Also, she was VERY ouchy. Unfortunately her training will be coming to a screeching halt until I can get her in some shoes with pads or some boots. She was is no less lame than she was a year ago. I am torn between shoes, shoes with pads and boots. I am hesitant to leave boots on all the time. And so I would lean towards shoes...which just means I have got to get a farrier out there in the next week. When I had the vet out a while back, we did nerve blocks and it is definitely her feet. First nerve blocks solved the lameness issue, no need to move up her ankle or leg. So that is the first thing to do. In the meantime she will just continue to do nothing, sigh.
But at least the other day and today were a nice refresher as far as making her remember that she is a little saddle horse as well. So on to the rest of today...my mom is visiting from California and so was recruited to help me out.
So today I brought out the ol saddle and saddled her up. She was a little touchy with the saddling. I don't know if she was just irritated that I was taking SO LONG with every step. She did a few irritated backing up things, which is something she hasn't pulled in years. Nothing all that bad, as evidenced by the pics. I swear she was falling asleep while I was getting her ready. I probably took 30 minutes from start to finish just getting the saddle onto her and cinched. Lots of sacking out with the pads, letting her sniff (and bite!) the saddle, cinch, breastcollar, etc. Then I had her wear the pads. And then the pads with the saddle with no cinch/collar.
And then I hooked up the cinch and messed with that for a good 15 minutes before I ended up tightening it.
I was so nervous! Ridiculously nervous. I was picturing her exploding and the saddle slipping and her getting panicked and tangled and yeah. Paranoid much!? I didn't have anything to worry about as Foxy really could have cared less. It did not bother her at all.
Got her all saddled up and then had her walk and trot just a little since she was ouchy. She was a little pissy about working today, but for good reason as her feet were hurting. So I made her just work enough that I could tell she was fine with the saddle and then called it a day.
Man, I am totally bummed that she is still so lame! She is fine just tooling around in the nice soft pasture on her own but that is about it. I will have to make some phone calls tomorrow....
She is the most good natured horse on the plant. She attacked me for apples at the end of the session and I left her with some carrots in her toy. She is such a goober. She looks so sad and sickly in the pics but it is just her eyes being goopy and gross. She should be much better after sleeping tonight in her stall but I will go recheck tomorrow anyways and brings some meds just in case. May also give her some aspirin (or bute if I cannot find it) for the ouchiness for a few days. She is definitely not ready for any hard work. Or any work really, until she is comfy.
Bummer! But at least knowing that she is still saddle friendly, I have incentive to get her more than pasture sound. The current farrier is not working out...but I want to work with her and ride her again! If I cannot track down a new farrier in the next day or so, I will look into boots. At least temporarily....
2 comments:
Have you ever considered Insulin resistance as a cause for Foxys lameness issues? Low grade laminities is a symptom of IR and it sounds just like what you are describing. Our pony had the same symptoms forever and we finally figured it out to be insulin resistance which we controlled and cured her cronic lamness with a very tight low starch and low sugar diet. here is a link to a yahoo group that is owned by the leading authority on insulin resistance it is full of information on how to test and what to test for.our chronically lame pony has been sound for 4 years now and before she was just like your mare fine in pasture very ouchy on hard surfaces it was low grade cronic laminitis.
here is the link to the websight it is for cushings horses as well as Insulin resistance horses give it a look see it may be the thing the vets are missing at this point.
http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/EquineCushings/
her
When this lameness started, Foxy was on dry lot with no grain. 1 flake of alfalfa, 2 flakes of timothy a day pretty much. She does get grain now and I am considering switching her to a low starch version as the farrier mentioned something about sugar spikes and and lamina issues?
So who knows. She will be seriously out of luck because this is green grassy tennessee....there are no dry lots!
I will look into it as well...when I had x-rays done last year, there was no mention of anything related to laminitic changes though...altho I know nothing about it, so I really have no way to talk! I will research though....Foxy is ready for a diet change regardless so we will add that as well.
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