Detective Work

Lily is officially back, but after freezing my butt off during a ride at a walk in sleet (my first experience with sleet!) on Wednesday, last Thursday I just didn't really feel like riding. So we went for a long walk in the woods to negotiate obstacles.  I took a bunch of crappy cell phone pics, but just so you guys can see what the latest trail we've been exploring looks like:

Practicing ditches again on the previous trail. You can kind of see how deep it's gotten after having water run through it with the recent rains and melted snow.

Jumping across the little ditch. Same ditch as above, but see how  marked  it is now-it used to just be a slope down and up. She refused to walk through it-check out that goofy face as she jumps across! *lol*

The Big Ditch, which still has a little stream running through it. There was a lot of hesitation here, but she eventually crossed and stopped caring about getting her feet wet. She is so silly about mud-she'd rather jump off a steep (and potentially slippery!) bank than walk through some squelching mud! We worked on that this day.

The new trail. This is the part where Lily was super-hesitant to go forward last time I rode her here by myself.  That little track straight ahead was even muddier this time!

Question mark ears. "But it's MUDDY!!!" 

More question mark ears. She was super-looky during this part. At least she wasn't slipping and sliding so much without my weight on her back.

MUD! It appeared nowhere near as squishy as it really was.

The once-crooked bridge. It has been fixed!

This was funny, actually: I stood on the far side of the bridge, messing with the phone to get these shots, and she  just kept crossing back and forth, back and forth, all by herself, without any cue from me. She just assumed that since we weren't continuing on our way, I must want her to practice a lot...*lol*

She tried to trot across this time, but one of her hooves slipped (she was fine), and she didn't try that  again.

"I'm getting bored with this, Mom..." Why yes, you are. Maybe I won't have to dismount next time we come through here?

The trail through the woods. We trotted through this part last time, and we jogged through it this time. The ground was dry and hard.

Rock Creek in the late afternoon light.

The very small creek crossing. She went in, and for the first time ever, stood in the water and checked it out.

She even drank from the creek!

Deer tracks in the mud on the way back.

We jogged up the road-I wanted to check her soundness on pavement, and she passed. She was staring longingly back at the trailhead (the part that leads back to the barn...) when we paused at the top to rest.

We walked and jogged. It was supposedly in the high 40's-low 50's, but I was sweating under my fleece shirt, which is unheard of for me at this temperature range. I think my body has re-set itself temperature-wise, which means that summer is sure to be hell...

It was, thankfully, a busy weekend at work. We had hit a dry spell in the ER, which causes all of us adrenaline junkies to tear our hair out trying to find ways to stay busy, and I personally was starting to worry, as in FL slow season = cut hours. Thankfully, it has been picking up the last 2 weekends.

We've been getting some rather weird and very interesting cases, including a dog that had somehow impaled himself with a stick during a romp in the woods, and a blue cat (his mucous membranes were navy blue). This cat was beyond cyanotic when he arrived, and yes, he was alive, but yes, he was in dire respiratory distress! I have never seen gums that color ever before on an animal, dead or alive. Yes, they turn a faint purple, sometimes even a gray color, when oxygen isn't getting to their tissues. But this was out of this world. And his blood was chocolate brown, an event that most commonly happens with Tylenol (acetaminophen) ingestion in cats. It's called methemoglobinemia (try saying that one out loud several times in a row...I sure can't!). I can give you the medical explanation, but basically what happens is that the blood loses its ability to transport oxygen, so basically, the cat dies from hypoxia (lack of oxygen). There was no Tylenol in this kitty's house, and he had not been exposed to any of the other toxins that can cause this, so with the cat more stable in an oxygen cage set at something insane, like 90% oxygen (any lower, and he would turn navy blue again and start panting and vocalizing), the doctors called Poison Control and explained the symptoms so they could find a cause. As it turns out, the cat had been exposed to benzocaine, which also causes methemoglobinemia. You can find benzocaine in some topical anesthetics and throat lozenges, like Cepacol. So people, keep these things away from your pets, especially your cats!

