She's All Legs

I've been doing my best to come up with a Master Plan for Gogo's current stage of rehab/desperate weight loss need. I have a basic idea of what I want to do, but of course, Gogo's incredibly awkward legs have other ideas, and have decided they are just going to do whatever they want to do, rehab be damned!

Gogo is the queen of Random Mystery Leg Swellings With No Lameness. For YEARS she has been getting mystery swellings, which were mostly due to cuts and scrapes; however, they have been known to arise from anything under the sun, all the way from generalized bangings (getting cast in her stall, getting tangled in a roundpen panel, etc) to wild reactions to new batches of shavings (balloon legs on her, but nobody else!). Generally, when it comes to Gogo, if there is a cut or scrape on one of her legs, I can bank on it swelling dramatically no matter what. Not a single one of these Mystery Leg Swellings was lameness-inducing. And this time, it's no different: Gogo's right front is lumpy and fat, and in the past two days has switched from the inside of the leg to the outside. All four legs have a little fill to them too. Why? Oh, I dunno. Might be....




MYSTERY TEXAS DEATH FUNGUS.
Or something like that.

Seriously, what the heck is going on? A mystery fungus that pops up on all four legs in the middle of the hottest, driest summer Gogo has ever experienced in her life? I might understand it if I was bathing her a million times a week in the middle of a soggy Connecticut spring, but here? It popped up as a bunch of scabs on the backside of all four legs, right where you'd expect scratches to be (save for the right front, which has scabs on the front of the pastern as well). When you pick them, they come off, and bleed - a lot. They only showed up in the last week or so - coinciding pretty well with the move to the new facility. Texas is desperately dry right now, so it's not like she's standing in mud. And is it even a fungus? Her field has some bull nettle in it, as well as several other types of completely terrifying pokey plants in it (they're not cacti, but I wouldn't want to run into them either way), so it's possible she's reacting to getting poked and stabbed by plants she's never been exposed to either. But I think if that were the case, it wouldn't be localized so much... hmm.

I always tend to associate scratches with having an autoimmune issue. But in this case, it does coincide pretty spot-on with her move to the new place. I wonder what is actually going on... fungus, or scabs due to many little cuts and scrapes from nettles?

Either way, washing with Micro-Tek and Desitin aren't going to hurt anything, so we'll give that a try. As for the fat right front, I dunno... the fill doesn't go away with movement (the case in her other 3 days), isn't sore, is warm but not hot, and is not lameness-inducing. It is also partly localized as a lump on the outside of her leg.


The other VERY INTERESTING thing that is happening? Gogo is growing a COMPLETELY different foot. I mean SERIOUSLY different. Rememeber four months ago when I pulled her off Gro N' Win? I mentioned then that Gogo has always, always has a small bit of white line separation, always - for years! It never caused her a problem but it never went away. I had always chalked it up to the horrible, soggy New England climate. Gro N' Win has a soy base, and when I removed it from her diet, I mused that while I didn't think she had a soy sensitivity, it would be interesting to see what would happen.

Gogo's feet at the start of April:






With the same danged-ol' toe cracks that she has had for five years. She has noticable indentations in her coronet bands on both fronts, which is where the problem originates. They've never been a problem, and so far nothing has ever made them change or go away. They've always looked pretty much like that - you might not notice they were there unless you looked for them.

Until April happened, and the grass grew in. Suddenly, Gogo's feet were dramatically changing right before my very eyes. Her beautiful feet deteriorated with such rapidity that I didn't hardly know what to do with myself. They were different EVERY day. Aside from the underside of her foot warping, the most alarming thing that happened was that both toe cracks split open pretty wide all the way to the top of the hoof. That had NEVER happened before. It didn't cause her any problems, thankfully, but it was still startling to see. All because of the beautiful pasture she was on.

Beautiful grass pastures are my sworn mortal enemy. At this point, after seeing what the grass did to her, I think I'd rather have her in a stall/minimal turnout situation than out on unlimited pasture ever again. She was never sore or lame, but she could have been. If you eat too many sugary candy bars, you are probably going to end up as a diabetic someday. Horses are NO exception.



Thankfully, we have fast-forwarded three months, and are onto a new chapter in Gogo's feet. Gogo has been off the Gro N' Win now since the beginning of April, and her vitamins and minerals are coming from a supplement instead. The new non-soy foot Gogo is growing in is beautiful and quite a LOT tighter than the one she had before. Look where the big crack stops - RIGHT at the event line. How about that. The grass caused the cracks, but taking her off the Gro N' Win seems to have prevented them from staying. Interesting... very interesting.




Not the greatest picture, but you get the idea. Excuse the recently-bathed coronet/periople wetness. Oh yeah, and there's the fat leg too!

If you notice, that foot in comparison to the hoof picture above it has a LOT of length to it. Gogo was trimmed barely two weeks ago, but after she was pulled off the grass for good, she completely exfoliated her sole on all four feet.... AGAIN. This is the fourth or fifth time in the past few months that she has done this. It just finished its full exfoliation, and of course this now has left about half an inch of hoofwall that is standing above the sole. It's trim time - immediately!





Oh Gogo. You are my greatest teacher.


PS: she has a fan club of little girls at the new barn already... and guess what their favorite pastime is with her?





She loves all her little minions.


More soon on the rehab process and what actual, concrete plans I have in store for her - and how her first time back under saddle went!

Tell me what you see!

Tell me what you see in this video in terms of soundness.



What I see is a horse who has not been this sound since her reinjury back in November '10, 8 months ago. For the first time, I am almost willing to call her "sound." (At least, as of today.) Blowing the suspected adhesion seems to have done her a world of good. The tendon sheath injection was definitely the right way to go. Regular sheath injections will probably be necessary for her if we are to hope for a riding career (competitive or otherwise), but that's fine. Whatever needs to be done to keep her comfortable.


And speaking of all things veterinary, I consulted with Dr. H about the udder today, which was HUGE and lumpy when I arrived at the barn. Her temp was still normal today (100.5), and she still doesn't mind her udder being incessantly poked and prodded. The discharge is still a milky-watery liquid, and it doesn't have thickness/chunks/odor/other nasty things in it (hope you're not eating right now.... mmmm mental image), which is good. We agreed to treat it like a mastitis, and I ran up to the vet office to get 5 days of Uniprim. She definitely won't eat that in her (meager) amount of supplements she gets daily, so I have to shove it down her throat via syringe. I also am trying rubbing castor oil the udder as well, which was suggested to me... it seems like a stupid idea, but I guess if it works, then there you go. If it fails, whatever... I don't expect it to do much anyway. The antibiotics will hopefully knock out the infection, and if I keep emptying out the udder, hopefully we'll clear this up in the next week.

Joys of having a mare! I'd take this udder nonsense over regular sheath cleanings any day though, I will tell you that with NO hesitation!

Gogo's Goodies

Hmmmm. Gogo, the weirdest mare I know, continues to get weirder by the day.

