adventures with the vet · farrier

Can’t catch a break…

AmandaLeave a comment

So, updates, finally.

Last Saturday night I left work and got to the barn, saw that the farrier had not trimmed Tristan’s back feet to even out the chips, and decided to take matters into my own hands. I gave them a really truly good cleaning out with hoof pick, hose, hoof pick again, you name it. As I kept cleaning I started getting a sick feeling and when I finished I confirmed it: white line disease in both back feet, hence the chipping and crumbling of the hoof wall. It was pretty bad. So I did a full-on White Lightning soak on both back feet and picked out his stall to the nines so he could go back to a clean dry place for the night. I then proceeded to drive to New Hampshire feeling about two inches tall and like the worst horse owner in the whole world. The next morning I texted both the farrier and the barn owner to let them know what was going on. As of today I still haven’t heard from the farrier. Sigh.

I returned from vacation on Tuesday night, pulled Tris out of his stall…to discover that his left front was hot and blown up to the knee. Let’s review: surgery  on the right front for a broken/infected coffin bone, white line disease in both hinds, and now his last remaining good leg was definitely not good.

I jogged him out and to my eye and to the trainer’s eye he looked only sliiiiightly off at the trot. I was pretty sure I could feel a knot of tougher tissue on the inside of the leg, just above the fetlock, so the working theory was he knocked it in turnout. I clipped around the knot area just to make sure it wasn’t a puncture wound, then cold hosed for 10 minutes, then rubbed in Sore No More, then walked him for 15 minutes under saddle, then cold hosed for another 10 minutes, then rubbed more Sore No More, and then the barn manager did standing wraps on his front legs because, shameful admission time, I have never learned how to do a standing wrap. Then I added a gram of bute to his evening grain and his morning grain for the next day.

The next morning his leg was, per BM, tight again, but when he came in after turnout and stood in his stall it went up again, though not nearly to the previous night. Repeat previous night’s routine save the wrapping – I hadn’t paid close enough attention the night before and was terrified of bowing a tendon. The next morning he was still up and it didn’t go down with turnout, so I worked on it Thursday night, same routine, and the barn manager taught me to do my own freaking wraps, so I wrapped him. Down again overnight, up again in the afternoon, just a touch better Friday night. Lather, rinse, repeat. I added just a touch of trotting in last night and he moved out well, felt sound to me and looked sound to the assistant trainer. Plus he has zero compunctions about pawing like an idiot on that LF constantly, so it can’t hurt that much.

I checked in with the vet on Thursday and if the leg was still up on Friday I said I’d have her out on Monday, so hip hooray for another vet bill! Hoping it goes down over the weekend and this is a formality, but at this point – I would’ve thought 48 hours and out for a good knock and I’m terrified that he may have strained or torn something.

vermont

HORSES

Amanda4 Comments

I could stomp and fuss and wail about the state of Tristan’s hind feet (definitely white line disease) or the fact that I got back from a few days away on Tuesday night to find his last remaining non-problematic leg swollen up to the knee, but I will save those stories in favor of some comforting pictures of my Wednesday morning work trip up over the mountains. I live in the very best state.

Oh, here, have a picture of the doofus pony wrapped up after two hours of cold hosing and walking and rubbing liniment:

chores · farrier

Working Hard / Hardly Working

AmandaLeave a comment

Things:

Yesterday, I left work two hours early to head to the barn to help out with a work day. I had intended to leave much earlier, but that didn’t work out. I still put in about four hours of work straightening fenceposts, tamping down new gravel around fenceposts, restringing fence line, and generally hauling heavy stuff where and when asked. We had dinner at the trainer’s house afterwards. It was good hard work and a nice way to meet more people at the barn. I am often the last person riding in the evening and have really only met a small fraction of the other boarders and riders.

Said work took us right up until dark, and then we went for dinner, so I did not ride. Ugh. Tonight I’m meant to go to New Hampshire after work but I am putting my foot down and riding first. (Words cannot express my deep desire to simply stay home and ride my horse and maybe possibly relax for a few minutes, but the boyfriend’s family expects me in New Hampshire, so off I go.)

Tristan’s back feet have been chewed up quite a bit more, and I can’t figure out what’s going on. I talked for a while with one of the barn workers who raised the specter of white line problems. Greeeeeat. He is not sore, off, tender, you name it, but his feet don’t look good. Talked to farrier last night, who was going to take a look today, and stocked up on vinegar with which to apply White Lightning regularly for a while – can’t hurt. (And here I’d been kicking myself for buying that bottle back when his front feet were recovering from being in the boots – seems I was just stocking up for the inevitable.)

massage

Spoiled Pony

AmandaLeave a comment

Tris gets monthly massages from a good friend who also happens to be a brilliant horsewoman and talented massage therapist. She’s known him since practically the day I brought him home, and we used to be Pony Club DCs together. 