I'm happy to report that after 24 hours with supportive care, kitty was alive and doing fantastic-his blood was back to a bright red color, his gums and tongue were pink again, and he was tired of having all of us that had admitted him stopping by his cage to lift his lip to look at his now very normal mouth in fascination. His was probably one of the coolest cases I've seen so far in my 5 years of ER/critical care experience. The best part is that he lived!

If you work emergency and critical care, you will already know that emergencies come in sets. On some days, it seems we're running a special on broken toenails, vomiting and diarrhea. On others, we'll be having a run of hemoabdomens and bloats, and on still others, it seems like everything that comes in the door never gets to go back out-they either die, are euthanized because the pet is so sick, or are brought in to be euthanized to begin with. Those are the worst days-the days where everything dies.

Luckily, we had none of that this weekend. Our theme this time was CSI Vets: we got to do a lot detective work!

If you're squeamish or have a weak stomach, carry on and don't read the following caption.

And for those of you who are not so squeamish: we were playing jigsaw puzzle with a  rag.  That a dog had shredded and eaten part of. Which we proceeded to make her vomit back up (thanks to apomorphine the Wonder Vomit-Inducing Drug) and then had to attempt to piece together, to make sure we had all of the pieces. As it turns out, all of the pieces were there. Otherwise, this dog might have been whisked off to surgery-cloth is one of the 8 billion things that can cause a dangerous obstruction in your dog's digestive tract.

If your dog eats things that it shouldn't, please call the vet's office before attempting to induce vomiting at home. Some things are caustic or have sharp edges, and can burn or lacerate the esophagus on the way back up if vomiting is induced (esophagus with any kind of hole in it = death). Contrary to what many general practitioners say, peroxide is NOT safe to use! It can actually make your pet much sicker if he doesn't vomit, especially considering vomiting will happen less than 50% of the time when peroxide is used.  Call your local veterinary ER, and if your pet ate a toxic substance, call the ASPCA Poison Control helpline at (888) 426-4435 on your way to the hospital. What will they do at the ER? If your pet has ingested an object or substance where it is safe to induce vomiting, an injection of a drug called apomorphine will be given. It is a quick, painless shot (the dose is tiny!) that is given IV, and it works within less than a minute! Your dog will vomit 2 or 3 times in quick succession, and this is *usually* enough to empty their stomach. The effect of the drug passes quickly-within 15 minutes they are usually feeling fine. If any signs of nausea linger, some vets will follow up with a dose of another medication to settle their stomach, such as Cerenia or Anzemet. If your pet ate a very toxic substance and/or it happened several hours before you discovered it (ex: vomiting was induced, and the substance was already digested), hospitalization on IV fluids with oral doses of activated charcoal to neutralize the toxins will be recommended. If your pet ate a large or sharp object, your pet will have to go to surgery to remove the object. We actually had 2 different dogs from 2 different households that, on the same day, came in for having eaten tennis balls! Both had to go to surgery. See what I mean about themes?

No, we were not being lazy-we were doing research! A kitten was brought in because he had been vomiting occasionally  and his mom discovered that he'd gotten into the garbage and eaten part of a dried-up flower bouquet. She brought in a baggie with samples of the flower he had eaten. None of us were experts on plants, but we had an idea what this flower looked like when it was fresh-we just didn't know its name! So an intense internet search for photos of  "popular flower bouquet" ensued! Within 10 minutes, we had found photos of the flower we suspected (Yes, we're that good!), showed the client, the client confirmed the flower, and we were able to look up whether it is toxic in cats. As it turns out, it is not toxic-it just causes mild stomach upset. So kitty was sent home on meds to help settle his GI system.
Which flower was it? This one.

And this brings me to the text message I got while at work:

From Alex: "Did you change farriers?"

