Very Demure. Very Mindful.

On Friday Stitch saw the vet to get his teeth floated. It was the first time that he's been sedated since I've had him, also probably the first time since he lost his testicles. I am happy to say that he is a cheap drunk and it only took the initial dose of sedative to get the job done. The two grey ponies, especially Phantom, were notorious for needing extra sedation on dental days - Phantom's record was three top-up's after the initial dose at a cost of $125 for just the sedation. Stitch's sedation came to $40. Very demure. Very mindful.

The vet didn't have any concerns about his mouth. He had some sharp edges where caps had come off, but his bite and alignment were good. She recommended that he get done in another six months after he's lost more caps. That will tie in nicely with getting it done around the time that I plan to start him again after his winter break.

Stitch was even polite enough to stand quietly in a stall while he came back to full consciousness. I don't know if he's ever been stalled before. Again, a change from the grey mare who got angry at being in jail and would bang the crap out of the stall door.

I also took the opportunity for a quick bean check - didn't find anything. Didn't get my head kicked in either.

Now, if I can ever get over the lingering phlegm and snot from last week's Covid, we will be ready to get to proper work. 

Drug Money

 A couple of weeks ago I took advantage of the offer from Boehringer Ingelheim and took Phantom to the vet for a free PPID blood test. It was one of those things where I've long wondered if she maybe has Cushings based on her winter polar pony coat, but I didn't really want to have the confirmation because then I'd have to react to it - meaning, she'd need daily medication.

Sure enough - she tested out of range. Drugs for life it is!

"Just one more hit" says the pony crack whore about homemade horse treats.

I have yet to pick them up - I was supposed to grab them today but I had a couple of very long days this week and frankly was just exhausted today on my day off. I'll head over to the vet clinic tomorrow after work. 

It's a good thing I already pulled Phantom's shoes - that's where the money for the Prascend will be coming from. The plan was to save the money and put shoes on both horses next summer, but Phantom has decided to make it all about her. Typical princess behavior. 

Little old moi?

Prascend (pergolide) is about $100 per month if I buy a 2 month supply, or about $84 per month if I buy it in a larger quantity of 160 pills. I'm going to grab the smaller supply for the first batch, and if all goes well I'll plan on getting the larger quantity when I get a refill. 

I still have to get the logistics of getting the pill into her daily sorted out - she lives out in a mixed group paddock 24/7 and I would prefer to keep it that way. Hopefully, she will eat it out of your hand with a small amount of food like she does with Previcox. I've talked to the barn owner about supplying baggied servings that can be given to her by hand - if she will eat it.

Sorry, I Couldn't Hear You

 I am pretty sure that Phantom is deaf.

It's one of those things that I'm noticing more and more these days, and when I think back I wonder if she's been like this for a while. She's always been kind of bombproof - she's never been one to react to loud/sudden sounds. (Lights in a weird place, however...)

She's actually got the markings and breeding to be predisposed to congenital deafness. She's a paint, with a mostly white head and two blue eyes. There is a much higher chance of a horse with these markings being born deaf.

Phantom's baby picture, where you can see her white face. 

In the past it wasn't something I was concerned about - she definitely seemed to hear when I used the clicker and a treat would be forthcoming. There was the odd time when she would be snoozing when I went out to catch her and I would talk to her as I approached and realize that she had no clue that I was there, so I would touch her shoulder and she would startle and give me a "where the fuck did you come from?" look, but I chalked that up to her just having a good sleep.

So, what's changed?

For about the last year, whenever I go out to get Phantom she is super happy to see me. She comes up to me, talking the whole way. Since she moved in with Cisco it's become a competition between the two of them to try to get to me first, and the horse that gets to me second usually puts themself between me and the other horse, hoping that I'll bring them in.

This is pretty consistent behavior for Phantom. Like 19 out of 20 times. 

Unless she doesn't see me. 

If she is standing in the shelter, or behind the round bale, and she can't see the gate, I get no response from her. I'll call her, and talk out loud the whole way out to her, and she doesn't make any attempt to look around the obstacle that's blocking my approach. As soon as I am in her path of vision, she nickers at me and is excited to see me. 

It's happened a few times over the last few months. 

It was back in October that I first started wondering if she had lost her hearing. I tried to make some noises behind her to see if she reacted, but she tends to be very attentive towards me (doesn't want to miss the possibility of a cookie suddenly appearing) so it's hard for me to test her. I had someone help me one day by standing behind her while I was standing in front, and it was inconclusive. 