So a few weeks ago I went away on vacation right? Well, when I came back, Gogo had a weird little surprise waiting for me: one side of her udder was super swollen. The other side was normal as always. I poked, prodded and pulled for a few days, and nothing happened. It didn't change or go down. She didn't have a fever. It wasn't uncomfortable for her. When I consulted the vet, he suggested trying to express it and that it might be a weird hormonal thing. Since I had been trying to express it for days, I wasn't convinced anything was going to happen. That night, after quite a lot more tugging, pulling, and milk-attempting, I gave up and fed the Mami her dinner finally. When I sat back to watch her eat, my eye was drawn back up to her udder.... which was now leaking white fluid. Holy milky fail, Batman!



Yes, that is me milking my horse. Good thing I milked a cow at summercamp one time about 15 years ago and remember how to do it. Wasn't I a breeding major in college?

Gogo, weird woman that she is, stood perfectly still with no halter or anything (and a giant tempting grassy field all around her) while I expressed it. The following day, the udder and teat were quite a lot smaller. I expressed it again, and again, the following day it was even smaller. I couldn't really get anything out of it at all the day after that, so I figured the vet had been right and it was just some sort of funky hormonal issue.

And then yesterday, it came back. My concern at this point is that it is a mastitis. (Really, Gogo? A open maiden mare?) She is still eating, drinking and doing her thing, and at this point still doesn't have a fever, so I don't think we are dealing with an emergency, but I'll be giving the vet a call tomorrow so we can get her on some antibiotics. I read somewhere that rubbing castor oil on the udder and then rinsing it off a few hours later helps to clear it up.... never heard of that before but it might be worth a try.

Oh, Gogo. Seriously.




In other, much better news, I put Gogo in the roundpen yesterday to see how lame she was. I hadn't really seen her trot much since she blew the adhesion a few weeks ago, and I was under the impression that she was still quite lame. Apparently I was wrong, because she trotted out VERY well. She looked great! I'd give her about a 95%. She is as sound as she was post-vet when I sat on her a few times. Which is not to say she is SOUND... but she's close to it. Sounder than the dang Irish horses I've been riding for the past few months, that's for sure.

I think I will go ahead with what Dr. H recommended and sit on her a few times. If someone is around to watch, I'll trot her a bit and see what they think. At this point I am ridiculously honed to the feel of hind-end lameness, so I'll be able to feel what exactly is going on as well while I am in the saddle. Mostly I want to sit on her so I can peel off some of those ridiculous pounds she is carrying around with her.... she's easily 200lbs overweight. Not exactly good for a pair of questionable hind legs is it! Ever hear overweight people complaining about their ankles, getting surgery on their knees, riding around in carts because it hurts them too much to walk? Same basic idea.... excess weight is damaging to bodies. ALL bodies.



I mean look at her.... DANG!:




That is one big momma. I'll have to get some sort of a game plan in order in terms of sitting on her... I really just can't do the willy-nilly ride-when-I-feel-like-it thing, not with an injury. My slightly OCD brain can't deal with that.

Good lord though. If I can't get some of this weight off of her, she really might just explode.

Trojan Chic

To everyone planning on shipping their horses nationwise (or even locally) in the near future – PLEASE get updated information about the Herpes virus outbreak. DON’T ship your horses, and DON’T let anything come on or off your property. This is a dangerous situation, and horses are dying. We’ve already had people on their way to shows get stopped at the state line and turned away. DON’T put your horses at risk!



Onto things that are more fun.

I had the bright idea today to decide to trim up Gogo’s amazing mohawk, which is now approaching two inches in length. (I roached her mane a month ago… I roached the old horse’s mane at work two months ago and he has only grown an inch of hair!) Her hawk was tall but spiky looking at the top, a bit catawampus to tell the truth. (Use that in Scrabble next time you play.) Future Hubs’ best friends have a little dog with grey and white hair that they have cut and dyed into an amazing pink hawk/mullet, and seeing Gogo’s mane in a similar fashion made me really, REALLY wish she had lighter colored hair… I would TOTALLY DO THAT. I decided today that I should try and trim down the topmost part of her hawk, and make it a more uniform Trojan look. I wasn’t really sure how that would turn out… either it would be fantastic or it would go horribly wrong.

I’m glad I did it. She looks awesome. I’m totally keeping this roach for possibly the rest of forever. It’s the perfect way to enhance a topline on a ewe-necked wundermare.

I hate to say it, seeing as she has reached morbidly obese, but… Fat kinda looks good on my horse. As so many dressage and hunter people know, fat is a GREAT way to completely skip out on training and actually putting real muscle on a horse. Just overfeed and hey! Instant topline. (This also produces neverending lameness… ever see a 400lb person run a marathon? Didn’t think so.)

I’m still brainstorming ways to keep Fattie from getting fattier. I had to abandon our walks down the paved road unfortunately, seeing as on one end of the street there is a massive Gogo-eating Great Pyrenees, and on the other end there is a pack of semi-feral dogs running loose and chasing/attacking anything that comes near their house. Add in cars flying by at 50mpg, and it’s really just not safe. She’s wearing her grazing muzzle from morning until late afternoon, but I still don’t think this is a good solution – she still refuses to eat anything while muzzled, and it’s not exactly good for a grazer to go for eight or more hours without SOMETHING in their tummies. She is finally drinking with the muzzle on, however, so maybe there’s hope for her yet. We’re about ready to cut hay out in the pastures as well, so that will help enormously. (Wish I could set up a track system, but again, this isn’t my property… it’s my landlord’s hayfield, so I have to respect his wishes!) Hopefully summer will come quickly and the grass will go dormant, which will also make a huge difference. I had a great suggestion today – why not take her swimming once or twice a week? Brilliant! We have a few options close by which I will for sure be looking into, although I probably will wait until after the Herpes virus scare is over.

Aside from being grossly disgustingly hugely obese, doesn’t she look sexy? Wish the pictures were better… they were taken with my iPod, seeing as I can’t find the memory card for my other camera!







BOOMBLATTIE FATTIE!

These climes, they are a' changing.

Spring is fully in bloom here in Texas. It's a bit weird to me to say that, because the temperature being constantly in the high 70's feels more like summer to me - it feels a bit like I've missed out on the rainy, lush, gorgeous green season that I'm used to. It's still very yellow and brown here, but a lot of things are blooming and turning green in hidden places. We've not had a drop of rain in over a month... in fact, I think we haven't had any precipitation at all since the last snowfall.

Gogo's daily life continues to be simple, day in and day out. In light of all the recent breakthrough and resistance issues with dewormers, I've adopted a new deworming protocol, and you should too. Gone are the days where we could slap a one-side-fits-all deworming schedule for all our horses, religiously administering paste every two months, rotating through two or three different classes of dewormer with careful selection. As it turns out, we're setting ourselves up for future disaster with this schedule - it worked to eradicate the major parasite issues we had up through the 60's, but we no longer have normal healthy horses just dropping dead from parasite overload anymore. We've largely eradiated parasite issues, but we've also set up circumstances where parasites are now evolving to be resistant to our classes of chemical dewormer, ivermectin especially. Some horses may already not respond to treatment anymore, and you could be dumping a wasted chemical into your animal. The only real way to tell is through a fecal sample, and bloodwork for things that don't show up in manure (like encysted strongyles, bots, and tapes). It's difficult to say why certain horses manifest their worm loads the way they do - sometimes a fat, happy horse can be a heavy shedder (releasing lots of eggs back into the pasture), and sometimes a skinny horse might not have any sort of worm load at all - but the point still remains that we need to treat every horse as an individual. We don't slap four shoes on and dump 6lbs of sweet feed into every single horse on our property, do we? So why would we treat every horse with the same deoworming protocol? Those days are over.