"No, I'm still using P."
Thinking that this was a particularly odd question for a Sunday morning, I asked, "Why?" as an afterthought.

As it turns out, another farrier had arrived at the barn yesterday morning, taken Lily out of her stall, and started working on her feet! He confused her with another horse! My knee-jerk reaction was, "Oh my God! Did he put SHOES on her??!!!"

Thankfully, Alex had caught all this at the moment it was happening, and when it took me awhile to answer back, he'd asked the farrier why was he working on Lily, and this is when it was discovered that he thought she was a different mare. Thankfully also, the guy only does barefoot trims, so no attempts at hoof nailing occurred. My concern, then, was, "What if this guy is trained in the Strasser method?!!" (I've heard of a lot more trimmers using this method incorrectly, than of those using it appropriately.) So of course, I had visions of a crippled mare haunting me for the rest of the day. I called BQ to ask if there was any way this could be avoided in the future. She was absolutely steaming over the situation, as she knows how hard and long I've worked to get Lily's feet up to par again, and she was dumbfounded over the fact that this farrier had confused Lily with the TWH pony that he normally trims! She had already sent the farrier an e-mail requesting that he describe exactly what he'd done with Lily's hooves and had CC'd me on it.

I got to the barn that evening after work, after picking up Charles at home, and did some more detective work, thoroughly checking Lily's hooves. I confirmed that all the farrier had done was round off her right front (which needed it, anyway). She was moving fine, and her soles were untouched (my other concern.) In checking her dry feet (last week was super muddy, and every day I went to check on her, I was fetching her from the field, so her hooves were wet and filthy), I discovered that she has actually developed a toe callus (See PG2 #4)!! This is a good thing! :D

I lunged her a bit in the indoor and then set her free and let her trot and canter around, and she seemed fine. The head bob is completely gone. I still think there is something not quite right that everyone has missed-she is alternately resting both hinds more frequently, her right hind more than the left, on some days more than others. I can't find anything wrong, however. I had Charles trot her in a straight line away from me so I could watch her hips going up and down, but I saw no abnormality, no hitch in her gait. My trimmer had hoof tested her hinds at my request the day we were waiting for the vet to confirm the abscess, and Lily was fine. Maybe I'm just being paranoid? I hope so. I've resorted to continue applying Durasole to her hinds, and packing her feet with Magic Cushion. I'm also a little worried that she seems to still be losing weight, despite the increased hay and increased hay stretcher. I'm about to start adding rice bran to her grain, which will up my grain bill and I was trying to avoid, but if her weight doesn't start to change by next week, I'm going to have to. I can bring her girth a full hole higher on each side, after a year and a half of always being on the same hole, and I can see a faint hint of her ribs when she is naked on the lunge.

Hopefully it's just some weight loss from the cold. We shall see.

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!

Feet

A week after her trim and shoes. I wish her toes were a tad shorter, especially on that right front. You can really see the rings halfway down her feet in this photo marking where I discontinued the California Trace. Note the more oblong right foot.



In this photo you can see how her right front appears flatter and kind of offset to the outside. This is definetely a horse that needs to be on a hoof supplement. :/

 It is interesting to note that for once we are NOT the hottest state in the country at the moment. It certainly feels like it with the humidity.