I thought I would try a ride using voice commands and see if she responded to them. She did - "and walk" definitely gave me a downward transition. I tried really hard to not change anything in my body when I asked her to walk, but I can't be 100% sure that I didn't. She's quite sensitive to changes in my position so it doesn't take much to have her slow down, but I did think it was due to the voice command. 

So I'm not sure if she's newly deaf, always been deaf, going deaf, hard of hearing, or just has selective hearing. I'm leaning towards the newly deaf/going deaf/hard of hearing options.

Last week she didn't notice me until I appeared around the round bale she had her head buried into, despite me calling to her. On Sunday I unintentionally dropped a bucket on the floor behind her and didn't see a reaction, so I walked further down the barn, waited until she was looking the other direction and both ears were perked forward, then banged the bucket against a wall out of her line of sight. No ear flick back towards me.

Yesterday I tried another test. The barn was quite busy and her attention wasn't so much on me as it usually is. I grabbed a small bucket from the tack room and threw some crunchy treats in it and kept it behind my back. She was looking the other direction as I approached, shaking the bucket. Her ears did swivel back towards me, but she didn't get excited about the potential treat sound. 

I ducked into a stall behind her so she couldn't see the bucket and continued to shake the bucket. She didn't move - her butt was towards me. She looked at me momentarily but not with much interest. 

After a couple of minutes of hanging out in the stall, Phantom had her head turned slightly left looking at something. I put the bucket in front of me, came out of the stall, and walked along her right side, starting at her butt, shaking the bucket. She didn't react to me until I got almost to her shoulder, which would have been in her line of sight. 

As the person who was watching me stated, it seemed pretty conclusive that she didn't hear me, especially considering how food-oriented she is. 

What does this mean going forward?

First, there appears to be no treatment for it. No such thing as horse hearing aids. It is what it is.

I'm pretty sure Phantom will be totally fine with it. She's not a horse who startles easily, so someone suddenly popping up in her field of vision isn't likely to freak her out or cause her to be dangerous. 

I mean, if this happened I would totally expect her to spook. But that's probably about the only thing that would do it!

I'll talk to the vet about it when she gets her vaccinations done in a couple of months. It could be just age or the congenital paint horse issue, but it could also be a tumor. I don't think that they will be able to run the electronic test that would give me a definitive answer, but the tumor thing has me a bit concerned (you know, since she's a gray horse).

The biggest change will be in how I work with her. I've never really relied on voice commands with her of any sort because she has always been so tuned in to my body language; they've been used in conjunction with each other. It will be under saddle that will be the hardest to remember that she doesn't hear my cluck or whoa, or figuring out something to use instead of a clicker if I want to continue with some of her "tricks" that she enjoys. 

Maybe we take up mounted shooting?

We'll see. I'll hop on her in the next few days and see how she reacts to voice. 

I've dealt with a blind horse before, and now it looks like a deaf one. I hope Cisco doesn't turn out to be dumb!

Teaching Tuesday - ECVM

 Ever heard of ECVM? 

Me either.

But I watched a fascinating presentation on it.

ECVM is Equine Complex Verterbra Malformation. It's a malformation of C6 and C7 of the horse's cervical spine that causes asymmetries in the ribs, muscles, and can affect some major nerves. 

It appears to be genetic/hereditary. And it's showing up in many breeds because it seems to be very prevalent in Thoroughbreds. 

If you are interested in equine biomechanics or physiology I would totally recommend watching this video. It's about two hours long but I was enthralled the whole time. 

Also - good luck not looking for symptoms in a horse you know (or have known)!

A Daily Dose

 Phantom had her hocks injected about 4 weeks ago at a vet exam where I said I suspected it was either her hocks that were sore and she was overloading her front end, or she was sore everywhere.

She definitely looked better after the vet appointment. Much less stompy on her front end. But she still didn't feel as good as I had hoped she would. 

I've let her loose in the arena a couple of times recently to get rid of some energy and I really wasn't happy with how she looked. To me, it still looked like she was trying to unload her hind end, and there were a few transitions from canter to trot that looked like they stung (specifically on the left hind).

While waiting for Phantom's Ventipulmin to kick in I dumped my grooming kit out to clean out the hair. I forgot there was an open pack of elastics in there. Oops.

So this weekend I started her on some Previcox. I had gotten some at the vet appointment to have and see if it helped her over the colder months in the winter when she always seems to be stiffer.