My new particular protocol for Gogo at this moment in time with my pasture situation is as follows: Fecal in the spring, fecal in the fall, target for what is needed, and if nothing is needed particular, then do an ivermectin/praziquantel in the spring and a moxidectin in the fall to cover things that I can't see on a fecal. That is going from deworming six times a year to two. That is a BIG change for my totally anal self, but it's absolutely necessary. My pasture is grass, obviously, and it had horses on it before she got there. She was also exposed to Marti when he was here. I pick the front part of my pasture where she likes to poop a lot, but there is still poop out in the vastness of the field that I'll never find, and parasites like to hang out in grass just waiting to be ingested. Gogo missed the evolutionary bandwagon when it comes to things like not eating and pooping in the same spot, so I was concerned that she might have picked something up out there. I've been religious for years when it comes to a three-way rotation, on the 15th of the month every other month, always. But as Solo's mom knows, when it comes to worms you just don't know.

I took Gogo's fecal sample in to the vet's on Monday, and was pleased to hear that it came back completely negative. Despite that, as I mentioned before there are still things that don't show up on fecals - tapes don't show well, and encysted small strongyles obviously won't show either - so I hit her with Equimax today to be on the safe side. She's not coming in contact with any other horses, and she's not going anywhere anytime soon, so her risk of getting infected is pretty low. We'll retest in the fall and see where we stand. I'll have to change this plan should she ever move barns or get another companion. For now, it works very well.

The other thing I am currently doing is a psyllium purge. I've never had to worry about this before, coming from a wet and muddy climate, but one day the other week, I just so happened to look at the ground for some reason a little more closely than I had been doing. Wow, this is really sandy, I thought to myself. Really, really sandy. And the entire floor of she shed is sand. And she's eating food nonstop off of all of this. Oh man... that is a recipe for some sand colic right there. She's not been out there for THAT long that I think she's in any sort of real danger, but still, it is good add this to my monthly to do list as a precautionary measure. She's four days into her purge and no reported problems.



Yep.... our life is not very exciting, but there you are!

In Which Gogo Proves that even Foal-Safe Fencing is not Gogo-Safe

Oh, Gogo.
Oh. Gogo.
Gogo, Gogo.
WHY.

I think it can be safely said that Gogo is trying her hardest to discourage me from this whole 24/7 turnout thing. She, in her special Gogo way, is doing her absolute best to get into every single bit of trouble she possibly could now that I have removed her perpetual bubblewrap and have kicked her out into the night. Mysterious bleeding scrapes and wounds freshly appear on her every single day, and interesting bumps and swellings show up on various, confusing parts of her body, like on top of her butt (how??). Her leg has been ugly at best, and shows signs of potentally acute damage (great). One moment she seems at peace with her life, and the next she is galloping out of her shed at the slightest noise, poised trembling at the edge of the field as though monsters might come leaping off the top of her run-in at any moment. She seems happy, sort of. Or well, she seems to be settling into this odd new routine a little more as every day passes by. Watching her standing there eating her breakfast in the early morning light gives me absolutely no satisfaction at all. In fact, it's kind of depressing. She's filthy, and no amount of cleaning will ever get this nasty red dirt out of her hair until I can give her a bath again. And she's not really even enjoying it, I don't think. She'll probably get used to it. She seemed pretty happy yesterday, so I figured hey, maybe she's starting to really 'get it' and settle down and be happy with life!


Enter today. Morning comes early, and I hardly slept last night (on purpose, so it was okay!). I toodled out to her pasture on my way to work, tossed her some food, pulled off her blanket, and did my customary leg check like I do every day.




Hmmmmm. That right hind sure is huge today. Really huge. And.... wet?
Blood. It's blood. She's bleeding.




In the early morning light I see that she has shredded the inside of her right hind. Her left hind also shows damage, mostly in the form of her chestnut being nearly totally ripped OFF - down to the bleeding skin. There is nothing to put a stitch in, it's all just superficial, but it's pretty extensive. I groan, play quickie-doctor on her, clean and dress the wound rapidly, and rush off to work. At lunchtime, I come back to try and figure out what the hell happened, and to better attend to her wounds.

That beautiful, expensive, foal-safe diamond mesh fencing that everyone (including me) lovea and raves about? Don't know how, and don't know why, but she appears to have gotten hung up in it. Badly. The vast majority of the field has diamond mesh, sturdy wooden posts, and three strands of smooth twist high tensile wire overtop, making the fence nearly 6' tall. I am not a fan of high tensile of any sort, but this is fairly safe in terms of location and use (three strands very high up, all above the 4-5' or so of diamond mesh). However, there is one section of the fence where there is only diamond mesh and wooden posts, and no strands of high tensile. This is a piece of fence that Gogo and the horse next door share. There is nothing dangerous about this section of fence. It's different than the rest of the fence, but it's still well-attached and very safe. I like this fencing because it's great for enclosing such a large space while still keeping it safe - no evil barbed wire!

But apparently, the fact that diamond mesh is very expensive and made just for tricksters like Gogo did not deter her at all. Sometime in the night, it appears that Gogo kicked at her neighbor and then came down partly on the other side of the fence. She tore both herself and the fence up, but neither were serious. Still though.... gahhh. I threatened her with euthanasia this morning if she didn't shape up.







You win this round fence!! Hopefully with all the good cleansing, bandaging, and Banamine-ing, she'll be all right.




We hope, anyway.

Everything's Bigger in Texas!

Phew! After three horrible, exhausting, stressful days of travel, my little family of critters and I have all survived the long journey to Texas. It was really not THAT bad, in the grand scheme of things, but really, three days of 12+ hour hauling will wear you out, not to mention the three animals and mother you're schlepping along for the journey. But we're all here, and we're all okay, thank god!

After finding Gogo's nasty wounds, my trailer door nearly falling off, losing all my keys for good, and running my truck and trailer off the road on a snowy mountainside, we managed to get off to a relatively decent start on Wednesday morning. My GPS got confused on the first leg of the journey, and sent me down a parkway (which is illegal with a trailer) right through Yonkers outside of NYC. Which, if you've never been there, is NOT a great place to drive a trailer through. The trip took FOR-EV-ER, and I was hours and hours late to my final destination. I was trying to make a rendezvous with my mother in Virginia, where she was flying in and meeting me for the second two days of the drive. When I finally pulled in to the equine hospital where Gogo was staying overnight, it was 10pm - we loaded at 9:30am. Along the journey, she refused to drink a single drop of water. At. All. The problem began when I tried to offer her water while she was standing in the trailer, and all she wanted to do was eat hay. Normally I take her off when I offer water. I did the only thing I could think of, and dumped the water over her hay (it was too cold to soak her hay when I left Connecticut.... negative 10!!). This, however, only made her think she was getting enough water, and she continued to refuse to think. So I kept dumping it over her hay. By the end of twelve hours, I was thoroughly alarmed. When she got into her stall, she took a sip of water, and then continued to eat hay as though she wasn't in the least bit interested in water. I was so thoroughly put out at this point that I told the attendant to shoot her if she colicked in the night! Thankfully, she drank nearly three 5-gallon buckets full of water overnight.

