X-Rays

So it's been an interesting few days.

On Thursday I was in a rush at the barn, so I did not soak Lily's foot for the first time in I don't know how many weeks, thinking at this point she'd be fine.

On Friday I went to the barn to ride. While grooming and tacking up, I noticed Lily was resting her left hind ALL the time. This worried me. I got on, and she immediately popped her weight off that foot to rest it. Extremely unusual. I warmed her up as usual at a walk. She felt fine, but I noticed some resistance turning to the left. More concern. I asked her to trot, and she pinned her ears going into the transition but obliged. It felt like I was posting on the wrong diagonal. I looked down-I was on the correct diagonal. We changed directions, changed diagonals. That sensation of being off was still there. I immediately brought her to a halt and swung off, grabbed her rope halter and lunge line, slipped on the halter, and had her walk on the lunge. She seemed fine. I asked her to trot. She pinned her ears again when asked for the up transition, but she did it. She was head-bobbing lame at the trot, in both directions. It was the freaking foot acting up.

I was pretty upset. I left a message with my vet's office (since, of course, they were already closed for the weekend), brought her into the barn, untacked her, and soaked her foot. There were no changes in the frog, but she was a lot more sore than she had been previously, and she flinched every time I touched the skin above her heels. I wondered if she was getting ready to blow another abscess? I gave her bute, dried up the foot after her 30 minute soak, plastered her frog and heel with ichthammol, and bandaged her up with duct tape. It was dry outside, so she got turned out with little Willy for the night.

On Saturday, Marianne the trimmer came back to do Bali, and we asked if she could take a look at Lily's foot while she was there. She confirmed that it seemed like there was something inside the foot still, and she gently tried cutting off the part of the frog that's getting ready to slough off. Lily was fine with this, until Marianne put pressure over the original puncture wound. She gave a monumental flinch, which made Marianne jump. She picked up Lily's foot again, and you could see a small spot of yellow skin around the puncture wound. She said it definetely looked like there was something in there, and recommended I have the hoof radiographed, and the leg nerve-blocked so the vet could do some debriding of the wound to see what was going on in there.

I soaked the foot immediately after, and while getting ready to bandage it, I noticed something different about the puncture wound. I could see something in the hole, which Marianne had opened up. I inspected it, and it was a piece of wood! I gently pulled it out, and felt it come out in one piece. It fit in the hole perfectly, and was about 1/4" wide x 1/2" long. So this is what had been causing the problem all along. Of course, this could have been a piece of wood that wormed itself into a pre-existing hole, but I highly doubted it, as the skin fit perfectly around it-I really think she'd had a piece of wood stuck in her foot that had finally worked its way to the surface.

On Sunday, I repeated the soaks and the bandaging. I had her trot a bit on the lunge just to check her comfort level, and she seemed to be a lot less ouchy. Still a little sore, but not head bobbing anymore.

On Monday morning, I called my vet and made an appointment for x-rays for Tuesday at noon. It poured in the afternoon Monday, so I didn't even get to lunge Lily. I repeated the soaking and the bandaging.

Today, Tuesday, Dr. G came out. Marianne had wanted to be present for the appointment, and I encouraged it because I wanted the support. Dr. G can be conservative, which is what I like about him-some vets go balls-to-the-wall over little things and will charge an arm and a leg for something that didn't require such an aggressive treatment. Dr. G will protect your wallet, and he will explain why. He will spend your money only if he sees it absolutely necessary, but he usually has great success with more conservative approaches, as long as the horse's caregivers are compliant and follow his instructions to a T.

I was just frustrated because we have been treating this for over a month and it's not getting better, and I was concerned about her abscessing again, never mind the possibility of more wood being stuck inside her foot, since wood loves to splinter when it's inside living tissue... So yes, Dr. Gillard wanted to continue the current track of treatment, but I insisted on the radiographs. He said it is not a treatment, which of course I'm fully aware of. I told him I just want to see what's going on inside her foot. It's only guesswork until we really know. So he went ahead with my wishes.

It was very cool to watch because I've never seen radiographs taken on a horse in person. Dr. G has the digital radiography equipment from Sound Technologies, a company whose equipment I've used in small animal practice, and they produce lovely, detailed, high-quality images. Marianne arrived as we were setting up, introduced herself, and Dr. G went silent. Uh-oh. It didn't help when she started talking to him about hoof angles and Lily's heels being too low (which Dr. Gillard had also brought up before) and how barefoot trimming could help, which I agree with her on. While I love my vet, he is of the mind that hoof problems should be corrected with shoes, and he had already recommended bar shoes with pads. He recommended them again. I completely understand his point of view, and agree with him to a certain point. Sometimes you need shoes. But sometimes you can use boots. And there are a bazillion other options inbetween, such as casting the hoof. So my trimmer and my vet ended up getting into a small argument over bad farriers vs bad trimmers, and why shoes are good vs awful, and how we've bred the good hoof out of the modern horse vs most horses can go barefoot (but only if they are trimmed properly!). They both had very valid points, and to a certain degree, they were actually agreeing on many of their points. I could see it, but neither one of them was seeing it. They could have completely met in the middle, but they did not. Dr. G became very brusque and short, and at that point I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. I respect this man very much, have used him for 3 years on my horses, and have the whole barn using him now. He is one of the best vets in our area, and I value the fact that he respects me as a knowledgeable horse owner, but I was afraid I was about to lose all that now.

The radiographs were taken, 6 shots total. Lily was an angel, as usual, cooperating while we shifted her weight around, put her foot on the stand, and then lifted her right front so she wouldn't move.

What did we find? Regarding the puncture wound: nothing. Big relief! No foreign objects, no pockets of air nor pus, no signs of an abscess about to blow. You can see in the lateral view where, towards the back of her heel on the very bottom of the foot, there is a small pocket, which is the part of her frog that will be sloughing off at some point in the near future. But we found something else: her coffin bone has some degenerative vascular changes going on, probably from 6 years of being trimmed with heels too low and toes too long, causing that negative palmar angle of her coffin bone. There are also some changes in the wings of her coffin bone, which also confirms this. Her coffin bone is currently straight inside the hoof capsule, so I think Marianne has already corrected part of the problem. However, her sole is being worn very thin by the sand in our turnouts and arena. She will need protection to make that stop.

I want to post the radiographs, but I'm having a hard time getting the program that allows you to view them onto this computer. If I'm able to figure it out, I will update.
Marianne wanted Dr. G to do the local block and remove the affected part of Lily's foot. Dr. G, however, suggested we keep doing what we're doing for the next 2 weeks, as now we know that there is nothing else stuck in that hoof. IF the problems continue, he will do the block and go in surgically, but he prefers I continue exercising Lily, giving her turnout (weather permitting) and encouraging her hoof to grow. I liked this suggestion, and took it. He said I should repeat another round of antibiotics. I asked one more time if I should be concerned over Lily's one-day lameness on Friday. Dr. G insisted that no, I shouldn't worry. He did have me walk and trot Lily down the aisle of the barn again, just to watch her move, but she stepped out willingly and steadily. Sound. I asked about the softness in her frog, around the puncture wound site, and he said that the humidity and rain we've been having, even when she hasn't been outside walking in the wet, make it take a lot longer for a hoof to toughen up while healing. I can accept that.

Marianne suggested I try Cavallo Simple boots with pads for Lily's hind feet. I'm not too thrilled about boots, but at this point, she is going to need something else on her back feet while she grows more heel. Plus, with the Cavallo boots, I can turn her out even when it's not perfectly dry. I like this idea-she can go out, her bandage stays dry, and it helps keep her feet from wearing down faster than they can grow. The Cavallos are easy to take on & off, which makes them the most convenient right now. I love Renegades, though. If I need boots for her long-term, I'm definetely getting a pair of those babies. The one thing I'm worried about with the Cavallos is the possibility of them chafing her pasterns. We'll see.