Two days of Previcox and I rode on the third - Phantom felt fantastic. Probably the best she's felt in the last couple of years.

We had easy bend in both directions and she wasn't falling onto her left shoulder through turns. I braced for the downward canter/trot transition expecting it to be ugly but she stepped right underneath herself with her left hind.

I also had a whole lotta sassy speed to deal with. Girlfriend was feeling good!

It might not look like it but this is her sassy walk.

I didn't do too much - she hasn't "worked" in a while and I don't want to tempt fate with her ending up sore somewhere else. Plus she just rides up and gets herself all wound up as I continue riding. With her, it's better to do some short rides until she's been ridden down enough to keep her brain from spinning. 

So it looks like this might be the way we are going to go with her. Last week my vet had sent an email to follow-up with how Phantom is doing after her appointment so I finally replied back with how she felt on Previcox. I asked if I should be spending money to try to fully investigate where she feels sore (which could just be peeling back layers of an onion) or, if a daily dose of Previcox works, do we just go with it? That's what my inclination would be, especially knowing how much my horse dislikes being uncomfortable. I really don't want to have to inject all the things on her body.

My homemade horse cookies work great as pill pockets. Break it in half, and it's soft enough inside to squish the pill in there and then squish the two halves back together to feed. I don't know if Phantom realized there was a pill in there - or she didn't care because it was encased in pony crack!

Phantom's "moar pony crack cookies" face. (This is old - we don't have snow yet!)

Hopefully, this continues past the first ride. It's always hard to tell when there is a bit of extra fuel injection propelling them forward!

Vet Visit - Phantom

 The old gray mare has been feeling a little creaky lately.

Phantom had her hocks injected last August. Her right hind felt like it had a spring installed. The left one just never seemed to take as well.

When winter hit, she decided she was an old lady and started moving as such. She always warmed out of it, but there was something consistently niggling there when tracking left. It felt like left front on a turn, and left hind on the straight lines.

It was so minor though, that I've just kept putting it off getting her looked at. She's been getting ridden once or twice a week for half an hour, mostly putzing around. Lameness was never obvious.

Until recently.

The Equisense agreed with what I felt.

Within the last month, I've noticed that she seems much heavier and stompier on her forehand when leading into the barn. Under saddle, she's also been a bit stumbly. It was finally time to deal with it.

Off we went to the vet clinic early last week. I picked what is likely to be the hottest day of the year to haul her over. Thankfully, she stayed nice and cool on my Boeckmann trailer.

Waiting (rather impatiently) to be able to unload at the vet clinic.

I told the vet what I'd been feeling and that I suspected my drama queen of a horse is either overloading her front end to get off her hocks, or she was lame in all four legs.

At first, it looked like the all four legs thing might be right. She trotted and he could see it on the left front, then the right front looked worse. We took her outside to a sand ring and she looked better on the soft ground.

We did flexion tests and Phantom looked far better than I anticipated. He said if he was doing a PPE he'd say she flexed like he would expect a 17 year old horse to flex. I'm okay with that!

He agreed that we should inject her hocks again and see if that would do the trick. He also gave me some Previcox to use as needed over the winter if she seems to be a bit creaky in the cold again. If I don't think she's feeling sounder after about a month then we might have to look more into her front feet.

I warned them that Phantom is not a cheap date when it comes to sedation, which meant she had a really good snooze after the procedure had been completed. Thankfully we were able to stay inside out of the very hot sun, but it also meant that she had many people laughing at her very loud snoring. 

Good thing there was a wall there.

I plan to hop on her today (Sunday) and see how she feels. Fingers crossed that she's feeling a bit better!

It Was A Good Run

It was a good run, Cisco. Almost three years with no injuries or lameness to speak of.

He is now trying to make up for it.

I hopped on him on Thursday night. He was great at the mounting block and stood rock still after I got on. I savored that for a minute or so before asking him to walk. I knew immediately that he was going to be lame.

I couldn't really figure out where though. I walked him for a few minutes, then tried a trot before a friend left the arena. I started on the right rein down the long side, he definitely didn't feel right, but by the time we came out of the second corner I thought he didn't feel too bad.

Then I went left.

Oh yeah. He was lame.

Not really anything shouted out at us though. I definitely think its the left front/right hind diagonal pair, but my friend saw left front, I felt right hind. There wasn't a significant head bob, so I'm sticking with my hind thought.

