Catch-Up Post: O!

We STILL have no internet – this has literally been nearly two months of trying to get ANYBODY to service us. We finally caved and had to get satellite internet, which is coming next Tuesday. Hopefully this gives me a little bit of time online...

There's been a ton to write about O, and no time to write about it! I'll give the cliff notes version of it, seeing as it can be condensed pretty well.

In May, it obviously rained A LOT. 35 trillion gallons of rainwater + moving house = no ability or time to work the mare. So, she hung out with Pax and P (and later, Darby), and ate food, and was merry. It was good times for all, except for me, who was wanting to get back in the box seat pretty badly.

The beginning of June saw the sun come back out, and when it was dry enough I decided it was high time to put the lady back to work. I long lined her down the road on her very first day back, and she was quite good, considering the fact that she hadn't been away from 'her' baby in a good solid month. However, once we got back home, she absolutely lost her marbles when she saw them again. I wasn't untacking her fast enough in her mind, and she set back twice, once breaking her lead rope and running off, and then once again, when she nearly pulled the metal tie rail clear out of the ground. (Still have to reinforce that with concrete... safe to say we won't be using that anytime soon.) She's not one to set back, so clearly she was REALLY upset about the other mares being 20 feet away from her on the other side of the fence. I got tired of her antics and decided to tie her to the trailer and let her stand there for a few minutes and calm down. She did not calm down, and continued to escalate her frantic behavior. The mares were literally on the other side of the fence, and she couldn't handle being *that* far away from them. It culminated with several very violent setting backs, ones that were so crazy that I couldn't get close enough to her to pull her lead rope free – on the final one, she pulled back so hard that she ricocheted herself forward like a slingshot, smashed herself face first into the trailer, and dented an incisor. She stopped dead when it happened, a little trickle of blood coming from the corner of her lip that she had also bitten in the process. She was quite fine - the tooth is fine, the lip is fine – and she was absolutely immobile. Well, there you go I guess...! I bathed her (she had significantly lathered), and put her back out, where she promptly went to the mares at the haybags and went to eating.

Two days later, I went to feed the mares breakfast, and noticed a very suspicious swelling on her right hind. It looked bang on for a classic tendon/tendon sheath injury, and I freaked out.

Whyyyyyyy

She was totally sound, thankfully, and she had a small scrape on the inside of the leg – she is the queen of paper skin, so I felt that it very well could be related to that. She was a bit tender to palpation though, which was concerning. Since I am Queen Tendon, I leapt into action, and started her up on a strict regiment of cold hosing, bute, poultice, and wrapping. There wasn't any way to contain or rest her – especially not if I wanted her to stay quiet with the other mares wandering around – so I just left her out with them. (Note to self: I am so super screwed if I ever need to stall rest this mare.)

The vet came out a few days later to look at P's eye, and I had them look at the leg too. Their US machine in the field isn't very good, so I had her palpate, flex, and jog, and asked her what she thought. O was sound, sound, sound, even with flexions. The swelling had reduced itself about 95% in those three days, and while I could see a tiny bit of filling still (just because I know the leg), the vet was impressed with the amount of swelling I had taken out of it. Well yeah, I'm Queen Tendon! I have a tragic amount of experience getting swelling out of limbs. 

Better but not normal yet

The vet and I agreed that since there was never any lameness, because the swelling was nearly gone, and there was a scrape right where the swelling was, it probably was not ever a tendon - but to just keep an eye on it and bring it in for imaging if I felt it was warrented. As per the vet, we decided to keep resting her for another two weeks, and I went off on vacation to California for one of those weeks. I weaned her off her wraps and she stayed naked the entire time I was gone, and when I returned the leg was still totally normal and cold. Nice!

Back to work she went at the end of June. She had been off for nearly two months at this point, which wasn't a bad thing really – but it meant she had lost some fitness and I had to start back a few steps. She's been lunging a couple times a week, and has been back for two drives, one down the road and one in my pasture. She was absolutely superb for both, managing to only partially act like a crazed idiot when we returned home. No signs of issues with that leg - it's been completely normal. 

It poured like crazy here yesterday, so everything is slop right now again (boooo). She lunged on Tuesday, had yesterday off, and may go for a drive this afternoon, depending on if things dry a bit. Our calendar is a bit sparce until September, so I plan on bringing her back to full work gradually and carefully this month, and then being back in full work next month in preparation for the fall show season. We missed several shows in May/June because of the weather and her leg problem!

Calendar:

August 15th: Horseman's Market Day – not a show day, but a human fun times day. They sell tons of carriages, harnesses, and other equipment and tack!

September 12th-13th: TCA Carriage Classic – this is the pleasure show that we were entered in this past May, but that got flooded out. They rescheduled it for September!

September 26th: NTW Playday

October 3rd: WHOA Drive – maybe! It sounds like a fun playday type drive but I'm not familiar with it.

October 10th-11th: Let's Have Fun in Texas! HDT – a brand new local HDT!

October 25th: NTW Playday

November 7-8th: Black Star Farm CDE – this is our big local one. It's an actual CDE, although they have an HDT that runs in conjunction with it.

November 21st: Crossroads Charity Open Horse Show – just another fun local show with carriage classes!

Keep your fingers crossed on the internet situation... it's driving me crazy!