She works on him for over an hour sometimes and leaves me with a sheet explaining where he was tight or sore, and often with homework to work on one muscle group or another.

It’s been a really great way to track his recovery. In early days, he was consistently sore and tight in his right shoulder in all the muscles he was using to protect his foot. More recently, he’s tight in muscles that are responding to his new levels of work. Overall, though, she’s been working on him for about nine months and has seen a steady improvement. It’s always good to have a corroborating opinion from someone who has known him so long.
stupid human tricks · supplements

Mixed Bag

AmandaLeave a comment

The good:

Very, very good ride last night. We were both tired at the end, in a good way, and Tris is getting more and more responsive to the aids, more willingly forward, and more engaged through his hind end inch by inch. I focused last night in particular on making sure that he himself reached out to the bridle, rather than me stuffing him into it. The trot was particularly good, and there was one glorious stride in the canter when I felt his inside hind reeeeeach, and then we lost it again. Good news also in the canter is that he is picking up his leads waaaaay more consistently than he did before his time off. Not sure if my riding has changed/improved or if his soreness was throwing him off. We had a terrible time picking up the correct lead, particularly left, last year.

I also seem to have unlocked a key, rather embarrassing, problem with my position that R. targeted right away in our last lesson. My hands were moving far too much when I posted, and it was annoying him. Since then, I’ve been concentrating very hard on getting movement in my elbows and keeping my hands steady and it has paid off with a horse that is dramatically steadier in the contact. Funny how that works!

Finally, so far the Tums regimen seems to be correlated with positive rides, and he is showing zero effect from being pulled off the Previcoxx. I’m cautiously pleased enough to have stepped down his joint supplements to a multivitamin for the fall and we’ll keep an eye.

The bad:

He’s chipped his hind foot much further and it looks godawful, though at least it’s not hurting him in any way. Oh, pony.

I struggled all day with whether I would go to the barn last night, even after three days away for work out of state, and I was just so tired and burned out I couldn’t face doing things any more. I got home, made bread, set it to rise, and during the machine kneading and first rising I had a cookie and glass of milk and read a few pages of my current book and by the end of it I was ready to head back out. I’m glad I did, but I hate not wanting to.

The ugly:

As I mentioned, massively stressed out, tired, burned out, you name it. I’ve had a headache for several days, I’m not sleeping terribly well, and even when I do get sleep it doesn’t put a dent in my overall sluggishness. My left eyelid is twitching almost constantly.

So last night I groomed, tacked up, got on, rode my warmup, and while cantering about thought, hmmmmm, why are my bangs flopping against my forehead like that? That’s really annoying.

Then realization dawned: oh, shit, I’m not wearing my helmet.

Literally the first time in who knows how many years of riding that I have not worn my helmet on a horse. The first time. EVER. I was not one of those daredevil kids who jumped on bareback and galloped away. I had one of the original ugly white bucket helmets with the snap on visors. (God, that thing was awful.)

Needless to say, I pulled him up immediately and marched us back to the barn aisle to get my helmet. Goooood grief.

nutrition · supplements

Tweaking

Amanda2 Comments

Okay: a few good rides in a row again, though I’m off for a work trip for the next few days out of state, alas.

Thought I’d record for posterity a few small changes to Tristan’s routine.

The first is that I’m feeding him 8 Tums (the generic Walmart version) about 15-20 minutes before every ride. I’m only three rides into this. It’s an experiment. He’s never struck me as an ulcery horse, really – he’s pretty chill – but he does get very head-flippy and resistant during warmup. Now, part of this is definitely my lack of riding ability – but part of it is unwillingness. I’m not ready to report back yet, but early indications are a slight positive. (If nothing else, he eats them like candy and that puts him in a good mood…)

I consulted with my vet and took him off Previcoxx. He’d been on it since shortly after his surgery (basically week 2 of rehab, when he stepped down off bute), more as a general anti-inflammatory than in response to anything specific. I was being extra-cautious in keeping him on it daily, and it was inexpensive and provided by the barn (~$20 a month). When I weighed the longterm liver problems of a daily NSAID (eek) with his age (not quite old enough to prioritize comfort over longevity) and the probable benefit he was getting (possibly nil), vet agreed that we should pull it.