I walked him under saddle for about 20 minutes with some leg yielding to see if he loosened up then tried another quick trot to the left. It actually felt pretty good. I just did one short end and hopped off and took him back to the barn. I tried some carrot stretches with him to see if that also helped. It may have all been too much as he seemed worse after standing when I led him back outside.

My plan was to hand walk him for the next few days. It's expected to get a bit chilly later this week again for about 4 days, so I thought I would wait until after the cold to try to hop on him again. I didn't go out to the barn Friday (work) or Saturday (abdominal pain on my drive home).

On Sunday I grabbed him from the field, took his blanket off and we went over to the arena for his walk. And I saw this.

Big fat upper leg, with a lovely gouge out of it.

And yay! (sarcasm font) The gouge is a puncture wound. You can kind of see the hole on the top right. I grabbed a syringe with some betadine water and crossed my fingers that it would all squirt back at me, but nope, it all disappeared up into the hole.

Thankfully, Cisco is a far better patient than Phantom is. I'm pretty sure she would have attempted to kick me in the head a multitude of times. Cisco stood at the end of his lead rope and wasn't really happy with it, but his feet stayed firmly on the ground.

I didn't go crazy with flushing it out as the water wasn't draining - I don't know much it would be safe to use. The vet is coming out in the morning to look at another horse so I sent her an email and hoped that she will have time to look at him. I'm guessing he'll need some antibiotics, and I'd like to know just how deep it is if possible.

I guess I'll be doing daily visits for the next couple of weeks. Hopefully by the time the front leg heals whatever else he did manages to sort itself out. No point in a lameness check now because he only has two good legs at the moment - I don't know which leg is more sore at the moment.

I thought that the original lameness was related to having a new horse in his paddock and the hijinks that inevitably occur. I figure that he tweaked something.

When I saw the gouge, I thought that I was a terrible mother and missed it when I rode on Thursday and that was why he was lame. But I guess there were some more hijinks in the wee hours of Friday morning, and his turnout crew pushed a fence down, so it is likely related to that. His blanket covers it (and has a bunch of blood on it) so you wouldn't be able to see it without looking under the blanket.

I'll see what it looks like for the vet on Monday morning. I have a feeling it's going to be bigger - his leg wasn't full-on stovepipe when I left, but I'm not going to shocked if it is when I arrive in the morning.

Update: Smegma Transplant Results

Back in May I wrote about trying a smegma transplant on Cisco. Long story short: he'd been rubbing his tail and butt daily and his sheath stunk. The idea is that you take smegma from another gelding, stick it where the sun don't shine on Cisco, and hopefully it changes the ph balance in there and he stops rubbing.

Did it work?

A resounding yes!

I think he came in only a handful of times with a rubbed tail during the worst of fly season. Compared to before when he came in like that daily, there was a significant improvement.  I also no longer smelled eau de sheath whenever I was in his vicinity.

It's been about 7 months so far and I haven't had to repeat the treatment. With my old horse Farly, I had to re-implant smegma every 6 - 8 months. We'll see how the next few months go for Cisco before I decide if I need to do it again.

I'll have to find a new donor horse though. The one I used last time is no longer at the barn!

The Smegma Transplant Experiment

My old gelding, Farly, used to have a rather gunky sheath. I cleaned it regularly using just water, but I could always smell Eau de Smegma when I walked past him. He would rub the sides of his hips on the walls of his stall so the hair always looked roughed up. And he would sometimes have gray gunk on the inside of his gaskins.

One day I asked my vet about it. He suggested that I try a smegma transplant - basically, take some smegma from another gelding's sheath, mix it up with a bit of Vaseline, and stuff it up into Farly's sheath. The idea is that Farly had something like a yeast infection, and the smegma from the other horse would change the ph balance in there and hopefully get some good flora happening.

Farly, of the stinky sheath.

It was simple. And it worked - well, for about 6-8 months at a time. When it started to stink and he'd start rubbing again I'd start asking my fellow boarders for some smegma and do the transplant again.

Fast forward to current days, twenty years later. I have another gelding who has a stinky sheath and seems to rub his tail and sides almost daily. Time to try the Smegma Transplant again.

I've been meaning to do it for a while, but I keep forgetting to bring out the KY Jelly (that I bought specifically for this task!). I've lined up geldings whose owners have volunteered them to be donors, but they're generally outside and I'd have to haul one of them in. So it just hasn't happened.

Last week, I got my ducks in a row. Cisco was tied up in the aisle, and I gloved up.

