed the date they were officially recognized. You should be able to find something similar at Barnes and Noble or something.

[orthent]

O.K., I am officially lame: I'm a stone's throw from a university with a vet school. There's bound to be something in the reference section. *facepalms*

Thank you!

Also: your username. Sirriamnis rings a bell...is it from one of Tanith Lee's novels?

[quatorze]

There is also a Polish variety of sighthounds. But honestly, none of the sighthounds (Deerhound included) really looks like a wolf. Of course, if it's dusk and the boy has an overactive imagination, just about anything might pass for a wolf.

[orthent]

You've put your finger on it--it would be a real stretch to picture these hounds as wolfish, and how overactive an imagination can I give this kid before it gets silly? (Now, in fairness to him, he has never seen a wolf--he's a town boy who has wandered out into the countryside and got lost, much farther from home than he's ever been.) On the other hand, would any of the more wolfish-looking breeds be likely to run with a rider?

[sirriamnis]

Quatorze has a point, if he's never seen a wolf, anything big and canine is probably going to seem like a wolf to him.

[quatorze]

Especially if there are several of them, and they flit into view and out of it again in the flash of a moment through the dusk... eerie!

[gamiila]

I suppose it all depends on what kind of injury she sustained in the accident in the first place. Me, I ripped almost all of the tendons and ligaments in my groin and upper thigh, which made it virtually impossible to sit astride a horse for a period of about 18 months, though I could ride side saddle after about 6.

[orthent]

As I've been imagining her, she still has the limp over thirty years later, in her mid to late fifties, and she's still riding even then, with dogs that are the descendants of the ones she had in 1900. (Maybe I need to adjust that mental picture.) But anyway, I had been imagining severe injuries, possibly involving clumsy turn-of-the-century surgery to pin broken bones. This makes me think I should be Googling the state of orthopedic medicine in 1900, next.

[fennelgiraffe]

I Googled dog breeds Poland, and found the Polish Tatra. The size, build, and coat texture are fairly wolf-like, although the coat color isn't so good. Maybe if it had been rolling in the dirt?

Or what about a Siberian Husky? That's extremely wolf-like.

[orthent]

Definitely wolf-like, both of them--I think I recall reading that some of the more wolfish-looking herding dogs were bred to be white so that shepherds could tell them apart from wolves in the dark. As I mentioned above, I'm not sure if I could think up a reason for a herding dog like the Tatra to be running after a rider--they seem to have the reputation of being extremely independent-minded.

[st_aurafina]

The therapeutic riding programs will give you an idea of what she will be able to do on horseback - they tend to be very flexible and able to make adjustments for each individual according to their abilities

[orthent]

Yay! this is just the sort of thing I need--thank you for helping me flesh out, not only my mental picture of the scene, but some of the aspects of her character as well. She's nineteen or so when this encounter takes place; I've never seen her as a patient person, and from what you describe, she would be needing to go back almost to square one, to re-learn something she's been doing since early childhood. That's going to affect, not only the mechanics of how she handles her horse, but how she behaves. Cool.

Perhaps "small boy" was the wrong way to describe her passenger--he's maybe eleven, but small for his age and skinny. Also, he's not very physical; he's a bookish boy who studies a lot because his father hopes he will become a rabbi. I figured he'd have to climb up on something, a gate or stone, and that he'd have no clue how to do it, but I had pictured him climbing up behind her, and skinny or not, he'd still be heavier than, say, a six-year-old. Should he still go in front?

[st_aurafina]

It would probably be much more comfortable for him behind - if you look at where an english-style saddle sits on a horse, the front of the saddle (the pommel) curves up over the horse's withers, which are narrow and pointy. (I've ridden bareback and accidentally been jostled up there, and it hurts!) So a child of two or three could probably sit there comfortably, but not much older. It would be more comfortable to put him behind her, if he's old enough to hang on by himself. It's all round and rumpy back there.

[orthent]

It's all round and rumpy back there.

Hee--this child is going to get a bit of a surprise when he discovers that sitting on a horse isn't the same as sitting on a bench!

Would he be hanging on to the rider, do you think, or to the saddle?