A Bad Idea...

Pookey Bear is having a good day today.

Me, not so much.

It all started with a little filing on Rita's hooves, which we had noticed were chipping badly, and which Allen thought needed a tiny touch-up before her next scheduled farrier appointment.

So we dragged out the hoof stand, rasp, nippers and gloves, and went to work. Rita stood like a champ, and Allen was able to get her ship-shape in no time.

Then he went back to his office, leaving me in the shed with the hoof stand, the rasp, and Helen.

Helen had a little chipped place on her RF too, I noticed.

Helen has been a very good girl lately.

Helen has been standing quietly every single time I have picked out her feet, for going on six weeks.

Are you seeing the seeds for the bad idea that took shape in my mind?

Surely, I thought, I can handle this one tiny little chip all by myself.

Surely, I thought, despite Helen's checkered past, she will continue to stand there, dozing quietly, while I shape this foot up a bit?

Forgetting that discretion is the better part of valor, I forged ahead, and, grasping the rusty rasp firmly in my sweaty ungloved hands, I picked up her foot and began to file.

Initially, she stood very quietly. I was quite pleased with the way the process was going. In what for me was a very uncharacteristically bold move, I decided to go ahead and slip that hoof between my knees, just like the farriers do.

A short while later, I woke up. My return to consciousness was slow, with my vision gradually clearing until, through the haze of churning dust and sand, I could just make out the shape of the rafters on the ceiling of the shed. The sight of the rafters, combined with the smell of manure in my hair and the shooting pains in my back, told me that I must be lying on the ground. My eyes traveled slowly over my torso and legs, which were splayed into an unnatural position, one foot twisted sideways. My right hand seemed fine, but my bloodied left hand was still curled around the rusty rasp, unable to let go.

As the dust continued clearing, I noticed Helen, standing a few yards away and gazing at me sweetly, looking much like she does in the photo above, only without the safety of that Priefert panel between us. It was a miracle she didn't return to finish me off.

Next time, I am going to just pick up the phone and call the farrier.

Too soon old, too late smart.

GotMeANewMuzzle!

Here's Pookey Bear, showing off his fancy new grazing muzzle.

Not that he will be needing it anytime soon. He is still pretty much on stall rest, with very brief daily walks.

But in order to keep him optimistically looking toward the future, I picked up this nifty neoprene grazing muzzle, and turned him loose for a moment to see what he would do.

Amazingly, he began walking quietly around his little pasture, far more fluidly than he has been walking on the lead rope, with me.

It was good to see him moving around a bit!

Hangin' in there!

Considerable time has passed since we last reported on Pookey Bear's progress. The primary reason for that is my concern that we have made very little progress over the past month or so.

However, a recent visit to La Mesa Equine, Pookey's home away from home, has left me hopeful that we soon we be able to see a glimmer of the light at the end of the tunnel!

Pookey's most recent set of x-rays had shown that the sinking and rotation of P3 had apparently stopped, but that he had formed a serum pocket along the front of the hoof wall that was growing in size. This type of pocket often forms when the laminae lose their attachments to each other, and the tissue begins to devitalize, both from lack of circulation and from inflammation. Yesterday, a new set of x-rays showed that the devitalized area reached almost to the sole near the toe, so the team at La Mesa opted to remove a portion of the toe to allow for drainage and relief of pressure.

Amazingly, this was not a painful procedure --other than for Allen and I, who both got a little weak-kneed at the sight of Pookey Bear's bloodied hoof! But the procedure seemed to have an immediate effect, establishing drainage of the trapped serum and providing some immediate relief of pressure in that foot. Of course Pookey has to be a little complicated, and it looks like he might have an abscess as well, possibly attempting to blow out of the interior aspect of his coronary band. So his treatment plan is as follows: keeping the toe scrupulously clean and relatively dry, while keeping the coronary band soaked (with epsom salts or povidone iodine solution) to try to draw out the possible infection there.

As an adjunct therapy, he is once again on dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) IV. One of those underrated drugs that has been around for ages, DMSO is often used to fight inflammation of many different kinds, and is administered either IV or topically. As a topical agent, it carries whatever substances are on the surface of the skin down into the deeper tissues, which makes it helpful in treating various forms of arthritis and arthralgia. As an IV drug, it often works wonders in reducing inflammation (possibly by scavenging free radicals) but it does have a downside: almost immediately, it causes the patient to begin smelling very, very funny. In equine patients, because of their large surface area, it is not unusual for the entire stall to start smelling bad, or even, in some cases, the entire barn.

Our barn does not smell very good right now :-(

However, it is a SMALL price to pay for a little relief for our beloved 'Mr. Nickers.'

As we were able to run the DMSO at home this time, he was able to enjoy some quality time with his good friend, Dr. Meow, while he 'chilled out' on his IV drip.

Pookey also is enjoying his fancy new shoes. His friend Joe made them for him, cutting and hammering on an aluminum sheet until he got it just right, providing Pookey a bit of frog support while relieving direct pressure on his sensitive toe, just distal to the frog's apex.

We were also very cheered to see the smallest beginnings of new hoof growing in, hoof that hopefully will be aligned with his new coffin-bone angle.

It will take the better part of a year to before his new hoof will actually touch the ground.

When it does, you can bet we will have a party!

Today, Pookey lost one of his oldest and dearest friends.

His favorite mare, Snooty Tooty, crossed the Rainbow Bridge at the age of 30 years.

Born in 1980, during the Carter presidency, she was sired by Mr Denero APHA out of Lady Debra Sue, a QH granddaughter of The Ole Man. Snooty, a ringer for her great grandsire conformation-wise, wound up with a single plate-sized spot on her right side, which--aside from a pretty blaze--was her only white.

She enjoyed a brief but glorious show career before coming to live with our small family of Paint horses in the early eighties. I remember mucking out her stall when I was pregnant with both daughters. Both of them learned to ride on her chubby little bay back (after struggling with the pony!) Years later, she took eventual horse-trainer daughter to her first show.

She was always there for all of us: always patient, kind, gentle, and dependable, the ideal babysitter for both horse and human.

Never sick or lame a day in her life, she suffered a sudden-onset neurologic problem that made it clear it was time for us to put her down. Fortunately she was able to spend much of her last morning grazing and hanging out with Bunny in her favorite pasture. She also had a bit of alfalfa, her favorite treat, and then she gobbled up her entire breakfast of Equine Senior, not dropping a single morsel of grain (thanks to excellent dentition) and licking the platter clean!

Snooty, RIP--you will be missed by all of us!