Marianne had brought along a couple of pairs of Cavallo boots in case Lily needed them, and got to work getting her fitted while I walked with Dr. Gillard outside so I could pay my bill. Dr. Gillard did tell me exactly what he thought of my trimmer (I think he's had problems with her at other barns due to their conflicting views on hoof care), but I quietly told him I wanted to try this-the previous farriers had messed Lily's feet up, and I was trying to get them fixed. He recommended a different farrier, Curtis Burns. He was the farrier of Cigar, the racehorse who retired as the greatest money earner in the US of all time. Cigar's record still stands, and this guy did his feet. He created the Burns Polyflex shoe, which is one option that Dr. G is recommending for Lily. The Polyflex shoe is actually a pretty cool concept that I will look more into, in case the Cavallo boots don't work. Dr. G is recommending them as a temporary aid, just while Lily grows more foot, and then she can go back to being barefoot. Mr. Burns is located right here in Royal Palm Beach, and is a friend of my vet's. The idea is pretty exciting. I'm sure it would be costly, probably way more than I can afford, but you can't deny that the idea of having someone of that caliber work on your horse is exciting.

So yes, I listened to everything Dr. Gillard had to say with open and willing ears, and I think I didn't completely lose his respect. Afterwards, I walked back into the barn to listen to Marianne's side.

Lily would need size 0 Cavallos for her back feet, and size 1 for her fronts. Marianne suggested I purchase the 1s, which is what she had at the moment, to use while I got the 0s for the back, and then I would have all 4 boots. I would have loved to go with this, but I had just paid a lot of money for my peace of mind regarding Lily's left hind, and told her that right now, I could only go for 1 pair, and it would have to be for the ones she needed most-the hinds, which was the size she didn't have. She was okay with this, though I felt bad-I wanted to be able to somehow pay her for her efforts. She then showed me how to trim Lily's feet once a week, just shaping her toes to keep any flares from forming, demonstrating the angle at which I should hold the rasp. This was really cool. Afterwards, I asked her how much I owed her-she had spent a good 2.5 hours with me at the barn during the whole x-ray procedure and then fitting Lily and teaching me. She wouldn't accept any money. I offered to pay for her gas at least, but she wouldn't take it. She said I could invite her out for lunch sometime. She said it with a smile.

I really like this woman. It's sad that my vet won't listen to her point of view, but I still like her. I love my vet, and I really like my trimmer-I will keep both. They have different opinions, but they have many things in common, the best one being that people like them, who really care and want to help out, are worth their weight in gold, and are few and far between, especially in the equestrian industry.

And speaking of the barefoot vs shoes debate, that reminds me of this:

A friend posted this on Facebook. I thought it was pretty awesome, so I'm sharing it with you guys. *lol* Like I've said before, I love holistic medicine, but it does have its dangers if used incorrectly. And the same can be said for traditional medicine. It would be nice if we could just integrate them instead of limiting ourselves to just one or the other.

In the afternoon, I took Lily out for a walk in the park. The arena was flooded, so that was a no-go. We walked on the pavement, which I knew would destroy Lily's duct tape bootie, and then made our way to the smaller hill in the middle of the park, where I lunged Lily for about 15 minutes at walk and trot, just to get her to work her muscles on an incline. She was spunky and a little wired, which made me extra-happy that I had chosen to just hand-walk her instead riding, as she had not been worked in 4 days. She was distracted by the horses in the pasture, and a couple of times she arched her neck, snorted and flagged her tail, but she was a good girl, never pulling on the line, never even bucking or kicking.

At the end of the 15 minutes, I brought her in to me, and noticed that her duct tape bootie was in shreds, all around her coronet band. And there was a lot of red on it. A lot of red. I had not used anything red on it-no iodine, no red Vetrap. The red was all over her pastern, too. Horrified, I picked up her leg and removed the remainders of the bootie. There were no cuts on her pastern, but when I looked under her foot, a trickle of blood was escaping through the puncture wound. The blood was all coming from the wound. However, she had not taken a single lame step-she had worked beautifully, actually.

So we cut across the field by the lake, over towards a gazebo I knew had restrooms and a water fountain-I wanted to clean up her leg and take a closer look. On the way there, I was freaking out, debating whether I should call Dr. G on his cell to ask what I should do.

Lily nibbled on grass while I wiped her pastern clean with water from the fountain. She definetely did not have any abrasions on her hair nor heels. I lifted the foot up and rinsed it too, but it had already stopped bleeding. Hmmm... I had her trot a small circle around me on the pavement towards the left just to watch her move. She trotted out fine. I then moved her to a flat patch of grass across the street, where I had her walk, trot and canter a single circle in each direction. She was fine. I decided to not call my vet, and reminded myself that it was just blood-just blood is good. She probably opened it up from the concussion of working faster than a walk in the grass on the hill. Also, any time a part of your body is trying to heal, there will be increased vasculature to that area in order to pump blood there to allow the white cells to clean up the damage. This will even happen in eyes with long-standing ulcers - capillaries will develop, crossing over the cornea in an attempt to heal the ulcer once and for all. So of course this would happen in Lily's frog, too. It happens with thrush as well. I breathed.

We continued with my original plan, which was to work an hour in the park. I was glad I had worn my sneakers, as I had been wanting to jog with Lily. And we did-I ran on the pavement, and had her trot next to me on the strip of grass next to the road. She arched her neck and picked up the trot the second I started to jog, and stayed right next to me, shoulder to shoulder, until I decided to break to a walk again. She instantly decelerated in unison. We repeated this several times, and I was happy my cardiac endurance seemed to be up to par, if not my legs.

We alternately jogged and walked all the way to the paddocks where the Scary Cows of Death are kept, and I let Lily stand for a minute and stare at them in horror.

Staring at the Horse-Eating Cows of Death with Zebra-Striped Fly Masks

But since I was next to her, her fear only lasted a second, and she immediately relaxed and followed me as we turned around and made our way back. I grinned like an idiot watching her trot happily next to me and laughed to myself at the realization: since moving to Florida, I had yearned for a large dog to go jogging with. Well, I can jog with my small horse instead...

We walked out of the park and onto the sidewalk by the white trail, which we followed up to one of the bigger barns by the main street before turning around to head home. Lily and I were both sweating and panting at this point-we had completed our hour and then some. Yay! I'm as fit as my mare! Or maybe she's as out of shape as I am?

We walked home. When we were almost at the barn, we saw Sarah riding up the street on Romeo, and we stopped to chat. Suddenly, the skies opened up and it poured buckets. Lily and I ran home-I was sprinting and she was doing her extended trot next to me. She is such a good girl-she never once tried to get ahead of me nor pull.

In the barn, I rinsed Lily's hoof on the wash rack, put her in her stall for a second (she had cooled off, thanks to the walk prior to the downpour, and from the downpour itself), and drove home to change my clothes (the apartment is only a mile away-less than 5 minutes. I was drenched! My hair was dripping!), and quickly rushed back to the barn to bathe Lily, and soak and bandage her foot.

Even after all the bleeding earlier, she was not resting the foot tonight. Good. I want her to just heal already!