Gogo's stop in some Pennsylvania town outside of a big rock quarry and a lake:




I did in fact trailer her in that blanket, which I never do. Normally she runs really hot, but it was so freezing cold in Colebrook that she was literally shivering when I put her on the trailer. I've never seen her get THAT cold. It was in the low teens for the entire first day's drive, and she stayed very comfortable with that blanket in the breezy trailer. Do your fierce-hearted mares run hot too? Nearly every mare with a similar personality that I know does.

Anyway. Matters were not improved when I made contact with my mother that evening and learned that an enormous winter storm was roaring up through Virginia and Tennessee that evening. I had been warned by my new boss that those storms were horrible, and not to travel in them if I could help it, but as my mother had a plane to catch on Saturday in Texas we did not have a whole lot of choice. The scariest part of the journey by far was the first leg; imagine sliding down the Virginia mountains with your ABS grating underneath your foot at you try to regain your braking system while your trailer sways behind you in the early morning light. We crept on in this way for several hours, wondering if we should just give up and try and find another barn to hole up at until the weather cleared. Somewhere along the journey, the sideways snow changed to sleet, and our spirits were slightly lifted:






But not much. It was still miserably slow, even though our speed has increased from 20mph to 40. Eventually, the sleet changed all to rain, and the roads became passable. As a northern girl I can safely say this: Virginia cannot intelligently deal with snow. And Tennessee cannot intelligently deal with ice. That is all.

Somehow, 15 hours later we pulled safely in to our layover in Tennessee. Once again, Gogo refused to drink a drop out of her buckets, and I had to soak all her hay as best I could. She seemed in good spirits despite the fact that she only drank a bucket and a half overnight. As for me, I was pulling my hair out trying to get her to drink. I had also, at this point, lost an entire gallon of aloe juice due to an accident in my front seat where the aloe managed to leak out all over my computer, which then sat in a puddle of it for several hours. I discovered this far too late to do anything about it, and my computer seemed to be completely fried whenever I attempted to turn it on. I gave up, turned it off, and left open it by a vent every time I had a chance. I seemed to have revived it, thank god, but it was not a very happy experience for me. Also I was none too pleased at not having anything to help Gogo's stomach along the way. I had used up all the Ulcergard I had with me, and discovered that the rest was buried in the bowls of my trailer, underneath everything I owned in the world in my packed tackroom. Sigh.




The third day of the trip dawned and nobody was even remotely interested in getting in the car. Gogo, on the other hand, still hopped right on the trailer without a moment's hesitation, bless her lil' heart. I think if it were me, I would have taken one look at the shipping boots and refused to have anything further to do with the whole ordeal. We cruised across the Mississippi river past Memphis, and hurried through Arkansas (honestly, who wants to spend ANY time there?). When we eventually stopped to let Gogo off the trailer, she FINALLY drank about half a bucket of water. My dog had also FINALLY eaten her breakfast (major car anxiety) and my cat had FINALLY also taken a sip of water and had eaten a few bites of breakfast herself. Despite being really weird about where she drinks her water - we discovered that normally she only drinks out of the dog bowl, but apparently refuses to drink out of it unless it is in an elevated holder, so we had to offer her a mug of water instead - my cat is an exceptionally easygoing traveler. The dog was having a mild panic attack for pretty much every waking moment of the car ride, and we finally let the sleeping cat out of her cage so she could go curl up with the dog and comfort her. The cat also spent quite some time as my co-pilot, sitting on the center console and watching out the front window:



Never a thought of getting in my lap, what a good kitty.

Finally, after another exhausting 12 hours, we pulled into the barn and unloaded. Gogo, being of course in head, squabbled a bit with the mini next door to her stall, but settled immediately and started munching her hay and dipping it into the water buckets. For having ridden in a trailer for three very solid days, she is as bright eyed and alert as ever. She must have been tired, but she didn't show it at all. She can't have lost more than just a few pounds... she almost looks like she may have gained a few. She looks amazing.


She's still not drinking well, much to everyone's surprise, but both the hay and the grain is soaked here, and I think that has quite a lot to do with it. My first day of work was today, and she drank about as much as everyone else, which wasn't much at all. We left her outside next to the mini for the entire day, and pulled her blanket off at around 11am to let her be naked and free. We didn't even bother putting a blanket on her this evening. She could not possibly be happier about this situation. She is also very happy about having wet hay, as she is a disgustingly messy dunker and wants her hay wet in the first place.


She'll stay at the ranch for now, but she may yet move to my backyard. Or something else might move into my backyard, I haven't decided just yet! The 5 acres behind my house is all mine for the using, although it's not ready for horses yet. Three of the perimeter fences are good, strong horse fencing, some combination of pipe fence and mesh wire fence made specifically for horses. The other piece of fence is barbed wire, which we will have to rip out and replace. It's just one top strand of barbed wire overtop a normal wire and mesh fencing, but I'll be damned if I put my precious jewel into a cow pasture where she can lose and eye and a leg at the same time. The barn area also needs work - it is primarily pipe fencing but has places with chain link to solidify the pipe, and they are bent. It's a weird labyrinth of holding pens, six in all, and an area with a nice overhang for animals to stand under. There is also what could be made into a very large stall area, totally shut in from three sides, but the rafters are low and there are lightbulbs and wires to get hung up on. With some hard work, it could really be great.








Three days on a trailer, and Gogo's legs look better than ever. The right is still warm and has a small hard lump, but the left has no more swelling and the wounds look very good. They sloughed off a bit of dead skin overtop part of the "Y" that the cuts made, but once that business was over, they set themselves to closing and needed no further bandaging. She is still marching around sound as ever at the walk, and you wouldn't know visually that she has any sort of injury unless you looked in very closely. My new boss wants me to get a second opinion on the leg and whether or not she will have any sort of competitive future. I would think she stands a decent chance, although I'm not sure at what. I just can't believe how good she looks, how happy she is, and how relaxed I am about this whole process of healing. We're just all so much happier now that she is booted out into a field. I guess I have to eat my words about turnout for injuries, even though I need a vet with diagnostic tools to really say for sure.

The stalls have runs off of them, but she is temporarily locked in at night because the tiny pony shares her run. She is not pleased about that, even though her stall is 16x16:




She really is such a nice looking mare, even just standing in a stall. Even nicer looking out in the field. I really do hope she returns to some sort of work someday. My new boss gave her some very nice compliments, and I was pleased. We're also trying to figure out some new supplement experimentation with her, because at this point we might as well play around with what we have... if it's done intelligently, it hopefully can't hurt. Still Gro N' Win for now as her meal base, but I have SmartFlex Repair to try her on, and we're adding Cocosoya and some UGard for good measure after that horribly long trip. I still have flax to give her too but I can't imagine needing it if she's on Cocosoya. Eh, now is the time for experimentation I guess!
Personally, all supplementing and speculation aside, all I want for Christmas is a leg transplant for her!


I already almost got myself shot fumbling for the lights in the barn last evening - scared the other guy that works there and he literally had a gun in his hand when he came to see who I was! I guess that was my Texas christening right there - apparently, according to everyone here, I also need a gun to keep in my house because everyone else has one too. If you handed me a loaded gun, I wouldn't hardly know which end to point away from myself. I guess when in Rome... do as the Romans do? Just don't ask me to kill animals with it unless they're already suffering.