Our barn farrier, Edmundo Martinez (the same guy from the post "Paso Fino Adventure"), came out today to do Lily's and Rose's feet. He drives all the way up from the Kendall/Homestead area, and is an awesome farrier. He's the only one I've used so far whom I can talk to, ask questions to, and he really tries to educate you. Lily's right front is flaring out again, and is starting to look like when she was barefoot last year and was being trimmed by a different farrier. I addressed it with Edmundo, and he explained that she is slightly club-footed on that hoof. He had an entire magazine in his truck on managing club feet in horses, which he offered me to read. I sat down and read the magazine from front to back while he did both Lily and Rose. He was literally doing everything by the book, and he showed me which parts of Lily's hoof were more symmetrical than they had been previously. As it turns out, Lily has actually improved, with the angles on her front feet only having a 2 degree difference, whereas before when he started doing her feet, there was a 5 degree difference! It's interesting how appearances can be deceiving. The rings she had last year on all 4 feet are coming back, however, with the changes in humidity that are classical Florida summer. I had her on California Trace for 9 months successfully-this supplement had made a HUGE difference in the quality of her hoof horn, but they seem to have changed the supplement formula and all of a sudden, after all that time, she stopped eating it. She would pick at her grain around the supplement and leave all of the supplement behind. If I mixed it in her beet pulp, she wouldn't eat it at all. So I took her off of the supplement, and her feet have suffered for it. I have been searching extensively for a similar formula to California Trace, but anything with a similar mineral or vitamin content is missing biotin, and anything with enough biotin has the wrong mineral content. Either that, or the supplement has iron in it, a huge no-no especially when your horse is already drinking well water (well water tends to be high in iron as it is, and contrary to popular belief, horses do NOT need supplemental iron!) I want to try Equine Challenge Grass Supplement, but have not been able to afford it. Judy suggested Focus HF, but after some research online, I have gone with Kauffman's Integri-Hoof. It is affordable at $27 for a 30 day supply, and is The Horse Journal's #1 choice both as a general supplement and as a hoof supplement. I may have just found my California Trace substitute...we shall see how her feet look in 3 months from now-those rings on her feet should have grown out some by then.

 I'm still debating whether to keep this farrier or go back to the previous one, or just try her out barefoot again altogether...I thought her feet looked better with the previous farrier, but there are other factors at stake here too: the rainy season has started, and the change from wet to dry and back again will wreck havoc on a horse's feet; she's been off her hoof supplement for 3-4 months; and I've been working her more to the right in an effort to get her more supple in that direction. So all of these things could be contributing to the changes in her feet. Around this time last year I tried her out barefoot and that was when her right front became misshapen...I'm wondering if it's more of an environmental & dietary factor contributing to the foot, as last year I didn't have her on the California Trace yet, and rainy season was in full swing. I'm not sure yet what to do. I look at Bali's gorgeous bare feet and wish I could do the same with Lily. Diana's farrier does a nice job, even though I've never heard of him before. I do like Edmundo and the fact that I can talk to him and ask questions, and he is constantly educating himself.

Bali's pretty bare feet, 3 days after their trim

I have not written about Rose in a long time because I simply have not ridden her in a long time. Her issues continue. Her right hip had been bothering her and she had been slightly off in the back because of it. Judy was giving her glucosamine injections per the veterinarian, but this had not made a significant difference. Judy started her on Recovery EQ, and no difference there either. The one thing that made a difference was placing her on the liquid supplement whose name I can't for the life of me remember (I just know Smartpak doesn't sell it) and her hips don't click anymore when she is being ridden. She has been in heart bar shoes for the last 7 months per the vet as well, and on Sunday Edmundo recommended placing Rose in regular aluminum shoes, since her heels are high enough that she will have enough support for her suspensories. He also showed Judy where the heart bar shoes were digging into Rose's heels, which may have been causing some of her current hind end issues, as the sore heels would have caused her to rock her weight back 24/7, making her hips sore in turn. After the first heart bar came off and the first aluminum shoe went on, Rose immediately seemed relieved and was much more cooperative for her other 3 feet. Hopefully this resolves some of her issues. Fingers crossed!

I rode Lily Western on Saturday again and since it was too hot to ride in the arena, even at 6:00 pm, I took her out on the trails where there is shade. We had a great workout-we did a good 45 minutes of solid trot work on the trails, alternating between extended and collected trot. Mentally she was really good, too-she stopped or paused to look at things, and tried to turn around a couple of times, but I only had to circle her once each time and send her forward, and she complied. We power-walked home. I'm falling in love with riding her Western, to tell the truth-since I can't feel every little time she tenses up, I'm a lot more relaxed if and when she acts up, which in turn makes her a lot more relaxed overall. I've actually looked at Western saddles on eBay, but it is only a thought I'm entertaining while I wait for my saddle to arrive. Hopefully I feel as secure in the Alta Escuela as I do in Dianne's Western saddle, and hopefully it really does fit Lily that well.