Forward

We had another ride today, this time without lunging prior. Lily was moving fabulously, very forward. Even during our walk warmup she was forward-usually she'll suck back away from the contact when I initially pick up the reins to organize her, but today she just reached for the bit and moved on, back swinging. I had her do some weird crazy loops and circles around the arena, changing bend and from one direction to the other...it felt as smooth as ice skating. She even gave me a few steps of true walk half-pass! We've been playing around with this for awhile now, but the bend was never quite right before-her front end would be mostly straight, vs the leg yield where she is bent opposite the direction we are moving. Today we got it-she bent to face the direction we were going! We'd then finish each move with a real walk pirouette (BEAUTIFUL!) then flowed into a larger circle to change direction. Lily never paused, never complained, never hesitated-my cues were accurate, without the need to contort myself, and thus 100% clear. Since the powerlines incident I've been riding her in the pelham with double reins, but I've been very, very careful about using the "snaffle" reins for all of the cues, and just touching the shank reins if I want her to bring her nose down a bit. She has not tossed her head a single time with this method. I think it also helps that I'm not using the curb chain hook to attach the chain under her jaw-the chain that came with this bit was just long enough for Lily's jaw, but though I could get 2 fingers between her mandible and the chain, she would toss her head until the chain came off if she disagreed or my cues were too strong. Diana's kimberwicke came with one of these instead of curb chain hooks:

I can fix a lot of things and wield many power tools when I don't have a guy handy to do it for me (direct consequence of being a civil engineer's granddaughter!), but I have no idea what the names are for a lot of hardware, this thing included.

I found a giant one (about 2" long!) in Mark's tool and hardware collection, and I ghetto-rigged Lily's curb chain with it. Now it won't come off if she tosses her head, but it also gives her more room between her chin and the chain - a whole extra finger's worth of room. I think this has helped. *knock on wood!*

We did a few shoulder-ins at the trot, then straight lines with changes of direction across the diagonal and little 10 meter circles at C and A. I tried to repeat the haunches-in at the canter from yesterday, but even at the canter she was too forward to be able to organize her enough for this movement. She did give me canter shoulder-ins when asked, however, but then, on the right lead as we came around the corner of the arena by Bali's turnout, she hollowed her back, elevated her head, and I felt her back legs churn for a second-this is what she used to do when she was thinking about bolting. So I lowered my hands, she lowered her head, and I asked her to trot. We didn't canter again.

We zoomed around in her medium trot, and then I sat her trot to regroup for more lateral work. Her trot shoulder-ins were wonderful, as she wanted to GO, so even when crossing her legs she wasn't slowing down into a toe-dragging jog. I wish someone could've gotten video to see what it looked like! We also did some baby leg yields at the trot, which were a little wonky-she'd lead first with her front end, then over-correct when I tried to push her butt over, so she'd end up leading with her hind legs! One day we will get those trot leg yields...I'm still stunned by how much damage was done during those lessons where Judy insisted we do trot leg yields...without perfecting them at a walk first...and only in one direction. We did learn some cool exercises in those lessons, which I have posted about here extensively, but those leg yields almost ruined Lily for all lateral movements for awhile. I had to re-teach her.

After that, she wanted to extend, as she always does after collected/lateral work, so I let her. She gave me a ground-eating trot, with long snappy strides while staying light in the bridle. For awhile there she had been getting heavy on the bit when doing medium trot, but definetely not today-she arched her neck and powered forward, ears relaxed and happy. She never tried to get quick and choppy, she simply maintained, and I posted along to her beat, staying quiet so nothing in her carriage or rhythm would change. After that, we walked out on a loose rein-no more work; that was a grand finale for me. This was some of the best trot she's given me in a long time, if not ever.

She received a bath afterwards, and I pulled out the medicine boot. I had ordered one of these from Smartpak and it finally arrived. I dumped some epsom salts and warm water in the boot, and strapped it onto her foot. She was so confused by it, because she couldn't step out of it like she'd been doing with the rubber tub! I caught her looking back at her foot and the boot a couple of times. But it worked! I left her soaking for 30 minutes while Diana and I fed the horses and finished setting up our feed, and then applied the topical cream and cotton to the crevice in her frog and ichthammoled her abscess. She was completely and 100% tolerant of the whole procedure.

Can't wait to be able to turn her out and let her have access to her walkout and paddock as usual!

8 Seconds

Today was an interesting day...

I did my chores at the barn, then tacked up Lily to go for a ride on the trails. It had rained all night and most of the morning and the arena had turned to muck, so I applied Vetrap to her foot and covered it with duct tape to protect it from the water with the intention of just riding her around on the park road. I used the mullen mouth eggbutt again, since Lily had been so good the day before. My plan was to just go for a long WALK, just like the vet said we should do.

Left hind after a good scrubbing. The crevice appears wider due to keeping it open with the cotton, but it's not as deep, and it's definetely not as painful. She wiggles the leg when I'm messing with the foot anticipating it to hurt, but when I'm actually treating the crack, she doesn't even flinch anymore. You can see the abscess, all nice and clean, on the back of her upper heel in the photo. This is still sore when touched directly, but seems to be healing well, as you can see in the photo-no signs of swelling/redness/bruising.  

Duct tape & Vetrap bootie. And yes, she was stocked up after almost 24 hours cooped up in her stall.:(

Secured around the back of her heels to cover the abscess

 Well. I rode her to the park and she was looking around more than usual, but was calm otherwise. Going down the powerlines, there was a cluster of logs by the brush on the side of the trail that she had looked at the day before. I decided to have her take a closer look, but she was not having it. She avoided getting closer and actually started to get worked up about it, so I decided to let it go and ride on. She walked a couple of steps, then suddenly spun and tried to bolt. I have no idea what spooked her-if it was the logs or something else. I brought her to a halt, but she didn't like that and proceeded to buck. And buck and buck and buck. Remember from my Isaac post how much air she can get when she bucks? I lost a stirrup, and she continued to crowhop, all 4 feet leaving the ground at once, and I couldn't bring her head up with the stupid snaffle. I came off.

And slammed into the ground left side first, in the middle of the powerlines. My head bounced off the ground, and once again I thanked God for riding helmets. They have saved my life more than once. Lily galloped away; I leaped to my feet (thankful that I could still actually do it) and went after her. Instead of heading home, she had turned into the park, and veered off into the brush halfway down the powerlines.

I found her in a clearing in the bushes by the fence running down the perimeter of the powerlines. She considered trying to run away, but the reins were stuck on one of her front legs and the bushes were too overgrown to allow her to go through anyway.

I called to her and was able to catch her. I unsnapped one end of her reins to get them off from her leg, and she tried to take off again-she was terrified I was going to beath her: she was stuck in a flashback of the cowboy. I sighed and yanked on the rein to reel her in, but the buckle on the end of the rein slipped off her bit and set her free. (Go figure-I thought it had broken, but it was still in one piece!). She galloped away, this time heading home, and I saw her disappear by the entrance to the park. Great. Wonderful.

I alternately walked and jogged up the powerlines for what seemed like forever. My left hip (my already bad one, caused by a nasty fall from my jumper mare when I was 20, then compounded by a rearing horse falling ON me 5 years later) was definetely bruised and I was certain that it would be near impossible to walk by tomorrow, so might as well move as much as possible now. Even so, right now it felt like the head of my left femur was jabbing into the hip socket with every stride. I ignored it and moved on.

By the time I got to the gate Lily was nowhere to be seen, but her galloping tracks were fresh in the sand leading onto the asphalt. After that there was no clue as to what direction she had taken-logic said she would have headed back to the barn, but looking at her tracks, she might just have well headed straight into the bushes and tall grass that ran behind the barns on our street.

I made my way back to the barn on foot, reins still in my hand and helmet off. Turning onto our street there were still no signs of her. I tried calling Judy in the hopes that she might have her phone on her, wanting to find out if Lily was back at the barn, but there was no answer-Judy had been riding in the arena when I left. I hoped she had headed back. If not, it might be a small mission to find her. What if someone stole her? Or my saddle? I have a bridle tag on her with my name and phone number for precisely this reason, in case we ever got separated (I have one on every halter, even the rope one, and both bridles), but what if they decided not to call? I kept my phone in my hand as every possible dreadful scenario played through my head.