He still gets a daily joint supplement – HorseTech’s ReitSport Senior – and the vet and I are going to revisit the general support question as he progresses in work off the Previcoxx. I may do a round or two of Adequan/Pentosan with him when they come back on the market. It’s not pressing right now, but it’s something I’d like to try. If it does make a big difference I’d ratchet back his oral supplement to just a mutlivitamin/probiotic and keep up the injectables regularly.

Finally, a few days ago I caught him eating his manure. Corprophagy, for him, is a very reliable indicator that he needs a salt block. Several months ago he had a biiiiig red one in his stall on the ground and he’d been using that, but it vanished when he shifted stalls and I have been too darn lazy to seek it out again. So I picked a little one up at Tractor Supply, dropped it in his feed bucket, and he has been licking away since, happy as a clam. (Alas, he destroys the wall-mounted holders with distressing regularity, leaving me to panic about screws falling into his bedding and/or projecting metal pieces jabbing his eye.)

So there’s that. His weight is inching up again as his grain has been upped – he’s getting a whole half quart in his AM and PM feed, the glutton. I toyed with the idea of switching him to a senior feed recently but after reading and comparing labels they didn’t address anything he particularly needed – he’s not a hard keeper and he’s in very good overall health and doesn’t need the kind of support they tend to provide. Someday, but not today.

can i go back to bed now?

Ugh

AmandaLeave a comment

Remember how I wrote that I was in a rhythm, that I was getting out regularly and working hard?

Ugh. Three days in a row of massive overtime, and as I write this I am parked at my kitchen table chipping away at a big project that’s due Friday. Haven’t set foot in the barn since Sunday. Only a few hundred pages to go…
not-so-quiet-freakout · stupid human tricks

When to push, and when to back off

Amanda4 Comments

I thrive on rhythms, and I always feel off-kilter until I’ve settled into a new one. I like the zen, repetitive tasks. Not all the time, but I’m often calmest and happiest when I’m carrying momentum through my day from a simple job well-done. Washing dishes. Kneading bread. Compiling budgets.

I feel like Tris and I have finally settled back into a working rhythm. We’re carrying through from a full warmup on to quality work, raising the bar each time. We work a little longer, a little harder, and there are small quality improvements even in our base work. He’s getting a titch more forward, I’m coordinating my half-halts slightly better. Even with my job expanding through all areas of my life (3 hours of work on a Sunday night, yay) I’m finally able to capitalize on the proximity of the barn and spend long chunks of time with him each day.
One problem I haven’t entirely solved yet, and it’s really been an ongoing problem with us from day 1. When do I push him through and when do I back off? I am always keenly aware that he is not a horse who thrives on work; he’s not a Thoroughbred who will pace the stalls unless he is ridden hard each day. Nor does he especially enjoy the challenge of dressage. I feel like I start with a shallower reserve of good will and cooperation than many other riders. And that’s okay! I adore him, we work together, and he is so many other wonderful things.
However. After I’ve strung together three, four, five intensive rides in a row I start to worry about diminishing returns. I skip a day, or I go out and just hack him for 20 minutes. Or in the middle of a ride I feel like he’s done well, and I don’t want to burn him out, so I cut it shorter than I’d planned. Then I spend the next day castigating myself – how can I expect to get anywhere if I slack off like that? Couldn’t I just plan better, or ride better so I don’t frustrate him so much, and how will I ever measure up to what I want and hope for if we keep crawling along at this snail’s pace?
I’m a high drive person, but I don’t have a high drive horse. Besides and beyond that, horses are not like video games, which you can play endlessly and repetitively until you’ve mastered a skill. They’re not books, which are happiest and best when you bury yourselves in them for unmoving hours. 
Somewhere in here there’s a balance. There’s a combination of intensive work, hacking for fitness and strength, and plain old recovery time, physical and mental, that will give us the gestalt we need. I just wish I could find it instead of feeling I’m constantly playing pinball with it.
abscess

12 Months

Amanda2 Comments

This is to say that 12 months ago yesterday, I pulled Tristan up in his lesson because he wasn’t feeling quite right. The next day, he was quite unsound on the RF. The day after that, he blew out his abscess, one year ago tomorrow.

Hell of a year.
Tonight we had what might be called our first really solid schooling session since that day. We warmed up, we worked on lesson homework, we worked through rough spots, we improved from start to finish, we took a break, and we picked the work back up and cemented it. He felt fit throughout and tired in a muscle building way at the end – it was the most time he had spent bending and forward and stepping under since last year. SO glad we are on the path forward!