My first donor was a big senior gelding in a stall. I put a halter on him, said hi, and stuck my hand up his manbits. And found nothing. No smegma. Nada. The cleanest sheath I've ever felt up.

So onto donor #2, who is on stall rest. And I hit the motherlode. I don't know when his sheath was last cleaned, but it was to my benefit that it's been a while.

I added a bit of lube to the smegma to make a lovely, smelly, smegma paste. And shoved it up Cisco's hoo hoo.

Smegma paste. Ewwww.

Well, tried to shove it up. Because of the lube it kept falling out onto the floor. I shoved it as far back as I could and hoped that it stayed in.

The big question - has it worked?

It's been 4 days since the procedure. Cisco had only a little roughing up at the top of his tail - don't know if it is fresh rubbing, old rubbing, or someone chewing on his tail. Big improvement from the usual rat's nest that his tail is in.

He still has some rub marks behind his stifles. I don't know if they are fresh or not. Next time I'm out I might try to lay the hair down with a brush and water and see if that makes it look better.

Tentative conclusion - the transplant has been a success! He was rubbing his tail daily before the transplant, so to see only a possible rub is an improvement. Time will tell if it is a total cure (or at least a 6 month cure).

She Needs Drugs

We hit a glorious -4 C on Tuesday. So I suited up in my riding gear and went out to the barn to ride after dinner.

Good thing I still put my long johns on as it was pretty chilly by the time I got out there.

I decided that Phantom was the priority for the night. I hadn't ridden her since early January, and I wanted to see what her respiration was going to be like. I hadn't given her any of the Ventipulmin yet from the vet visit almost three weeks ago since the plan was to give it to her before I ride, and well, she wasn't getting ridden.

The last couple of times that I had put her in the arena to run around her breathing seemed pretty good. No issues with recovery. I decided to try the ride without the medication. I wasn't going to be doing much - mostly walking with some short trot sets.

I really need to do something with her mane. Like brush it.

The good news is that she felt pretty good in her body. And she had lots of energy and wanted to do way more than I was willing to let her do.

The bad news is that I should have given her the medication before riding.

She was puffy and doing the short shallow breaths after I got off. Her recovery was not very good, considering how little we had done.

I gave her some Ventipulmin post-ride. I guess I will have to use it for the next while, pre-ride.

In Which Phantom Almost Gets Murdered

Faithful readers may have noticed that I haven't been doing too much with Phantom as of late. Mostly because it's cold, and because Cisco needs far more work. Unfortunately, it's also been because of another reason.

Over the last few weeks, there have been a few times when I've brought Phantom in from her paddock and I don't like how she is breathing. Although she was at rest when I brought her in, I can see her taking short, shallow breaths.

There have also been a few occasions of poor recovery after she's had a chance to zoom around in the arena.

It seems like it is time to take the next step in treating her for asthma.

I've figured this day was coming sooner than later. The last three or four summers I've had a hard time keeping her in work due to a cough that she seems to get starting mid-summer, although last summer she was actually pretty good (which I account to putting her on spirulina). The first summer that this happened I had her looked at and the vet said she sounded a bit heavey. We tried management changes versus putting her on a steroid.

She has always lived outside full time. In past winters she was on a round bale just through the winter, and I would pull her off for the summer when she was always at her worst. This year though she hasn't been on a round bale since last spring.

Her grain gets soaked. The arena can get a bit dusty, but I usually end up in there by myself when I ride her so it shouldn't affect her too much.

Short of soaking or steaming her hay, which is totally not feasible for 6+ months of the year up here in the frozen north, or putting her on hay cubes, I don't think that there's a whole lot more I can reasonably do management wise.

So last Thursday I had the vet out.

It was actually the experienced vet and a new intern. They both listened to her lungs, and heard something in her lower respiratory system. They also observed her using her abdominal line to breathe, which I have seen when she was doing the short breaths.

And then they tried to kill her.

They put a plastic bag over her nose and attempted to smother her.

Dramatic reenactment. If you have any tips, call your local Crimestoppers.

And to add insult to injury, he listened to her lungs as she was dying.

JK. She only had to breathe 7 or 8 breaths into the bag so that he could listen. She was not even close to passing out, let alone suffocating to death.

Phew - she didn't die. Note the cookie? face.

So, yeah, there is something there.

We really should do a lung flush to determine what kind of bacteria are in there (or something like that). But for now I was given some Ventipulmin (Clenbuteral) to give her. Right now I'm going to give it to her before I ride, or if I see her having a bad day. We'll see how she does on this, and then decide if we should try an inhaler instead. I think I would be more comfortable with the inhaler and the reduced risks associated with steroid use, but then I might have to get that bronchoalveolar lavage done.