I plodded on, and halfway down the street, I found the duct tape bootie that I'd made for her left hind. I breathed a sigh of relief-she had definetely headed home. At that moment, a Gator pulled out of Saphire Stables, a nice hunter/jumper barn on our street, with a lady I didn't recognize driving, a groom that I did know riding in the back (he was the cousin of the stablehand from my previous barn-both really nice guys), and Jess, a girl that had boarded at our barn back when I had my neurological gelding, in the passenger seat. They stopped to ask if I was okay, and I said yes; I asked if they had seen my horse. They said she had galloped up the street and had disappeared into our driveway. They had seen her running by and had come to look for me. The lady was nice enough to offer to give me a ride back to my barn-this is one of the wonderful advantages of boarding on a street with only a handful of barns: everyone knows everyone, even if only by sight. I thanked the little trio profusely and hopped onto the bed of the gator as my phone rang-Judy. Lily had made it back to the barn okay.

As we pulled into the barn, Ines had just tried to hop on Lily to come look for me, but Lily had refused to leave the parking lot. Good for Ines, as she had not been wearing a helmet when she did so-Lily appears safe and calm to ride and is the sweetest horse on the ground, but she does NOT trust other people on her back other than me, and I was glad we had arrived at that point, or Ines might have gotten hurt if she had insisted.

I thanked everyone for their help, and then decided what to do about Lily. She had had her reward of getting away and coming home, so the damage was done. I had to get back on and do our walk workout, but I was terrified to get back on her. I put her rope halter on over the bridle, clipped the lunge line on, and led her, still fully tacked up, to the arena. Some of the water had drained out in the last hour (the barn really is high and dry for the most part) so I took Lily to the far corner where it was just damp sand and no puddles. I sent her out on the lunge, and Lily chose to gallop. And gallop and gallop. Change of direction. More galloping. I removed myself from my fear and anger, and just watched her. Her gallop was beautiful-very uphill again, like the day before-no soreness there. I gave her some line, and with the additional length she ended up lined up right in front of one of the water barrels. Normally she would have dodged the water barrel to the inside, which is what I expected, but instead she came to a complete stop, then jumped over it. An upright water barrel. That's at least 3 feet high. She leaped over it with a foot to spare. "Holy shit!" I exclaimed, but no one had been standing around to watch. Again my mare's talents go unwitnessed. I brought her to a stop, set 2 barrels down next to each other on the floor, and lunged her over them in both directions at canter and then trot, in the hopes that this would tire her out faster-up until now she had been going-going-going. When she had finally settled down to where she didn't want to gallop around like a madwoman anymore, I took her back into our corner and let her trot out in both directions in a beautiful lengthened trot. She was moving great today, I'll give her that.

Back in February, when I had decided to sell Lily, we had had an incident similar to this that had set everything in motion, but while still at home-we never got to leave the property before Lily had her little crow-hopping outburst. At that time, when I lunged her immediately after the incident, Lily was absolutely terrified of me and did everything in her power to try to get away from me, not listening, mentally stuck in a flashback. This time, while still wanting to run, she still listened to me when asking for changes of direction; I didn't even bother with requesting down transitions because I knew that despite everything, she was so worked up she wasn't going to obey. I really didn't want to argue with her, and risk losing all the ground we've gained this year. So I let her do what she chose, trusting that she would do what was best for herself.

She listened now when I asked her to walk, however, since she wasn't doing it of her own accord, then I led her to the arena fence, where I removed her bridle and tied her by the rope halter to the fence. I ran into the barn, quickly switched her bit back to the pelham (it is very likely I'll never use the mullen mouth again! Definetely not for trail riding!), with double reins this time, and in the process discovered I had a considerable scrape on my left elbow. All that adrenaline had kept me from feeling it all this time. I washed it quickly and almost yelped when it burned like crazy from the water, then ran back out to the arena. Lily was blowing hard and I didn't want her sitting around like that. I put the bridle back on, closed the arena gate that led to the outside, and hopped back on.

She was blowing HARD. So hard that I couldn't feel my own trembling; all I could feel was her breathing. I gave her a second, then gathered the reins and asked her to walk. She did.

We did some of the best lateral work Lily has ever given me, all at the walk, but we even half-passed at the walk in both directions, did perfect walk pirouttes (holy shit indeed!) and our renverses were gorgeous. She was cooperative and listening, immediately bending into the positions I asked her to and moving laterally with barely a weight shift. It was beautiful work. I asked her to trot a half circle, then canter a half circle, just to remind myself that I wasn't going to die on upward transitions, then brought her back to a walk. I was still really shaken up about this fall-it was always my worst nightmare to fall in the park and have my horse gallop back to the barn. What if she'd been hit by a car? What if we'd been on the trails, me knocked unconscious, and an ambulance couldn't find me? What if I'd bled out? What if Lily had been killed? What if, what if...? All of these played in my head as we worked across the arena. We did walk work for an entire hour, and she was still huffing and puffing by the end of it, despite the sun having already set and the temperature dropped. I had her do one more turn on the haunches in each direction before hopping off, and led her into the barn. My poor mare was exhausted-I don't think I've ever seen her this tired. :(

I untacked her quickly, hosed her off, scrubbed her foot thoroughly, put her ice boots on and prepared her epsom salt soak for her left hind.

She had almost completely dried off, but she was still panting somewhat, despite the ice boots. Normally, these drop her temperature within a few minutes.

I switched her to the wash rack by Rose's stall, hosed her off again and turned Rose's Farmtek fan directly on her. Within 5 minutes her breathing had finally slowed to a normal rate and effort, and she had perked up, all of her fears forgotten, ears pricked in my direction and watching my every move as I finished setting up her feed and picking her stall. My mare was back. Thankfully, her left hind was fine: she was putting weight on it and alternately resting left and right like a normal horse.

I applied Sore No More to all 4 legs, wrapped her with standing wraps, and treated her foot as usual post 2nd vet visit (only iodine spray and cotton w/topical antibiotic). Her paddock and walkout were both still very wet, so she'd have to stay in her stall tonight again, and I was afraid her legs would balloon standing still after all that activity and body heat. Dianne will be at the barn in the morning, and she said she'd take Lily's bandages off then and let her walk around her little grass paddock if it was dry. I definetely want to do some groundwork with her tomorrow, weather permitting, which will also allow her to walk around.

On the upside, I was joking with Diana that maybe I should take up professional bronc riding: I stayed on for 8 seconds!

My prize for my 8 second crow-hop ride: one lovely scraped elbow!

Rain!

Eating her beet pulp snack in her grassy paddock prior to our workout. She eventually decided the grass was tastier...But see the sun? This will come into play later.

"What are you DOING, Mom? I want to ride!"

I was FINALLY able to ride yesterday. It had stayed dry overnight, so I put Lily on the lunge to let her play before tacking up. Ummm...yeah. Good thing I did. I warmed her up at a walk, then let her choose what gaits she wanted to work at because of her foot-she would know best what hurt and what didn't.

She, of course, decided to gallop madly in a tight circle around me, performing acrobatics in the air-bicycles, bucks, kicks, a total display of her very own version of airs above ground. I swear she threw in a capriole or two... I asked her to change directions by doing a half-bow and changing hands on the lunge line, and she immediately obliged. This is the first time she's changed direction at a full gallop, and she did it by twirling on one foot, leaping into the air in a buck/kick combo to land facing the opposite direction and the correct lead. WOW! And took off running again.