Welcome to life in Texas!

Hooves of Steel: The Barefoot Journey, Part I (The History)

I am, always have been, and always will be, a horse industry skeptic. Fancy new supplements, expensive miracle therapies, and new age treatments all get thoroughly scrutinized before I pass judgement, and for the most part I'm never impressed. Five years ago, if you would have asked me about the barefoot movement, I would have scoffed at you. MY horse was an EVENT horse, event horses NEED shoes to compete. Barefoot is only for broodmares, foals and retirees. Sport horses DON'T go barefoot, how crude. Or so I thought.

I never gave much thought to hoofcare when I had Quincy. My trainer handled all the complicated ends of horsecare at the barn when we were kids - deworming, scheduling the farrier, etc. - and all I really knew was that all the horses went bare in the winter to "let those heels decontract." This certainly was a good first lesson for me, that feet needed a break from shoeing, but in my mind I equated this with taking a break from competing during the winter. When spring rolled around and the show season began, on went front shoes (never the hinds, the horses lived out in little herds 24/7. Another good early lesson to learn!) and off we went. When I got Metro, however, things changed. I became a bit of a foot snob. Obsessed with hoofcare and a beautiful, well-functioning athlete, the moment the farrier arrived to first work on Metro, on went the shoes and they never came off again. When I moved to Ohio to go to college, I found a competent farrier, and looked forward to our five and six week intervals. Like a hawk, I'd stand with the farrier and watch his every move, and in all honesty he did do a good job. it was fascinating. I remember going home to Michigan during winter break to show my old trainer the fancy eventer rim shoes my horse was now sporting, front and back, and feeling above everyone. I had no plans to take his shoes off during the winter season - I planned to show, and something about leaving him bare felt crude and prehistoric. Taking his shoes off for the winter would render him unuseable for months. Or so I thought.

It was around this time that I was perusing the vast interwebz looking for more information about hoofcare, and I happened to stumble upon a picture of a horse doing whatever it was doing, jumping perhaps. A random commenter had asked if the horse was barefoot (it appeared to be in the picture), and she stated that she too had barefoot performance horses, and anything else was clearly just wrong. I immediately got annoyed with said person, and reponded to her with the typical pro-shoe fire-backs - genetics, we've bred the feet out of horses, horses need the suport of shoes, horses have to have shoes to compete, et cetera. She was unfortunately one of those self-righteous barefoot types, telling everyone who would listen that shoes were cruel and evil, and gave me unsatisfactory and annoying answers to all the questions I posed. However, as with all interesting and differing mindsets, I felt the need to 'know my enemy', and went to read up on this barefoot hoodoo, just so I could make sense of all the jibberish she was speaking. What I found surprised me - endless pictures of gorgeous, healthy, short feet, hooves like I'd never seen before. They were gorgeous! These feet were tackling tough trails, rocks, speed events, and even jumping! Everything about them looked healthy, beautiful and biomechanically efficient. It made sense, even in terms of physics - the longer the level arm, the higher the force and energy required to move it. Long toes and high heels dramatically increase strain on the machine, which can lead to fatigue and injury. My horse certainly had both of those things going on. I felt as though somehow, mostly by accident, I had stumbled upon the answer.

Unfortunately by this time, Metro's mild on and off lamenesses has turned into a full-on chronic issue. Four months of misdiagnoses had kept me turning out my poor beast, and by the time someone finally figured out that he had a gaping black hole in his suspensory, the damage had been done. We experimented on and off with different shoeing combinations, starting with front shoes and pads and bare behind. He wore his hinds down to nothing, and when we went back to school in the fall, we put shoes back on his hinds. Given the pain he was in, he began wearing his front shoes in a very strange pattern, and the farrier who has previously been doing a great job decided to get cocky and experiment on my horse. He cut down the inside of my horse's foot and left the outside to flare out.... why? According to him, this would relieve some of the pressure on his suspensory, and he promised my horse would move off comfortably. Instead, he hobbled away from the shoeing, absolutely dead lame. The unnatural forces placed upon his compromised limb through his newly massascred hoof caused new damage to his already destroyed suspensory, and I immediately started looking for a new farrier (to this day, that guy swears up and down that he did nothing wrong). The new farrier arrived after much searching and scrutiny on my part, and once I was satisfied, I let him work on my horse. We entered a new realm of hoofcare I hadn't been involved with before: bar shoes, pads and injected silicone. I was startled to find that my horse walked off like a Hackney pony, the heavy steel shoes a new burden for his weakened suspensory to bear. His lameness worsened dramatically, and I ended up taking him back to MSU not long thereafter. As it turned out, the medial branch of his suspensory has ruptured, and the lateral branch was compromised and soon to follow suit. He had no chance of ever being comfortable again, not even enough to hobble around in a field for the rest of his life. I let him go three days later.

((Right: Metro's frightening feet the day before we put him down.)) The very worst part of the ordeal? I had the farrier come and pull his enormous bar shoes the day we put him to sleep, just so I could keep them as a memento, and turned him out in the indoor arena for one last bit of freedom. I was horrified to find that his once gorgeous feet were shriveled and mushy underneath the pads, his frogs only an inch wide, nothing like the beautiful, bare gravel-crunchers I had been admiring for months. The worst of the worst? When we let his newly barefoot self go in the indoor, he trotted off SOUND. Later necropsy showed massive hemhorraging in the ligament, but still... it was so awful to see. He even bolted away from the vet while we were putting him down, needle still in his neck, as if to say "stop!! I feel better already!! I don't want to die!!" I vowed that day to give the barefoot thing an honest try with my next horse, and that none of my horses would EVER go through that hell again.




When Gogo came into my life, she was shod with pads up front and bare behind. She threw both shoes within a week of me owning her, and they never went back on. To be continued.....

Embrace the Ace

What a weird couple of days I've had. Up until this past week or so, Gogo has been for the most part very well behaved. These past few rides have all been a little, umm... hairy. And by a little hairy, I mean something akin to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride.