Now I just have to wait for the weather to change so that I can start legging her up again. Hopefully getting her fitter will also help her to breathe easier.

Severed Limbs

I spent my Saturday looking at horse legs.

The insides of horse legs.

Yep, those are cadaver legs lined up on a table.

(Fair warning - if you are easily icked out, you might want to skip today's reading.)

My farriers hosted an Equine Limb dissection. I've seen this type of event advertised on occassion but it's almost always only open to professionals - vet students, farriers, equine body workers, etc.  They are seldom open to plain ole' horse owners.

For this event, you had to pay if you wanted to hold a knife and cut into dead flesh, but as a client of theirs, auditing was free. I'm always up for free educational opportunities!

The first step was skinning the leg. Hunting experience came in handy here.

A vet from a large sports medicine vet clinic in the province donated his time to come and talk to the group and guide us through the parts of the leg. There were also a few farriers that were in attendance - some were wielding scalpels and some were just auditing. There was a lot of knowledge in the room and everyone was willing to share their experience.

I had a friend who paid the money and got to do the slicing and dicing. I apologized in advance for breathing in her ear as I looked over her shoulder. She was fine with that.

Most of the horse limbs came from a parts bin at one of the colleges in the province that offers vet tech and farrier courses. They had been waiting for this event in the freezer of one of the farriers (I guess his wife made him get a second freezer to keep horse legs in). There was one leg that came from a horse that was known to one of the farriers and at least one attendant - I'll get to that one later.

After some basic directions from the vet regarding knife safety and how to start by skinning the leg, everyone was free to start slicing. It was interesting that almost everyone took a different approach to the hoof area - I saw it cut in half, emptied from the top and picked apart in layers from the outside.

The hand on the left is holding the deep and superficial digital flexor tendons - they are kind of together. I think that the top ropey thing under the right hand is the suspensory ligament - but I could be wrong.

I think what this really showed us was just how little there really is that holds that big horse body up. Take off the covering of skin and hoof and you have a couple of big, thick tendons, some skinny ligaments, a rubbery digital cushion and inside of the frog, and bones. Not a whole lot more that that to support the close to a ton of weight above the legs.

The hoof capsule partially removed, exposing the laminae underneath.

Everyone had a different thing they were most interested to see, probably based on issues they've dealt with in the past. I was hoping to see a laminitic foot, but no such luck.

Laminae

The piece de resistance was the leg that came from the known horse. It was from a warmblood horse who wasn't too old (somewhere between 6 and 8 I believe). I guess this horses conformation wasn't very good - his knee pointed out, his hoof pointed in, he was really over at the knee and couldn't lock it. One day he was galloping towards a fence in his field, turned last minute, and shattered his short pastern.

My farrier had seen the radiographs from the incident and they showed a spiral fracture. The horse was euthanized right away as it wasn't going to be treatable.

Everyone was curious to see what that pastern joint was going to look like when it was opened up. When they started with the leg, you could twist the hoof, so you knew something funky was definitely going on in there.

This is the result when they opened up the pastern. The white bone above is the same joint from an unbroken specimen.

Yikes, right? The bone is broken in half from the top to bottom in the image. There are loose pieces throughout - you can see that there are chunks missing from the bottom left corner. They were floating around in there. This leg was also the only one that was bloody, and there are black spots that I imagine are blood clots.

We also saw one leg that had the beginnings of arthritis in the pastern (I think it was on P2). There were just three tiny dots on the bone in the joint. It probably wouldn't have been something that would have been found or noticed at that stage, but it was pretty cool to see that.

Everyone did really well - there was no puking, and I only know of one person who got squeamish when someone crunched through the coronet band with hoof nippers. She didn't like that sound. It was cool in the arena where we were working, and the legs had been pulled out of the freezer that morning, so the smell wasn't too bad, though I was starting to smell something funky towards the end of the session. It was likely the leg that apparently was forgotten about in the shop last summer for 3 or 4 days before being placed in the freezer.

The piece that's circled in yellow is the pesky navicular bone. The piece circled in blue is the inside part of the frog, which is underneath the keratinized part of the frog we see when we pick up the hoof. It had a spongey, rubbery texture.

What did I learn? Mostly that it's pretty incredible how the bodies of these animals work. It's amazing how little there is to support their mass, and how there is little room for something to go wrong and not mess everything up.