She was so full of herself that I decided to just let her blow off steam at liberty. The Roundup is still in the ground of course, but I remembered that as long as we're both in a working frame of mind, she will not nibble grass while working without the lunge line. I had her whoa and calmly walked her over to close the arena gate, then set her free. She thoroughly enjoyed galloping around. She had the most uphill canter she has ever performed at liberty so far (not super-dressagey, but a tremendous improvement from her previous stilted canter), and she made me grin like an idiot by performing her wonderful floaty trot. Yup, this mare does not hurt anymore-she had been unable to do that when this whole issue started.

I let her decide when she wanted to stop. She cantered around in both directions for a few minutes, then trotted in both directions (I asked her for the changes from the center of the arena), and when she chose to walk again, I stopped moving and she came to me. Good girl! :)

We worked a little on turns on the forehand, shoulder-in, backing up, and that Parelli rollback thing with the lunge (I have no idea what that exercise is called) that used to frighten her so. I've said it before, but I'll say it again-this is the #1 gauge for finding out where Lily's head is at, and it works so well to calm her down!! She was a little hypersensitive initially, but after a couple of times in each direction, she stepped quietly away from me and turned to face me. It always feels like a dance when we do this right-when executed smoothly, it is very much like sending your partner into a twirl on the dance floor!

I then took her back into the barn to tack up. I used the new mullen mouth snaffle on her, because I was planning on just walking and doing more lateral work, since she had already gotten all her cardio in and then some. However, Judy had arrived and was riding, and seemed to be in a funky mood again, so I ended up ditching all my plans and just heading out to the park instead.

This is the first time I've ridden her out in the mullen mouth, and any other time after not riding for 4 consecutive days I probably would've switched it out for her pelham, but the decision to hit the trails had been spontaneous, and I chose to just go with my gut-my gut said Lily would be fine in the mullen mouth.

There were some clouds rolling in, but I didn't think it would affect us-I had been keeping an eye on the direction of the wind and a rain band had already swept by without touching us. We hit the skinny trails, which were damp but not muddy. We were probably 100 feet in, when we came face to face with 2 raccoons. Yes, raccoons are small. But they are also fearless, and they are the #1 rabies carriers in South FL. These two were headed in our direction on the path. Lily stopped to look at them, but remained calm. I quietly turned her around and we headed back out to the powerlines.

No sooner were we on the powerlines, than the wind picked up and the skies opened up-it poured!! Lily tossed her head, but I made her walk all the way up the powerlines and turned left at the end, facing the hills and the shelters. We stopped under a particularly densely leafed tree to wait out the worst of the rain, and of course it stopped as suddenly as it had started. I had Lily walk over to the shelter anyway-she used to go through these without a problem last summer. This shelter was crammed with picnic tables, and she took a good look at them, but I had her walk between the rows, ducking my head under the low ceiling as we went from one end of the shelter to the other, just to make sure she could still do this. We then walked onto the road, and at this point I could see the angry clouds in the sky-another rain band was coming. We turned around and trotted on the grass by the road, trying to make it to the powerlines before it started to rain again.

We didn't make it. It started raining again as we were coming even with the entrance to the main trails, so I had Lily go into the cover of the trees instead. These trails were quite wet-no puddles, but fairly muddy, which made me cringe-I had not duct-taped her foot because I had foreseen NONE of this! The rain started coming down really hard as we reached the opening in the trails that leads to the powerlines-the trees became useless as cover, and we were both drenched. I had Lily wait here regardless, which made her dance with impatience at seeing the path home but being forced to stand still. I had to turn her a couple of times, but she eventually gave up and stood, waiting. At this point I was actually glad I had ridden her in the mullen mouth snaffle-she would've been tossing her head like crazy with the pelham when asked to be still.

The rain eventually slowed to a drizzle and we left the cover of the trees to power walk back home. I wanted SOOOO bad to just send her into a gallop back to the barn, but this would've been a huge mistake for two reasons:
1. I had no interest in teaching her to gallop every time it rains-she had already tried to pick up a trot when it started to drizzle, as the rain annoyed her.
2. Galloping home is always a bad idea unless you're fleeing from danger-it would've been months before I could get her to just walk home again.

So we walked. I could see the rain moving away ahead of us against the light of the setting sun (pretty cool) but knew we had another band approaching fast behind us. We had to turn right at the end of the powerlines to take the white trail/asphalt bike path back to the main road, and here we were caught by the rain again. I let Lily trot here, as we have done it before without her trying to accelerate. For whatever reason she chose to trot on the asphalt instead-wet asphalt is cleaner than the white clay, for sure, and probably less slippery, now that I think about it, and it was a good exercise for strengthening tendons. We only did this for about 10 yards before we were on the street, and there we just slowed to a walk for the rest of the way home.

OF COURSE the minute we stepped onto the barn driveway, the rain stopped. I hopped off Lily and led her over to my truck, where I had a dry shirt (yesss!). I was soaked and cold and at this point didn't care-I sat in the truck with the door open and stripped to my sports bra and switched shirts, Lily's reins looped on my boot. She's such a good girl-she tried to sneak a bite of grass, but I gave her a firm "No!" and she immediately popped her head back up and waited.

She had been WONDERFUL on this ride, and she received Stud Muffins, had her foot disinfected with antimicrobial shampoo, had a long anti-fungal bath with a deep scrubbing (she stretched her neck out and made goofy faces while I scrubbed!) and then had her foot soaked for 30 minutes. She kept taking it out of the tub, but she was back to normal in terms of resting it-she was alternating feet or even standing square. *Relief!!* I dried it, sprayed her frog with iodine, stuffed the crack with cotton and antibiotic ointment, then applied ichthamol to her abscess (which is also healing fantastically-it has stopped draining), and put her away in a nice, clean fluffy stall for the night with her haynet. She was definetely a happy horse. :)

Not Thrush

The weather in South FL has sucked as of late. It hasn't been as hot, though this might also be because I'm just staying indoors during the hottest times of the day...but at night it's been sliding into the low 80's to mid 70's. Kind of unusual for September, to tell you the truth-last summer it was so hot even at night that a couple of times when I checked on Lily in the middle of the night (thanks to a wonky schedule then, too), I'd find her panting in her stall.

Remember how I thought her sweating was slowing down? Thanks to the cooler nights, her sweating is back to her "normal"-only on the front half of her body. Still better than nothing!

But it's been sucky in the sense that it has been raining A LOT!! And when you have a horse whose foot is supposed to stay dry, it makes riding nearly impossible! Last week we only put in 3 rides-for the last 2 I duct-taped her foot to keep it dry and managed to stay out of the puddles in the arena. The wet weather also calls for lots of arena riding, as the driveway has been flooding every time it rains for more than an hour-I don't want that nasty manure water seeping up into Lily's frog. There isn't enough duct tape in the world to keep her foot dry through the driveway when it floods-it doesn't take much rain to make the water ankle-deep! So when it's like this, we can't ride off of the property.

Lily finished her antibiotic, but by the end of last week, I hadn't seen a significant improvement in her comfort levels with her left hind foot. She wasn't lame by any stretch of the imagination, but was still resting it a lot, and on Friday I put her on the cross ties to do her stall and realized her right hind was puffy again, whereas her left hind was not-she had been resting the left leg that much again. Frustrated, I left a message with Dr. Gillard, knowing I probably wouldn't hear from him until Monday because the office was already closed for the weekend. My big question for him was weather I should do epsom salt soaks on her foot.