Ines has officially started jumping Pink after a good 6 months of flatwork. Since we don't have jumps at our barn, she's been paying an arena fee at one of the barns across the street and riding Pink there. Pink did great last time, except for a couple of stops, but once they warmed up and got going, Pink was fantastic. On Sunday we all went over to the other barn to watch the ride, but it was already infernally hot at 8:00 am, and Pink fatigued rapidly. There was a small box jump that she refused to go over. It was not fear-she simply came to a stop and would not even walk over it, despite being only about 2' tall. Both Judy and I observed that her reaction seemed to be more pain-induced: Pink has arthritis in her rear fetlocks for sure, and probably in her hocks as well, and sometimes has problems lifting her hind legs over fences. I'm sure the high humidity wasn't helping Pink's joints. Ines finally got Pink to trot over the small jump and ended the session there.  No one knows Pink's background other than she used to race, but there were many years in between that we know nothing about-she was found by the SPCA abandoned in a field with another mare, and was at the SPCA for about 6 months before Dianne adopted her. I doubt her name was ever changed, as she has always responded to "Pink" and will come when called by her name. She does know how to jump, is relaxed about it to the point of distraction, and is unfazed by funny-looking jumps, so at some point she was trained over fences. She has a terrific jump when you can get her to pay attention!

That afternoon, Judy and I rode Rose and Lily out to the park for a 45 minute walk. It was too hot to do much else, and for some reason, both mares were particularly skittish. I'm not sure why because there was nothing going on in the park-all was quiet, but I was surprised, as Lily had been so good the day before.

That evening all of us went out to a local burger place for dinner. It had been MONTHS since the whole barn went out like this-we used to do it every weekend, and it used to be one of the big highlights of the week for all of us. Even Charles came along this time, and him and Mark did some catching up. We had a great time. It's nice to have things back to normal at the barn.

Dancing Shoes

I arrived at the barn early today to get a short ride on Lily before the farrier came. I didn't want her to get hot, as I wouldn't be able to hose her down well before the farrier-this would've made her feet soft and mushy.

On the way to the barn, I saw the 3 lady peacocks. These gals come all the way from the park, cross the street, and make their way through each of the barns, stopping at ours. It's pretty funny. We've found them hanging out on the feed room roof, in Lily's walkout, and checking out the view from the arena wall. I got a picture of them as I was driving past.

The 3 lady peacocks. Pardon the crappy picture-I took it with my phone; forgot the camera today.

She sometimes shakes her head when we ride in the park or the field-sometimes because of flies and sometimes because her forelock blowing back in the wind tickles her ears! The other day I was at our local tack shop with Judy, and they had just brought in the cutest ear bonnets, with the microfiber ears and double piping. Judy found a black one with gray and white piping that matched Lily's black saddle pad perfectly! I finally remembered to bring it to the barn today, and tried it on her. Despite being "full" size, it fit her as if it had been custom-made for her. Very cute. :)

Another crappy phone pic, but you can see how she looks like a jumper with her ear bonnet on!

Borrowing an idea from Stacy from when she was training Klein to jump and my copy of 101 Jumping Exercises, I set up this with the cavaletti:

The cavaletti are set in a star pattern for working on circles. I used a lunge line to measure the circle-each cavaletto's outer x was set to be even with the far end of the lunge line. This ended up being very, very useful today!

