So much for my well-behaved pony – it really was too good to be true. Last night I thought I’d do some handwalking outside, maybe incorporate some hills. Tris started off great, and then threw a bucking fit for the remainder of the walk back to the barn, when he wasn’t jigging.

Tonight, we went up to 15 minutes of handwalking, and he only had one short fit, but when I turned him loose in the indoor he rolled and rolled (flipped over 7 times!) and then came up bucking like a lunatic. He circled the ring bucking and cantering and came to a sliding stop in front of he when I called him over.

Flushing and soaking tonight was not the easiest – I mistimed it and the other horses got dinner while we were soaking. He did not approve, and took a few steps back toward his stall out of his boot.

The tissue is starting to grow in hoof-colored, which I am assuming is keritanizing, so that’s good. The worrying part is that there is an area just to the left of the hole that looks and feels mushy – with what looked like a small hole – and I am wondering and worrying if perhaps it was an abscess that has burst with the soaking. It might mean there is still internal infection. I’ve sent off another email to the clinic. We’ll see.

No drainage except for a teeny drop of blood. Huzzah!

Farrier on Monday which means I am coordinating with the vet to pick up a tranq. It will be interesting to see a) if he goes back to his normal self, or something like it and b) how much of the holes are trimmed off.

Soaking seems to be working well, and tonight we accidentally hand walked for nearly 15 minutes and he was just fine – he also decided that trot poles were for trotting when I asked him to walk over them. Oops?

In conclusion, I present to you our soaking routine.

So, bad news first: Tristan’s foot is definitely infected.

Good news: he is sound at the walk and trot, and the vet caught the infection, and we tranq’d him and she cut back a bit to get at clean, bleeding flesh. We sent pictures off to the surgeon and he was concerned but not worried.

Good news also that we are wrapping les, so he fit into his normal sized boot today, and he’s cleared to do more handwalking and try some light turnout.

So I keep up with my flushing/wrapping schedule, and add a powdered antibiotic called metronidazole on top of the wound – it’s the same stuff we were using in his abscess holes in the fall, for anaerobic infection.

The surgeon also suggested soaking the foot a few times, to draw out the infection. Basically treat it like an abscess. I’ll dig out & disinfect his soaking boot in the next few days and start that on Wednesday, with his next rewrapping.

If he goes lame, throws a temp, etc, then we start to worry but until then we assume this is small, mostly surface, and while we are treating it aggressively, it probably won’t be a setback.

Scroll down for pictures, first showing the infection/pus, second showing the cleaned out foot – it’s grown back quite a bit, really, so that’s encouraging.