I struggled with what to do, and my instinct to soak her foot was so strong I just couldn't ignore it. Thrush be damned, I was going to get that infection out one way or another. So I soaked it, mixing the epsom salts with warm water (mixing hot water with enough cold water to make it comfortable for her), and halfway through the 20 minute soak, she started putting weight on her left hind and resting the right hind instead. I still put an ice boot on her right hind, then applied Sore No More gelotion to the right hind fetlock and tendons, and wrapped both legs for support overnight. I squirted some iodine into the crack in her left frog again, and again stuffed the cotton with antibiotic cream into the hole. However, while doing that I noticed that the back of her heel seemed very red and a little puffy, and was definetely ouchy to the touch. Hmmm...

Dr. Gillard called me the next day, Saturday, to my surprise. He gave the okay for the Epsom salt soaks, but only every other day. He did seem a little concerned about the lack of significant improvement, and wanted to know if the hole seemed shallower. I told him it was hard to say, as Lily tried to kick anytime you attempted to introduce anything in that hole, and I didn't want to accidentally jab her and make her bleed again. He said to stop all treatments for 4 days, as she might just be getting irritated by them, and if she wasn't better by then, he'd come out and x-ray the foot.

That evening she was back to normal-no swelling under her wraps. BUT...overnight she had blown out an abscess through her left hind heel! She was more comfortable on the foot, though. Contrary to what Dr. Gillard had instructed, I did do another soak that night to help drain out the abscess. I'm pretty sure the first soak helped draw out that abscess-it blew out through the same spot that had looked inflamed the night before post-soak. I skipped the iodine in the crack of her frog, but I did stuff it with cotton and antibiotic cream again. I just didn't feel comfortable leaving that open. I didn't want poop and shavings getting up in there. I also increased her bute dose to 1gram twice daily.

Over the weekend, I didn't get to ride because I was starting a 4-day stint of shifts at the hospital where I've been working relief, but luckily it stopped raining for 2 days in a row, which meant Lily's turnout paddock dried out enough for her to be able to go outside at night with Willy. The movement helped keep any fetlock swelling at bay, and Lily sane. Sunday night, I did a Lysol soak to disinfect the foot, adding 3 tbsp Lysol per gallon of warm water. (Lysol doesn't harm healthy tissue like bleach does.) That night I just started really worrying-I just didn't think this was thrush at all, and the abscess out the back of her foot indicated this was an infection that had popped out the only way it could.

On Monday morning, I put a call in to Dr. Gillard's office again, and they were actually able to squeeze me in that same day-Linda, his assistant, gave me a 1:30pm appointment, which worked perfectly-even if he was late, I still had enough time to do my chores and get home in time to change for work.

I showed him Lily's abscess and he said that was a good thing, as it meant the infection was coming out. I explained that I'd never heard of thrush causing a hoof to abscess. He said that it would be a separate issue altogether. He had me walk and trot Lily down the concrete barn aisle, and declared her to be stepping sound, even when I made her pivot on that foot to change direction. He did make a comment on her total lack of heels, and recommended 4 shoes to elevate her feet. I guess my horror showed on my face *lol* because he tried to soften the blow by saying that maybe I could get my farrier to trim her so that her heels will eventually be a little higher. (Between you and me, I think her heels are just fine! They are underrun, but so are most wild horses'!) We discussed hoof supplements. He had not heard about the supplement I have Lily on, Kauffman's Integri-Hoof. He poo-pooed it when he read the ingredients, and recommended instead Hoof Secret. I was bummed out because the whole reason I had chosen Integri-Hoof was because it had been the #1 hoof supplement per The Horse Journal (I'm a HUUUUGE fan of Dr. Elleanor Kellon! What she says, goes, when it comes to equine nutrition-she is one of the few equine vets in the world that has done extensive research on their nutrition and which supplements live up to their claims) not only for it's hoof-growth-oriented ingredients, but also because the minerals in it are balanced to one another and it doesn't contain iron. It's not just a hoof supplement, it's also a complete mineral supplement. However, after researching Hoof Secret, I discovered that it actually does NOT have more methionine and zinc than Integri-Hoof (it does have more biotin, but at 20mg for Integri-Hoof, that's still not bad at all)...Dr. Gillard misread Integri-Hoof's label. The ingredients are not in milligrams, they are in GRAMS. So Integri-Hoof has a WHOLE lot more of these 2 essential ingredients for hoof growth. So Lily stays on Integri-Hoof. Phew!

I had Dr. Gillard check Lily's frog crack, and I showed him where it was deepest (at the end of the crack proximal to her frog's apex). I insisted that this did not look like thrush to me at all.

Classic thrush presentation-note the flaky frog that appears to be falling apart, and the deep central sulcus that has turned into a crevice that runs all the way back between the heels of the foot. The frog will be sore, but the horse will allow you to stick the tip of a hoofpick between those heels. A hoof like this will also smell pretty bad. I got to know that smell really well-my previous gelding had one of the worst cases of thrush I've ever seen so far, on all 4 feet!

 



Lily's frog. The whole frog looks healthy and solid, except for that freaking crack that extends only along the underside of the frog. Plus, it doesn't stink. And yes, her white line is AWFUL. We're working on fixing that!

Looking closely at her foot, he had to agree with me. Dr. Gillard was able to gently introduce the rounded tip of a hemostat about half an inch in, and he exclaimed that it definetely looked like a puncture wound. I was instructed to continue the epsom salt soaks, as they obviously seem to be working, to keep the wound clean and dry, use yucky ichthamol on the abscess, and to ride, ride, ride. Mostly at the walk, but to do a 10 minute stint of lengthened trot at the end of the workout to really get her blood pumping, and ride as much as possible. Awesome! It sucks that our wonderful aerobic condition is going to be in shambles, but at least we're not just limited to walking exclusively. Our now boring arena rides have been all about the lateral work in an attempt to maintain her current muscle mass and flexibility. I still plan on lunging her at least once a week-she's going to have energy to burn!

There is a lesson here for everyone, though: ALWAYS trust your gut when it comes to your animals (and your own health, too!) This was one of those instances where my instinct proved to be 100% correct. Of course I have a veterinary education and certification to prove it, extensive training in one of the most demanding branches of veterinary medicine, and I'm constantly educating myself on horse care, so I know how to recognize and treat *some* things better than some vets. This doesn't mean that just because you googled some random condition you should go treat your pet on your own for something they may not have, or try out some holistic recommendation by so-and-so because it worked on their dog. Now mind you, I love holistic medicine, but there are some wackadoos out there, and not all holistic medicine is good, especially if you don't know how/when to use it, or if you are fanatical about it to the point of avoiding proven treatments. Traditional medicine by itself can and does fail, too. But I met a client that killed her dog with holistic medicine-the dog had a pretty serious degloving injury on a paw that the owner chose to treat with honey instead of giving the dog the antibiotic her vet prescribed & performing the required bandage changes. She had read that honey has wonderful antimicrobial properties. This is actually true, but it should only be used on small wounds or minor burns-not a huge area of exposed tendons and bones! This kind of injury is hard enough to heal with traditional advanced wound management! The dog developed a horrific infection that resulted in gangrene of the limb. The owner couldn't afford amputation, and instead ended up euthanising the dog. Improperly used holistic medicine cost this dog her life.

My point here is: if you think something is wrong, say it. A good vet will know a lot, and will think outside the box. But no vet is God-they are very much human, and they do make mistakes. If you're not satisfied, get the vet to take another look and reconsider, or get a second opinion. I can't tell you how often I see this at work, and why I always ask clients a bazillion questions about their pets when taking histories: the owner knows their pet best, and sometimes the animal will appear healthy on presentation, with vague symptoms that could be considered normal in another pet, but the owner insists something is wrong. You run bloodwork and voila: fubared, and the animal needs to be hospitalized or referred to an internist, for example.

Always trust your instincts.