We warmed up as usual w/t/c, and she was as bendy and soft as she's been for the last 2 weeks going to the right. She's starting to carry herself more and more in a frame in this direction. We changed directions and went to the left. Again that stiffness. I decided that today we would work through it, we would figure it out. Shoulder-fore was met with resistance, so I pushed her into a canter. She was lovely at the canter, and we went a couple of times around the arena to get her to loosen up. Then back to the trot, and I brought out the bag of tricks to see what would help her get that bend. Shoulder-fore after canter? Nope. Counter-bend on a circle? Nope. Half-halts with the inside rein on a circle? This helped. We did large circles, and she started to drop her head and lift her back a couple of strides at a time. Judy always wants me to pat her with the inside hand but when I do this, she loses the bend. I do turn her body with a firm inside leg at the girth and pushing her body around my inside leg with the outside calf, but she is just learning and still needs that inside rein to maintain the circle. So I rewarded her the natural horsemanship way-I released the pressure on the inside rein each time she dropped her head. This worked really well!! We were circling around the cavaletti star at this point, so I asked her to spiral in to the cavaletti so we were going over the poles. She had to drop her head to look at them the first time around, and then she understood-it was a lot easier for her overall to engage her hind end and lift her back while going over the poles. We circled over them several times, then spiraled out to circle around them again. She maintained the bend, and continued to engage for several strides with half halts and release. We had been working for 25 minutes at this point, and we stopped. Lily had done an excellent job, and I wasn't going to drill her; we ended on a very good note! I sprayed down her shoulders and rump, and took her out for a walk in the field.

We looked at scary things in the field. This is one of the old cross country jumps someone had set up and never maintained. Note the deep hoof prints in the sand before and after this "jump"-they almost look like burrows, they are so deep! I, personally, wouldn't be jumping any horse over this with footing like that. Lily used to be terrified of this one (I guess it looked like a panther crouching in the grass) but today she didn't even look at it; you can tell by the angle of her neck in the photo.

Back at the barn, it was still about half an hour early for the farrier. I got to work on Lily's ears. She won't let me clip, trim or shave them, though she will let me touch them without a problem. So we worked on this, using one of those little mini horse shavers. At first, Lily was extremely reactive, and I couldn't figure out if it was towards the sound of the shaver as it took off her ear hair, the sensation, or both. I took out an old pair of horsey ear plugs I own, and inserted them in her ears (she was fine with me doing this). Back to shaving. Still reactive, but she settled down quickly, and ended up pressing her head to my chest while I finished shaving the inside of her left ear. :) The right ear was a little harder, but I persisted until she relaxed and let me finish. She received a lot of treats to help embed the idea that ear trimming is not a bad thing. Afterwards, I cleaned out her ears with baby wipes. They were very dirty, and it was evident without the hair. I don't think anyone had ever done this before. She was fine with this too. The ear plugs were removed after everything was done.

Around this time, the farrier arrived. After looking at her feet, he determined that the "little foot" is actually the correct foot, and the flared foot is the one that is cause for concern. (I had been concerned about that flare for awhile now, too). Shoes would be the best way to keep this from getting worse given the footing and weather of Florida-it is hard for them to have consistently solid feet when it rains buckets every day 7 months out of the year. She has been 3 months barefoot, and though she is not tender-footed anymore, she is still wearing her feet down to nubs despite daily applications of Venice turpentine to her soles. He evened out her feet considerably and placed front shoes only. Just walking Lily back to her stall I could already tell that she feels more comfortable.

Almost even! My farrier does a beautiful job. Dianne said Lily now has her dancing shoes on.

Afterwards, I locked her out in her walkout while I finished picking her stall. She has a nice big walkout but will still urinate inside the stall as soon as I put her back in. I have seen her go straight outside to the walkout, then turn around and come indoors to pee! (I guess this is better than urinating on the crossties...Christa loves to do that...) So I put her out and kept her out until she urinated outside. I let her in as soon as I saw the puddle behind her back feet. She was so cute, though-she stood at the stall chain, staring in, looking all confused.

"Can I come in already?"

I love her!