I don't know what complete madness possessed me over the weekend, but I got the crazy notion that I wanted to ride her bareback on Saturday and Sunday. That's right, you heard me... bareback. Saturday, I had forgotten my riding boots and britches at home, and I still wanted to ride but had no stirrup-appropriate footwear. So clearly, the SAFER option was to get on without a saddle. What did I eat for breakfast that day!? Matters were further complicated when I realized that due to all the rain we had gotten the night before, the outdoor was swamped and too unstable to take a tendon recovery out into, so I had to go back into the indoor. Which she hates. A lot. And apparently, though I felt quite certain that the little brown vial I grabbed out my locker had read "Acepromazine" on the side, a goblin had switch the bottle out in the night and had put "Bottled Adrenaline" in there instead. Even though I gave the drugs to her with a good half hour to cook before I got on, once she set foot in the arena all bets were off. I walked to the middle of the ring to set a few poles on the ground, and then walked her through them to see about spacing. When I turned to walk her back through them the other way, she jumped them. ALL of them. Ooooookay. I felt it was a good idea to walk her on foot down to the Arena Door Monster end of the ring, and sure enough, when I got down there, she skittered to and fro, blasted a few snorts, and stood with her heart pounding so hard it made her whole body shake. Ooooooooooookay. And because I am smart, I still got on. It worked, sort of, for a few minutes. But at the 10 minute mark when I went to change directions, I felt her whole body go rigid and grind to a stop in the middle of the ring, facing the scary end. I had a few options at this point: a) turn left and have her bolt left so I would get slung off to the right, b) turn right and have her bolt right so I would get slung off to the left, c) walk straight ahead and have her surprise me as to which was she would bolt and sling me off, or d) possibly all of the above at the same time. I chose e) she's standing still so let's just get off and go to the outdoor ring. And amazingly, even though she was still skittery at first, once I finally reached the half-hour mark and picked up real contact, she was utterly outstanding. Amazing. Straight, balanced, perfect. All the right muscles rippling, all the right reactions to my aids. I breathed left, she moved left. I thought right, she moved right. It was utterly outstanding. And I was delighted to find that FINALLY, after years of pain and being unable to sit upright bareback for any length of time, I am able to do it and not hurt too much at the end. Thank you, chiropractor! I dismounted at the end with a big smile and patted her forehead, thanking her for such an amazing experience. We walked to the end of the ring, pitchfork in hand, ready to pick up some poops and then call it a day. And of course, after that perfect ride, how do you think she shows her gratitude and appreciation for the loving bond we have together? By spooking to death at a speck of dust while I have a pitchfork of poo in my hands, bolting backwards, hitting the reins and freaking out, and spraying poop in every possible direction as the pitchfork soars through the air, which of course scares her even further and makes her shoot backwards faster, dragging me across the arena. FAIL.
My bareback ride yesterday was not quite as wonderful, probably because she was body tired after working so properly the day before. But it wasn't all bad, and I got off feeling fairly happy but not totally ready to do it again. I had drugged her a little more heavily, and still she spooked once or twice. It's also very hard to keep a drugged horse moving in some sort of straight and forward fashion. All she really wants to do is stumble sideways like a 2am drunk after last call.

And then, of course, today happened. After some nice bareback, productive rides, today was an outright fail. I was in such a sleepy stupor and rush this morning that I pretty much just didn't remember the Ace until I was already bridling her, and I did a dumb thing that I regretted: I decided to go without. I figured that by the time the drugs started to work, she would have already been stupid and wild, so I decided to do without. Did I think to give it IV? Of course not. I just got on and went. And she was WILD. Spooking at nothing, jumping, gnashing her teeth, rolling her eyes, threatening to rear, and the main attraction: a full on bolt that ended up being a bucking, farting, rearing high-speed volte. So much fail... so much fail. We are supposed to trot on Thursday, but she's just been horrible these past few days, so I ended up calling Dr. C and scheduling an ultrasound for tomorrow, just to clear us - or not - for trotwork. If nothing else, it's for my peace of mind. I really just can't stand not knowing whether or not she's ready for trotting after all this recent nonsense. UGH!


On the plus side, even without having had a bath for two weeks, she is amazingly freakishly gorgeously gleamingly shiny:



That picture can not POSSIBLY do it justice in any way. She's always been very shiny and healthy looking but this is ridiculous. Only thing that changed from this year to last was the addition of flax. Flax = possibly? Elbow grease = definitely.


Wish us luck at the vet tomorrow. Very nervous for what she has to say.

Gogo's Demon Possession #8574904475

We all know Gogo gets possessed by demons on an occasional basis, right? They struck again today, those a-holes. Stupid demons. I should give them names.

Yesterday, we had a random snowstorm for the better part of the day, which made travel dangerous enough that I opted to stay home and work versus die on the roads (I did try to get to work, but alas, two hours later I was not even halfway, so I gave up!). I selected a few choice turnouts for the afternoon, and Gogo was not on the list - given the nature of her injuries I like to be there when she is outside so I can monitor everything. This, unfortunately, worked both for and against me today: she's feeling the ridiculously cold weather (about -9 at the moment), so thankfully yesterday she was not outside to do something stupid when I couldn't monitor her, but she DID do something stupid outside today because of her day inside and the demons possessing her. Of course.

Shortly after being turned out, one of my staff members called to me as I was walking down the aisle and said, "Gogo's crazy!" What he meant by that is that for whatever reason, instead of placidly munching her hay like she always does for her entire turnout time, Gogo was lunging at the geldings turned out on either side of her and double barreling at them. Excessively. Here's a nice set of pictures taken two years ago of what she looks like when in "attack mode":





Which is EXACTLY what she looked like today. For those of you that argue that dressage "isn't natural," check out the attractive passage/piaffe combo and collected canter. Lovely! (And she also does a reining spin and/or rapid-fire pirouette!) Which, of course, is exactly what you DON'T want to be doing on tender legs. I saw her lunge a time or two at the geldings, separated only by one fence and some not particularly strong hotwire, and yelled at her across the way. In typical I'm-in-trouble fashion, she froze, eyed popping out of her head, and stared at me in a worried way for a second, then started trotting around her little pen. Also not what I want her to be doing. She also started kicking out at the fence behind her with one leg, then the other, and over again. I had seen enough and was like, "That's it, you just lost your turnout privileges young lady." To which she said, "Well I'd rather just stay out here and kill geldings, thank you very much!" In the entire 3.5 years that I've owned her, the only time I can remember her ever being hard to catch was one day in the first few months that I had her when instead of walking to me like she always does, she walked verrrrry slowly towards the other end of the field. That's it! Even when she gets loose, she usually head to the nearest patch of grass and is readily caught there. Every other day, she either walks over to me or stands there immobile, easy as can be to catch. Not today! Today, she was determined to NOT come in. We walked around and around and around, and she was pretty sure that she was not going to turn to face me. Rude.

Of course, being Gogo this only lasted about 30 seconds. Then, she rediscovered the haypile, and figured it was better to just eat hay and let herself be caught. She did, however, attempt to jig the entire way in to the barn, which is not okay in my book and I reminded her that we walk nicely, always.

Back in the barn, I checked her legs and found that oh no! Her LH (one with the lesion) was really quite warm. A bit freaked out, I felt further up the leg and suddenly found my hand covered with warm, wet stickiness. GREAT, now she's bleeding! A lot! She took a good couple inches of skin and hair off part of her lower leg, completely superficially so but it still bled quite a bit. The leg, of course, became quite warm and swollen, true to form. I'm pretty sure it's entirely related to the mini-gash, but this isn't helping my total rising panic about next week's ultrasound. Ugh. Only the pictures will tell, I suppose.


Gogo, really?

JOY!

Day 4 of the mystery hock swelling is here and I still had no answers, so when Dr. S came out to pull a bunch of Coggins for the Florida horses I had him take a peek at the mystery hock to see what he thought. I told him I had no idea if she was sound or not but I had no other clues for him, so he was like, well let's jog her. So I did, and she looked good in hand but really all I could see was her front half, so I wasn't sure. He thinks the swelling might be a residual grossness from a perpetual hocksore scar that she's had for years and years (and never caused an issue before) but has opened a little recently. He told me it's not going to go away until she gets into a regular exercise program, to which I said well, is she sound?

AND HE SAID YES!