Continuum

So life is supposed to go on, but it is difficult. The last 5 days have been like climbing a very steep emotional hill. Working over the holiday weekend did not help-we had a record amount of euthanasias, to the point where the freezer where we keep the bodies in the meantime before the crematorium can pick them up (in Florida it is illegal to bury pets in the ground because the water supply is so close to the surface-all dead animals must be cremated) overflowed. They had missed a pickup day because of the storm, and we had an unprecedented and unusual number of deaths on top of that. At one point I'm rearranging the bodies in the freezer, then trying to get it to close by sitting on the lid, and I just start laughing and sobbing at the same time hysterically. It was just cruel...the whole situation was just plain cruel to the point of being ridiculous.

On the upside, however, I got to work with good techs and a decent doctor, who, despite the hospital being insanely busy and us having to play Jenga with the dead bodies, managed to make us feel like we were worth a million bucks. It was a little ray of light in the middle of a whole lot of darkness.

And of course, Lily's treatments have continued. She rests the leg on and off, though I have seen her resting her other leg as well-a sign of improvement, I hope. I was unable to ride for 3 days in a row due to the crazy work schedule, but it was dry at night, so she got to go out with little Willy and move around on her own. She has 2 more days to go on her antibiotic, and I have continued to give her bute, though only once a day. Her reactions to the treatment vary-on some days she doesn't care, and just wiggles the leg, but day before yesterday, I actually got kicked in the ear! Both wash racks were wet, so I had cross-tied her in the middle of the aisle, however, so I don't know if maybe Pink tried nipping Lily while I was working with her.

I was just finishing up, stuffing the crack with a tiny piece of cotton covered in the doctor's medication, which usually ellicits no reaction at all from her, when suddenly she actually lifted her leg out of my hands, and kicked back. She has NEVER done this before! She missed hitting me square in the face by inches, and the side of her fetlock slammed against my ear. My jaw felt dislocated, and my ear was so hot it seemed impossible that it was not bleeding. I stumbled back, then stood still, furious, holding my ear while she danced forward on the crossties, trying to get away from me. Thankfully, the crossties did NOT give (it would've been a reward for the naughtiness) and at the same time, she didn't do anything where she could have hurt herself either-when the crossties didn't set her free, she piaffed in place, then settled to a trembling standstill when she realized I was not going to hit her.

After confirming that my ear was, indeed, not bleeding, and that my jaw was still in place, and after taking several deep breaths to let my temper simmer before approaching her, I picked up her foot again, and checked that the cotton was still in place. It was. She was wiggling the leg, so I simply held it up for a few minutes, not touching her foot, until she stopped. She did not get cookies that night, and I came thisclose to not buting her, simply because she likes the molasses I pour on it so much, but in the end I did give her her anti-inflammatory. I then turned her out with Willy for the night.

I have since started wearing my riding helmet when treating her frog.

Yesterday I was finally off, so I decided I'd lunge her in the arena to let her expel energy, since, it had been a week since starting her treatments. I'd had a particularly bad day on the Lucero front, and felt it wasn't a good idea to ride when I was angry at the world. I was still thinking about this when I went to put Lily's rope halter on. She felt my rage and immediately stiffened when I put the halter over her head. I saw her reaction, and I slowed my movements and let my breath out, clearing my head from everything except Lily. It's amazing how attuned she is to me-she immediately relaxed when she felt my own emotional release. I put my arms around her head and kissed her, "It's not you. I'm sorry." When I stepped back, her eyes and ears had softened, and she turned her head and nuzzled me. "It's okay." she seemed to say, as she blew softly on my cheek.

Judy had applied Roundup to some of the weeds in the arena, so I probably won't be working her at liberty out there in our remaining time at this barn. From what I understand, Roundup stays in the ground forever, and is extremely toxic to horses when ingested.

There was a storm brewing, and the wind had picked up just as I let Lily out onto the end of the lunge line. Of course it started whipping through the trees with tropical storm force, and Lily took off, bucking and doing bicycles in the air with her front feet, and almost ripping my arm out in the process. She showed absolutely no signs of lameness or soreness in that left hind. I reined her into a smaller circle and after she had settled into a steady canter, asked her to change directions. More bucking and bicycles, as we made our way from one end of the arena to the other. Lightning flashed horizontally across the sky, and a couple of potted palms next door fell over. She bolted, tail tucked in, then suddenly, as if a lightbulb had gone on in her head, she turned toward me unbidden and came trotting to me, coming to a stop right in front of me and giving a deep sigh.

It was the most moving thing that she has ever done for me so far. We stood in the middle of this raging windstorm, side by side, Lily's ears relaxed and eyes drooping simply because I was standing right there with her. My heart went all squishy inside.

We stood like that for what seemed like a long time. The wind calmed down a bit, and I sent her out onto the end of the lunge again. Judy had set up the arena as a sort of obstacle course, with the 3 water storage barrels in a small triangle in the middle, a small cross-rail by the arena exit gate, a pole "L" in the corner by Bali's turnout, and a fan of 4 trot poles at the opposite corner. I steered Lily towards the trot pole fan on the lunge. She did everything in her power to avoid them-veering towards the inside, or circling wide around them. I shortened the lunge and aimed her towards them, making their approach inevitable. She completely surprised me by leaping like a deer into the air and clearing all 4 trot poles in a single bound. All 4 poles. It was like a 10-foot wide jump, with a good 3 feet of air.

We tried again. And again. Each time, she jumped the first 2 or 3 poles, then tripped over the last 1 or 2 poles, even when giving the command to TROT...Goofy mare! I tried taking some photos of her incredible jumping skills, but the light was dim due to the storm clouds. This is the best I could get:

You can barely see her, but she's coming out of the right of this photo to leap over the first 3 poles...

Jumping over the first 2 poles. Note her position-it looks like she just cleared a 4' fence!

Finally she trotted once over them:

HIGH STEPS! *lol*

Then we switched directions. This time she continued trotting over the pole fan, but still with the same ridiculous high steps.

On a whim, I laid the water barrels down in a single line, and lunged her over them to see if she would jump. She refused 3 times, then on the 4th try, she did another deer jump, all 4 feet in the air, overjumping by a good extra 2 feet. It was a monumental jump that I wish I'd gotten photos of-I was looking UP at her as she cleared the barrels!

After that she realized she didn't need that much extra room to go over the barrels, and her jump was a lot more conservative. We did 4 jumps total in each direction, then called it a day. I let her walk herself out on the lunge for a long time before bringing her in.

Of course her foot was sore again after all that activity and I felt horrible. I gave her a double dose of bute, Stud Muffins, and I linimented and wrapped her legs for the night for extra support. It did start to rain while hosing her off, so I put up her stall chain and dumped extra shavings in her stall to make it extra cushy so she could lie down if she wanted to.

Today, she was feeling better again. It had rained in the afternoon and the arena footing was damp, so I wrapped her foot in Vetrap and Gorilla tape (there are 2 rolls of duct tape at the barn and for the life of me I couldn't find either one!) to keep it dry, and tacked up. We did a long walk warmup, first on a loose rein, then the usual lateral work we've been doing at a walk (shoulder-in, shoulder out, renvers, baby leg yields), then moved up to a trot. She did not feel sore at all-very even in both directions, and did not resist any of the lateral work. We did some more trot-halt-trot transitions, which she did fairly good on-she trotted off after each one, but not as snappy as she's supposed to. I did give her a break though, because of her foot. I made her wait extra long during one of the halts and she got soooo pissed because I was making her stand! She began tossing her head until she got her curb chain off, but stood still while I turned her head and reached forward to reattach it. I then let her trot off.

