Thursday, August 29, 2013

Vet visit.


As I mentioned before, George was super lame when I came home from work. So I made an appointment at the vet for 4:30 Wednesday afternoon. My ‘vet’ appointment was at 1:00 the same day and I am happy to announce that my head is fine! There is just a little bit of pinching going on by the base of my brain. I gotta say though looking at pictures of the inside of your head…so weird. Like really weird. But we didn’t see any white spots on my brain which was excellent news.
 
We did see this though. So weird.
 

 
Anyways when we got home it was flippin hot out. I was so excited to load George into the trailer in this heat. Trailering is my favorite thing ever! Yeah. Right.  We got everything else ready and then I went and grabbed gimpy George. Now keep in mind I had one job this summer. Get George to load in the trailer. Well apparently I forgot that I had a job and George never got his schooling on trailer loading etiquette. But we bribed him and he got into the trailer and we were off to the clinic.

When we got to the clinic we were only about 45 minutes early.  I checked us in and they said we could bring him into the examining room and cool him off. George wasn’t sure about going into the strange building. But then again George is very cautious about a lot of things. We got him in and he was a good boy. He did want to play with the fire extinguisher though…I put the kabosh on that little idea though.  He spent the rest of his time waiting calmly.
 
The vet we had an appointment with is one that we have used a few times for the horse beasts. He’s got a similar sense of humor as mine. When he came up I said “you know what I was thinking? I haven’t had a big vet bill in a long time, so we brought one in for you today”.  We laughed. Then it was down to work. He did his hoof testing and found that there were some hot spots by the toe. But he wanted to run a few x-rays just to be sure. He was a little concerned with George’s ankles too.


This is when George flipped his switch and became a jerk. “X-rays? Oh no. I don’t do x-rays! Radiation poisoning my friends is not my idea of a good time!” They would put his foot down on a block and then he would snatch it up and then prance around. So after a few tries they gave him some “Be good George” drugs and then he settled down and was fine for his x-rays. I think there were 6 images taken, all different angles of his foot.
 

Good news is. There were no fractures anywhere. His ankles did NOT have any arthritis anywhere and his joints were nice and clean. But the bad news is that George and I’s dream of competing at Rolex have been crushed. George and I’s dream of jumping was actually pretty much crushed. By the sounds of it we will be stuck on the ground. The x-rays showed that he had some considerable damage to his suspensory. The vet said for a 10 year old ex-racehorse, that raced until he was 9 that isn’t uncommon to see. George will never be a sport horse. He is going to be my trail buddy and even that might be limited to light trail riding.

Anyways the vet was able to find the abscess and then dig it out. Bright red blood came gushing out which means that it was fresh. George is a bit of a drama queen so from now on I’ll be able to tell when he’s got an abscess. They suggested soaking it a few times a day for 1-2 weeks.

Yeah that didn’t go as smoothly as I’d imagined in my head. I’ve watched horses have their feet soaked many times. The handler just lifts their foot and sets it in the shallow feed pan with water and then wait the appropriate amount of time and then lift the foot out and done. With Pistol’s abcess last year, same thing I would put his feed out and then soak his foot and he was great. (come to think of it, he was a saint for his xrays last year too!) George, well George is not like a regular horse and I am learning that. I got his foot bath ready last night and then mixed up his supper and lifted his foot up and placed it in the dish, and he panicked. He was quite certain that I was trying to drown him in the 3 inches of water. So we tried it again. And again. And again. He spilled it about 4 times. So I made a plea for help on Facebook and got some pretty great ideas to try!

This was about the 19th time I put his foot back into the water...
I have to say though; I did get upset with him. And I ended up taking out my frustration on the feed pan. I hurled it across the barn and almost took out a cat. George stood there looking at me like “U mad?” Obviously getting mad at a horse rarely does anything good. If you get upset with George he will have a meltdown.  It’s not fun when he gets upset. I was just frustrated and that poor feed pan took a beating.

I feel like such a terrible horse person when I can’t get a horse to do something. I feel that I am doing everything wrong and have no business with horses and some days I feel as if I need to just give up. But like the lyrics I posted yesterday “If it can’t make your cry, make you mad or get you high” Which is exactly what horses do. There isn’t one true horse person out there that hasn’t gotten mad, or cried over a horse. And that high that comes from horses is just the best. It can come from an amazing ride, or just that ‘a-ha!’ moment during a lesson. It’s there and I think we are always chasing after it. And horses have absolutely broken my heart. Many times, over and over again. I love those expensive, time consuming, monsters that live in my back yard. If I wasn’t a horse person my life would be so much easier! And I could have a really nice house in town, and I would have more free time. But I honestly feel bad for people that aren’t horse people. Their lives aren’t as complete.

And one more thing. Here is a picture of George yesterday. He looks about 10 times better than he did a week ago. It has been a constant struggle this summer trying to get him to put and keep weight on. We’ve been treating him for ulcers and I bumped up his feed rations. I’ve also started giving him Cool Calories 100 and I really think that was what was missing before. I know, I know he doesn’t look fantastic, but this is an improvement for him! The vet scored him as a 4 on the body scale with 5 being ideal. He is still thin, but hopefully he will continue to put weight on!
 

3 comments:

  1. Sounds like George is ready to enter the world of lower level dressage master!

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  2. Cool calories did wonderful things for Cuna.

    Bad news about the suspensory. :( I bet George likes being a trail horse though.

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  3. Sorry about the no jumping but George is lucky to have you as his mom!!

    I am sure that you will have him fattened up in no time!

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