Yes, finally that time is here - she's sound and looking very even and good, he said. We're still going to Tufts for a better evaluation but I have no reason to think I can't start tackwalking again, picking up at 20 minutes where I left off, starting probably this Friday when I get back from my Thanksgiving capers. He gave me a long-winded explanation about how sometimes it's impossibly hard to tell on ultrasound whether or not a horse has really just bruised a tendon or really torn the tendon - perhaps her injuries were not as serious as we've been treating them. I'm not going to treat them any less seriously though. With her wraps off after we jogged her, the area below the swollen hock started to fill, which wasn't alarming but I certainly don't want to take chances, so we're continuing with icing and wrapped as per how we have been doing it. She has an appointment for December 3rd at Tufts, so we'll see what they say then! I don't expect the swelling to go away anytime soon, so I dunno what I'm going to go about that. I might try Doxy again in case this IS another Lymey flare-up... you never know.

But YAY GOOD NEWS! And after work today, I am going to Daun's to go cap in tomorrow for the final hunt of the season! MORE good news! And then it's Thanksgiving and I have that day off too! EVEN MORE good news!!


I am so getting Taco Bell today.




(Gogo the day I bought her.)

Tarsus... I don't even know-arsus

So we all know Gogo likes to keep me on my toes, right? Well last night she upped the ante... AGAIN. She came out of her stall fine, went on the treadmill fine, wore her ice booties fine, peed all over her neighbor's face because she's in flaming heat, and then when I pulled her out of her stall to groom her in the afternoon..... HUGE ENORMOUS BALLOON HOCK. It was only on the outside part of her LH, and it was hard. It wasn't hot. It wasn't painful. She wasn't lame. She had no temperature. It wasn't sore. It didn't go down with coldhosing. It didn't go down after a night of poultice. It didn't really go down after a 500lb. dose of banamine in the morning. It sort of went down with treadmilling today, but not really. It was totally localized to the hock yesterday, but today it went creeping down her leg and now the upper part of the outside of her LH is filling slowly but surely. I wanted to sweat it tonight but knew she wouldn't keep that on, so I poulticed it and the rest of the leg tonight again, along with more banamine and coldhosing. Wtf, what is going ON? We'll see what it looks like tomorrow but geez. I thought maybe she kicked the wall but she's in flaming heat, I wouldn't think she would have? I dunno what the crap she did to herself. I could find no indication of a wound anywhere either.

Seriously, Gogo. You are KILLING me here! If it's still big tomorrow I'll get some pictures. I'm stumped here.




In other news, for the first time in a year I actually let someone else work on my horse's feet for a change. And that person also shoes... so that was a BIG DEAL to get his particular opinion. This guy has a very interesting history - he very nearly hung up his anvil and nails to do totally barefoot stuff, but couldn't figure out how to make it work in New England. Verrrrry interesting, as this is the question I always get as a barefoot person in this particular area. Because really, let's face it, wild horses are not frequently found in the wet, rocky forests of New England. A natural trim is universal, but so much of it is environment, and this environment is just that - wet and extremely rocky. Feet have a hard time drying out and toughening up here, and soft feet don't play well with big jagged rocks. Hell, shod feet don't play well with some of our rocks either! So every time he comes to do horses, we always get into these really animated discussions about what is out there that works better than shoes. He keeps everything in the barn bare that he can, and he does a very nice natural trim. So, the last time he was out (Tuesday) I asked if he would look at Gogo, who was due for a trim (only 3 weeks out too... she is spitting out foot now that she's not wearing it off). She has a very odd crack in her foot that looks like trauma but I, again, have NO IDEA as to how or where she could have done this. I wanted him to check it out. As it turns out, he had quite a lot of pointers for me, and so I at one point just said well, do you want to just go ahead and trim her and show me what you mean? Of course, at that exact moment in time my boss came in and asked where her next horse was, so I had to go start tacking. And then I got a ring from one of the employees saying he couldn't catch a horse, so I had to go help him. By the time I got back up to the barn, the trim was already complete... damn. He did some things I wasn't sure I liked - for example, he rasped off all her remaining raggedy-hangy-down periople, something I've never done because why do it? To his credit he was working down some flare so I guess that's how that worked. He also took the heels way down on her clubby foot, maybe a little more than I ever felt comfortable doing, but her feet do look very nice. I was thinking for the first few days she *might* have been landing a little flatter versus more heel-first but I could be imagining that because I want to find faults here. Other than being more invasive than I would have been, I think he did a very good job - left that tasty sole and frog totally alone and just worked exclusively with the wall that needed to come off. We'll see what kind of growth she puts out in response to this trim - but who knows, maybe that heel really was ready to just come off for good and I was not skilled enough or comfortable enough to take it off myself. Time will tell. That being said, in general I can NOT believe how much those heels have come down over the past two years, all of them. They look fabulous.

Top picture was from the other day, and the bottom picture was from December of 2007:



Good picture of the removal of the raggedy periople. Don't really think that was necessary but there is still plenty of it left so there you are. RF looks a little weird in this picture because of the Tuff Stuff on it and for some reason the stain on it makes it look like her heel is running under... I can assure you that isn't the case!






Quite interesting to see just what is going on with those cracks. They were hard to see before. The one on the LF is pretty much totally closed almost, and the one on the RF is tighter than it ever was and looking way less threatening than ever before. Score!


And how do we battle the wet stall? With some super fun soaking and a layer of Desitin slathered on her already cleaned and treated frogs every couple of days... sounds totally odd but it does help keep the urine and ammonia out.







And of course, her tail is still gorgeous even though all the rest of her seems to want to fall apart on me every second of the day!





Gogo is great at this sort of thing though.... random mystery swellings that don't cause lameness or pain, which all seem to resolve themselves within a few days. So let's hope this is more of the same.

Some Very Good News, and Good Times

Well I have some very good news! After reviewing the ultrasounds taken two weeks ago, and the ultrasounds taken three days ago, the vets have concluded that the lesion in her LH is resolving so well on its own that they felt the PRP was unnecessary - she is rapidly healing on her own! Sweet!

On Monday, I tidied Gogo all up (it was too cold for a bath, but she got a serious grooming and her face all clipped so as to not look too skanky for the vet... I believe I am the only one in the world who makes my horse look nearly show-presentable for the vet), and I packed all my stuff in order to head right from Tufts up to New Hampshire, where Daun and a fantastic foxhunt awaited me. Early Tuesday, I cleaned her up, threw on her nice sheet, put her shipping boots on over her bandages (this is a nifty little trick I just figured out... thin no-bows and bandages apparently fit nicely under shipping boots, which is great because she pulls down bandages in the trailer unless you offer some other kind of protection), and off we went by 7am in order to make it in time for our 9am appointment. We were a little early, so Gogo had to hang out in the little holding stall for awhile:



She was like ummmmm what's this about? But of course, she's perfect for things like this, so she stood quietly and peed a lot when another gelding came in (perpetually in heat, of course).
Dr. Provost and Dr. Chope came in to meet me after a well meaning but sort of confused 4th year vet student took our info (although I admit, the story is pretty complicated), and we did a lameness evaluation after discussing the case. She trotted out still fairly lame in both hinds, moreso in the left (they gave it a 1.5 to 2 at the trot on a straight line, and didn't rate the right hind), but it's a definite improvement. We moved on into the room with the treadmill and ultrasound, and Dr. Chope ultrasounded both hinds extremely thoroughly - we did both hinds pretty much from right below the point of the hock all the way down to her hooves, and it took at least an hour. Again, nothing of interest was found on the RH, except for some tenosynovitis in the digital shealth of the superficial digital flexor tendon (SDFT). Essentially, she has some inflammation of the tendon sheath, which is filled with synovial fluid (which is really fascinating... the body is so efficient and fabulous when it works normally!). On the LH, she still has the small lesion in her SFDT, and some tendonitis and tenosynovitis, same as the RH, except the RH has a little more swelling than the LH. However, the lesion looked remarkably improved for just a week and a half out from the previous ultrasound - essentially, it's healing itself quite rapidly. We scanned the entirety of both legs, and it really is just localized to that one little area, which is great. The vets expect it to resolve itself just fine, and for the tendonitis/tenosynovitis to resolve with some more anti-inflammatories (namely Surpass). When flexed, her fetlock on the LH was painful, which was a little weird. We took some x-rays of it just to be safe, and found nothing remarkable, so it's possible that she either strained the fetlock, or that the way the leg was being tweaked was painful due to the ouchy tendon. The last thing of concern was her back. They were a little worried that her lameness level was a little more than it should have been for this type of injury, but it's possible that the tendons just hurt like hell, which wouldn't surprise me, but the other thing it could be is her back. She was pretty sore, not in a muscular way though... right over her spine, mid-back. It's possible that she either was overcompensating for the legs and stressed it, or perhaps torqued it while out on XC... or maybe she was sore from her recent vaccine reaction? Who knows. We didn't explore it further at this time, but I will have Dr. A the chiropractor look at her on Tuesday and see what he thinks about it. Whatever it is, it's pretty much a given that it's probably going to require stall rest, and we're already on stall rest, so there you are. We're going to put her on some methocarbamol and see if that helps.


This was the basic write-up:

"Upon presentation, Gogo was bright and alter. A physical examination was preformed and revealed that her vital signs were all within normal limits. A lamaness examination was performed which showed a 1.5 out of 5 lamaness (0=sound and 5=non weight bearing lameness) in her left hind and a 1.5 to 2 out of 5 lameness when she was trotted on a straight line. She was sensitive to palmation of the superficial digital flexor tendon distrally and resented fetlock flexion in the left hind. Digital tendon shealth effusuion was palpated in both distal hind limbs, with more effusion in the right limb than the left limb (you report this is an abnormal amount for her). She was also sensitive to back palpation in the caudal thoracis region.
Ultrasound of both hind metacarpal and pastern regions revealed a local lesion in the lateral aspect of the left hinmd superficial digital flexor tendon, between 38 to 41 cm from the point of the hock (proximal extent of the digital sheath). Enlargement was present. The margins of the tendon appear intact. Increased fluid and synovial thickening was observed in the digital tendon shealth in both hinds legs, indicating tenosynovitis of the tendon shealth bilaterally. All other structures were within normal limits. Her deep digital flexor tendons were measured and evaluated bilaterally and were nonremarkable at this time. Thus, Gogo has a focal subacute superficial digital flexor tendonitis and digital sheath tenosynovitis. In compasion to her previous ultrasounds, her superficial flexor tendon appears improved. The treatment for tendon injuries is rest and constrolled exercise, followed by a gradual increasing return to work with periodic sonographic monitering. Other therapies such as intralesional medication (PRP, stem cell, etc) or shock wave therapy may be beneficial. At this time, however, with the focal nature of the lesion and its apparent improvement, we do not feel that intralesional injection is likely to significantlyimrpove her prognosis over rest and controlled exercise. Accordingly a program is outlined below. Her digital shealth tenosynovitis is likely due to her tendon lesion in the left hind and/or strain. It should refuce with anti-inflammatory therapy. Radiographs of her left hind metacarpal phalangeal joint (fetlock) were taken and were nonremarkable.
Her degree of lameness is of some concern, as it is bilateral and possibly more severe than one mightg expet for her tendon lesion. However, as discussed she may also have a component of muscle or back soreless due to her slipping/competing/shipping and more recent possible vaccine reaction. Local nerve block may help rule oin or out a lower limb versus upper limb component. We recommend that we rest her for the tendon lesion and re-evaluate her lameness (possibly with nerve blocks) and tendon in 6-8 weeks. Additionally, re-evaluation by her regular chiropractor to assess her back comfort is recommended."


The program from here? Two more weeks of handwalking, 10 minutes twice daily, and ice boots for 30 minutes a day (this last part is just because I can, mostly). She'll also have 10 days of Surpass, followed by a week within, then possibly more Surpass depending on the swelling. She'll increase by 5 minutes a week for the following two weeks, getting 15 minutes of handwalking twice daily and then moving up to 20 twice daily. Then, I can sit on her again (yay!!), walking slowly for 15 minutes daily, and eventually building to 30 minutes daily over the course of four weeks. About two weeks into that, I can start to put her together again, and do some minor stuff at a medium walk. So in about 8 weeks, we'll re-evaluate her sonographically to see where she is. If she's looking like it's healing appropriately, she can start to trot for 5 minutes a day, and building by 5 minutes every two weeks until we reach 20 minutes. Then we can add canter in 5 minute increments. We'll recheck her regularly via ultrasound during her re-legging up. And this is all very tentative, of course, and it just depends on her, so it might change.


And the rest of my two-day adventure was AWESOME! Not only did I get to see my fabulous friend Ali, who is my very good friend from college and who is currently attending Tufts for vet school, but I also went from Tufts up to visit Daun and see the big Brego, and go on what we expected to be a totally fantastic foxhunt. Well, of course it being the perfect New England fall, the hunt got called because of rain. D'oh! However, that evening she and I took Brego and her mare Hobby over to the gallop track in the woods, and let them rip. Or well, we let Brego rip! Daun had me get on him (that's so freaking sweet!) and take him for a spin around the track. He tested me a little bit ("now do we REALLY need to go faster than a canter? I'd really rather not leave the mare thanks") but after some encouragement (whack whack!) he really opened up for me. Man that dude can FLY! I really would have NEVER expected such a big guy to be capable of speeds like that, but it's clear he's no ordinary Perch. It was getting dark so I didn't get the chance to take him over any jumps, but perhaps that day will come! He looks so cute and fuzzy from the outside, but he's got a big ego and an attitude to match. He is a seriously cool horse. It was pouring the next day, as expected, but she and I still got to squeak in a ride at the fairgrounds, which was great fun. Plus, they stuffed me full of super delicious farm food, what could be better? Daun has been a fantastic big sister-type to me all this past spring and summer, really and truly. She encourages me, challenges me to think outside the box, gives me fantastic advice, and cheers me on through thick and thin. Daun, you're awesome. AWESOME. Seriously awesome. And thank you.


And now, it's back to the grindstone of daily work, until it all ends on the 15th. Now that I've realized I really AM leaving, suddenly I'm very sad about it. I mean, this place has been my life and home for the past 10 months, and these people my family. I know I can't even begin to afford to stay at a low-salary position like this any more, but moving on is always sad. I actually already have a potential job lined up in Michigan, one that sort of fell into my lap and might turn into something special, but then again it might turn into nothing at all at this point. We'll play it by ear, and I'll have some more details about it when I know them. We shall see.


Good news, good news, good news.