She was a really good girl. We did a canter half-circle in each direction because I just wanted to see how she felt. She was reluctant to pick up the left lead, so she is still sore on that foot for sure, but she is feeling better: she maintained the canter until I asked her to walk after the half circle.

Most of what we did was walk, however. We did tackle the trot pole fan again (at a walk), and she tried dodging it, even at a walk, "I really don't want to jump that today." she said. "But you're not supposed to jump it; I just want you to walk over it." I replied. After 2 more tries and much giggling from me at my mare's silliness, she finally grumbled "Alright!!" and stepped hesitantly over the poles as if they were going to jump up and bite her! I saw the lightbulb moment again, "OH! I get it!" and so we walked over the fan a few times in each direction, no more high steps, and no more hesitation. She's hysterical though-I've told you guys how my reward for her is to let her stretch down at the walk when she does a good job, and how she sometimes anticipates it. So right after going over the poles in both directions, she pulls her head down as if saying, "Ok Mom, that was hard and I did a good job. Give me my head please." I did.

Our achievements for the day: leg yielding around the barrel triangle, and then doing a shoulder-in/turn on the forehand combo around one barrel, in both directions (at a walk). She did a FANTASTIC job, and I was able to keep her going without getting her frustrated.

Diana arrived at the barn, and poked her head out the arena gate to say hi and ask how I was doing. The day before she had been asking me how do you get a horse to move laterally, and so now while we were talking, I shifted my weight first one way, then the other to make Lily sidepass to the left and then right. (Yes, we were showing off!) Diana completely lost track of the conversation, watching Lily move sideways so effortlessly.

My mare rocks! :)

On another note, I noticed today that her neck has started to smooth out. Back in May, it was lumpy, and it had me concerned-I knew I had to be doing something wrong somewhere. According to Hempfling and Equus Magazine's conformation series, this kind of neck lumpiness may be caused by use of side reins and draw reins:

May 18, 2012, back when we had our picadero work phase. Note the 3 giant knots in Lily's neck.

As you guys know, I only used draw reins on her very briefly back at the beginning of the year, and only very lightly-only as a suggestion. I really, really hate this, and would never do it to my horse:

But I had been using side reins about 50%-75% of the time when I lunged her. I figured it couldn't hurt to try, though at the back of my mind I was afraid she'd continue to overdevelop the underside of her neck.

I'm happy to report I was proven wrong-the experiment worked.
This is her today:

The knots are still somewhat visible when she turns her head (I did ask Dr. Gillard for a reference to a good equine massage therapist months ago, when I first noticed these knots, but apparently there are none in our area that are good enough for him to recommend!), but are so much less obvious-I haven't worked her in side reins in over 6 months

My trimming equipment arrived. I rasped her feet a bit, but you can barely tell the difference. I'm being timid-I want my farrier to check out my work before I do more. I do love my rasp and gloves, though! Along with the equipment, I also ordered the book Horse Owner's Guide to Natural Hoof Care by Jaime Jackson, and have started reading it. One fascinating thing I read on there (pg 266):

"The "double-back" is a physical characteristic wherein the longitudinal muscles that parallel the horse's spine rise up even with or above the interjacent spine. This muscular configuration occurs in sound, healthy horses that move naturally most of the time. [...] Xenophon noted that the double-back was a sign of correct training and that it was more comfortable to ride than horses with unnatural backs with protruding spines and withers."

Also (same page):

" Leslie Ann Taylor and Carol Brett of England [have written]: One common symptom of saddle damage is the horse that is described as having 'high narrow withers'. It has long been accepted by the equestrian world that certain horses have this as a natural conformation...[but] it is usualy a lack of natural, healthy muscle below and to the rear of the withers that makes them and the shoulder blades appear more prominent than they should be. This lack of muscle mass is often caused by the pressures of a saddle fitted or used in a way that does not allow normal movement and blood flow in this area. There are so many horses who have this 'compromised' shape to some degree or other, that it is considered normal."

Lily:

May 2011. Note the high withers and the discernible shoulder blades.

August 2012. BIG difference in her back, withers and shoulders! (And demeanor, too!)

Mr. Jackson also proposes that most healthy, balanced horses in their natural state, without riders or ill-fitting saddles, develop a "double back" of muscle, as clearly seen on the bay stallion below:

Lily's back, today:

A "double back" if I ever saw one!

I guess we're doing something right! Coooooool!

Thrush??

I went today and Lily's left hind leg looked fine, but her right hind was slightly puffy, and the tendons were sore when palpated. Not good-this meant she had been putting all of her weight on the right hind overnight. I took her out of the stall and placed her on the cross-ties, and she immediately cocked the left hind. Sigh. I looked at the foot again, and brushed the frog off with the hoofpick brush, and she flinched. I applied more Today into the crevice in her frog. I introduced the tip of the syringe (Today is primarily a mastitis medication, actually a topical cephalosporin antibiotic, but very effective for thrush, and is available in dosing syringes with a very thin, flexible plastic tip, easily inserted into cracks in the hooves) into the crevice about 1/2" and as I was applying it down the length of the crack, the syringe tip suddenly slipped all the way into the crack. Lily immediately jumped and kicked back in pain; the syringe tip came out bloody. Yup, no wonder she's holding that foot up-the infection is pretty deep.

I hosed off her right leg, placed her on the other wash rack so she'd be standing on dry mats, and put her ice boot on her right hind. I mixed some bute with a couple of crumbled Stud Muffins horse treats (she LOVES them), and let her scarf while the Today dried on her foot. I called my vet and left a message to schedule an appointment ASAP, and picked Lily's stall, at the same time debating whether I should wrap the foot or leave it exposed to air. Thrush is usually accompanied by anaerobic bacteria, which thrive in moist, dark spaces with no air. But the crack was so deep I didn't want more dirt and manure getting into it. In the end, I chose to treat it as an abscess and wrap it.

By then Dianne and Mark had arrived at the barn, and were concerned with me when I told them what was going on with Lily. I decided to use it as a teaching experience and showed Dianne how to wrap a hoof: I applied more Today inside the crevice (this time blood came to the surface and dribbled down her foot...this upset me, but I guess it's better than pus coming out of such a deep hole), poured iodine over the frog, then soaked a couple of gauze squares with iodine and placed them over the frog. I did a figure-8 bandage with Vetrap around the hoof, then reinforced it with plenty of duct tape. I then applied Sore No More gel to the tendons of her right hind leg, and proceeded to place standing wraps on both hind legs for extra support. I dumped extra shavings in her stall for additonal cushioning, and decided to keep her locked in until Wednesday. The poor thing is going to go stir-crazy cooped up, but her walkout and turnout were still damp from all the rain.

Hopefully the vet can come Thursday morning at the latest. I think it was too short notice for him to make it out Wednesday. I just need to know how to treat this infection-should I keep it covered or exposed to air? Should I soak it? Should I let her walk (for thrush and abscesses, you WANT the horse to continue to move to promote circulation, growth, and push the infection out), or confine her because she hurts? Is it ok to ride her at a walk, or should I hand-walk her? And I think she needs a tetanus booster and oral antibiotics. But then that's also the ER vet tech in me talking...hopefully this is easily resolved. And how did it get so bad? I'm guessing having a wet stall for 2 days in a row (despite stripping it and giving her fresh dry bedding each of those days) aggravated an already existent problem. I'm just upset that it got this bad...I'm really diligent about her feet, and had been applying Durasole (which has formalin in it, another thrush treatment/preventive) to all 4 feet almost every day for the last 6 weeks. I have to post pictures of her frog. I've battled some really nasty chronic thrush where the horses' frogs were flaking off. Lily's frog looks great other than the one fissure down its length.

 So for now it's watch and wait, keep the foot dry and clean, and try to keep my fatalist inner voice quiet!