The carnage laid out on the tables at the end.

If you ever get the chance to take in a dissection seminar, I totally recommend it. At the very least, you will come out with an understanding of where that area that the vet is telling you is messed up on your horse is.

Cisco's Carrot Privileges Have Been Revoked

I picked up a bag of carrots for the kids last week. Mostly because I went grocery shopping and realized that everything in my cart was either frozen or boxed. I figured I should get something fresh, not that I would be the one eating it.

Both kids had some carrots added to their food one-day last week, and then again yesterday. I watched Cisco eat from his dish, and was of amazed to see that he didn't pick out all the carrots first, but started on one side of his dish and systematically worked his way to the other side. I even took a picture and posted it to Instagram when he was almost finished.

Then he stopped eating. There was still a handful of beet pulp left in his dish, but no carrots. He wasn't licking his bowl and the floor clean. Hmmmmm.

I watched him closely. His neck kind of gave a big twitch, then he let out a big cough. Crap. He was choking on the damn carrot.

Kind of, maybe? That cough was the only one. There was no drool or snot coming out of his nostrils or mouth. But every few minutes, his neck gave this huge convulsion like he wanted to vomit. Which, of course, horses can't do. I heard some gurgly sounds seemingly from his neck area. He was quiet otherwise, with no attempts to eat, and not showing any signs of stress. 

I walked him back and forth down the barn a bit, cursing out loud at how expensive the vet bill was going to be (Sunday evening, long weekend). I didn't know what I would tell the vet though - I think my horse might be choking because it looks like he wants to puke?

I managed to get a video of the last puking convulsion I saw.

As I was walking Cisco, Phantom, who was eating her dinner in jail a stall, decided that she was done and wanted out. Now. I was in no mood to deal with her temper tantrum, so I found Cisco a stall with no food to stand in and took Phantom out. 

When I came back Cisco was pretty quiet in the stall, but he had a bit of sweat around the neck where his blanket was. Hard to say if it was because he was inside with a blanket on, if he was stressed because of choking, or stressed because he had been abandoned by Phantom. I took the blanket off just to be safe and tied him up in the aisle. I figured I might as well run a brush over him while I watched him.

And it seemed like nothing was wrong. There were no more convulsions. He was perky and enjoying being groomed. I gave him a handful of hay. He took it in his mouth and just held it there. My heart sunk and I started to think about which credit card I was going to use to pay the vet.  But then he started chewing, and continued to eat the rest of the handful I had. 

I brought his dish that had just a handful of beet pulp left in it. He licked it up and played with his dish, just like he normally does. Vet call averted! It seemed to have cleared.

Then the big dilemma - turn out. Do I turn him out into a different pen with no food? Or back to his regular pen, which has a netted bale in it? 

I opted for his regular turnout, and asked the barn owner to check on him in a couple of hours. I watched him for a bit when I turned him out, and he was eating and harassing his girls, so he wasn't feeling too sorry for himself. 

Hopefully I am able to just chalk this one up to a learning experience. I know that Cisco choked once before - as a 2 year old on a hay cube. He's had them since with no issues with his previous owner, and on the couple of times I've given him cubes I've added some water to them just to be safe.

This was the result of the last time he choked - he was sedated to be tubed, but apparently it wasn't enough. When the first squirt of water went in he went straight up in front and a hoof connected with my thigh. Then we remembered how much sedative it took to knock him down to be gelded as a yearling. (It was a lot)

I've seen choke 2 or 3 times, and in each case there was lots of coughing and snots (lovely green snots since hay cubes were involved). I've not seen the "vomiting" before, but I just googled and that apparently is a symptom of choke.

I'll probably be hard pressed to trust him with a carrot again. Unless it's gone through the food processor or been pureed like baby food. He'll have to make do with cookies for treats - not that I think he'll care that much.

My Pseudo DVM Degree

I've been around horse for about 30 years. In my younger days, I worked at the barn through summers and weekends. I've spent many, many hours at the barn.

As anyone who has spent some time around horses knows, horses are disasters waiting to happen. They are seemingly all too willing and eager to hurt themselves. And if it isn't trauma that sidelines them, it's something that's happened to their barrel on toothpick bodies because of the stresses we put them through.

Most of us become all too familiar with our local vets.  And some of us joke about our veterinary degree that we didn't have to go to school for. I would be one of them.

Over 30 years, I've had a fair amount of things happen to my horses. Mostly non-catastrophic, and only a couple of emergency callouts. Over the last few years, when I've called my vet and said "I think this is what is wrong with my horse" I'm usually right.

Sunflower was a great study partner. She taught me a lot in the first couple of years of horse ownership.

Here is a list of all the subjects that I studied over the years to get my pseudo-vet degree and where possible, my study partner:

Colic (Sunflower)
Uveitis (Sunflower) (eventually caused full blindness after I sold her, but she was still where I boarded)
Strangles (Sunflower)
Navicular (Sunflower)
Abscess (Sunflower, Phantom)
Broken Splint Bone requiring surgery (Sunflower)
Nerve Damage where splint bone was removed requiring nerves to be cryogenically frozen (Sunflower)
Contracted Heels (Farly)
Puncture Wounds (Farly x 3)
Suspensory Desmitis (Farly)
Ringbone (Farly)
Laminitis (Farly)
Alsike Clover Toxicity (Phantom)
Photosensitivity Reaction due to liver damage due to Alsike Clover Toxicity (Phantom)
Scratches (Phantom)
Splints (Sunflower, Phantom)
Tying Up (Phantom)
Hock Arthritis (Phantom)
Choke (Cisco)
Mild Heaves (Sunflower, Phantom)
Anemia (Sunflower)
Hematoma (Phantom)

The above list is things that have happened to my own horses. I know how much horse people like to see gross pictures, but sadly, most of these happened well before the days of cell phone cameras, so no pictures to share with you.

Being around the barn so much means that I have seen, and in many cases helped with treatment, lots of other things:

Melanoma on grey horses
Infection on neck after vaccinations (I don't think it was a clostridial myositis infection)
Colic Surgery
Neurological issues
Diarrhea/Fever that was suspected Potomac Horse Fever but didn't test as such
Corneal Ulcers or Scratches
Lots of Large Cuts or Scrapes
Proud Flesh on Large Cuts
Stitches
Retained Placenta
A Chronic Colicker, who was found in a necropsy to have an intestinal lining that should be 1/8" thick was up to 2 inches thick in some areas (or something like that)
Hives (Allergic Reaction)

These are all that come to mind, though I'm pretty sure more things have happened.

How have you gained your pseudo-degree in veterinary medicine?
(Would this be a blog hop idea?)

Weird Horse Possessions

When you own horses for a long time, you sometimes accumulate things that, well, normal people probably don't have kicking around in their house.

I have one such thing that I keep forgetting about. I've had it for 30 years, sitting in a jar, sometimes in a drawer, sometimes on a bookcase. I was reminded of it while reading The Hunky Hanoverian's post about her horse Rio's surgery.

It's a splint bone.

Or rather, part of a splint bone. About a 2" part.

My first pony, Sunflower, had a bit of a bad year around 1989. We figured that she tried to kick another horse (being the cow that she was), missed the horse, and connected with a wood plank on a fence. Which resulted in a broken splint bone in her left hind leg. This was only the start of one of those "crappy things happen to horses" years.

The Sunflower pony.

So off to the local vet clinic she went. I was only 14 years old at the time, so I don't remember much of the true scenario. I imagine that she went under general anesthetic, but I don't know for sure. I know I was completely unaware of the risk that it would involve,  as I had only been riding for about 3 years. She stayed at the clinic for about a week and came home to be rewrapped daily by me (I remember using Cool Cast bandages). After a while, it became apparent that she was experiencing some pain where the bone had been, so the nerves were cryogenically frozen along that area, and she forever more had 4 hairless dots along the outside of that leg.

And the surgery cost $800.

I don't think I'd ever taken the bone out of the jar until I took these pictures.

At least, that is how I remember it all, from my child's perspective of 30 years ago.

My party favour when I picked Sunflower up at the vet was the chunk of bone in a jar of formaldehyde.

The writing on the masking tape on the jar says "Sunflower, Left lateral splint bone, April 11/89". I guess that was my birthday present that year - my birthday is April 8th (bad things tend to happen around my birthday, I tend to get really paranoid around that time).

Over time, the formaldehyde has either leaked out or dried up. I didn't realize the condition of the jar until I took these photos - not sure if all the cracks actually go all the way through the jar or not.

Whatever formaldehyde was left in the jar I dumped out when I took the bone out. Oops.

Do you think it would be weird if I were to take it to the vet with me on my next visit and see if they would top up the formaldehyde?

This bone cost $800. I'm not getting rid of it anytime soon.

What weird horse things do you have in your possession?