The Hoof Saga Part 3

At some point the podiatrist was contacted.  He came out the day after the x-rays were taken, Easter Sunday.  I got the call he was coming and headed out to the barn immediately. By the time I got there, he had already tranqued the filly and blocked her foot.  For the first time in at least a week she was actually standing on all four feet.

The podiatrist had not yet seen the x-rays.  They weren't in the system at the vet clinic, but he had a theory.  His theory was, the apparently non-problematic toe abscess was the issue.  He explained to us that 99% of abscesses can be treated exactly as we had done and they are never a problem.  The remaining 1% blow up and cause problems.  He guessed that if he looked at the x-rays, he'd see a line directly up the hoof wall leading from the toe abscess.  The line was caused by a piece of sand getting between the laminae of the hoof and, long-story short, wreaking havoc and causing the infection. 

His plan was to dig out the abscess in the toe.  He felt that if he did that, he'd find a pocket of puss and at the very least relieve some pressure.  So, he trimmed the foot and then took his small loop knife to dig out the abscess, and sure enough as soon as he hit it, puss shot out of the toe.  Continuing to follow his gut, he laid out a treatment plan for the day and decided to see how well that worked.

The big concern on the day was to make flush the hoof out and inject it with an antibiotic directly to the area that was needed. The flush was wild.  Where she had the three abscesses initially, there was little more than her heels holding her entire hoof on.  The vet stuck his finger in the heel abscess and was able to confirm that the new frog was growing just fine, and predicted that once he started flushing the hoof, we'd see it come out the cornet band as well as the toe.  Boy was he right.  He tried flushing it through the toe and the heel.  From the toe, we saw it come through the cornet band.  Through the heel, it came out both the cornet band and the toe, it was wild.  It flushed so well, he decided to run an extra bottle of saline through the hoof to make sure it was clear. 

Happy the way everything went, he started CleanTraxing her, with directions to put a regular hoof pack on and that he'd look at the x-rays in the morning and check back on her on Tuesday.  With the nerve block still working, she walked soundly back to her stall, and even got a little frisky before we started messing with it again (read almost running circles in her stall).  I left that evening to go back to studying for my first in class final feeling slightly more relaxed with the podiatrist's confidence.

The Hoof Saga Part 2

The story I got when my friends returned to the barn the next day was that George was on three legs again.  Clearly something was wrong, so it was back to the barn for George.  The vet came yet again that day, by this point George had already been switched off of Gentacine and put on LA 200 and IV bute that week.  Apparently the vet showed up around hoof pack changing time on Friday.  So, she took a culture of the puss for the lab with hopes to hear something within a day or so.  In the meantime, instructions were to keep going as is and more x-rays in the morning if the filly still wasn't weight-bearing.



4/23/11 x-ray, dark spots near middle are infection.



Of course, in the morning, George was still on three legs.  So the doctor who took the first set of x-rays returned to take a new set of x-rays. I was there for this set.  Not good.  In 8 days, on antibiotics, George had developed a bone infection.  And a bad one.  The vet ran through a couple of scenarios, but his ultimate prognosis was not good.  In fact, he pretty much wrote her a death sentence. 



Not one to give up so easily, my friend called her husband and was already brainstorming.  Towards the end of the conversation, her eyes lit up and she turned to me and exclaimed: "Maggots!"  Had I not previously been exposed to horses being treated with maggots, I probably would have been highly confused.  She told me that her husband would talk to the podiatrist and see what he thought.  In the mean time, she would yet again consult with the primary vet. 

Later that afternoon, I got a call.  The primary vet didn't think there was anything the podiatrist could do at that point for George.  She called in a prescription for Baytril, about the strongest antibiotic possible.  There wasn't much optimism from anyone. 

The Early Days

Growing up, I always hated riding the mares.  They weren't always consistent and it all depended on whether or not they were in heat.  There was only one mare that I ever enjoyed riding, looking back it's not surprising that she too was a Thoroughbred.  After she left the farm to return to life as a broodmare, I went back to riding the boys.  I swore up and down I'd never own a mare, only geldings, unless I was breeding. 

Fast forward five years.  A little filly I've dubbed George quickly captured my heart.  The plain bay filly with the bright shock of white on the right side of her forehead had to make a liar out of me.  The stories are many, and many are forgotten, I won't share them all, but remembering them now is what's keeping me going through this fiasco.

Tapping me on the side was certainly the first step in this journey.  The doe like, inquisitive look from the other the side of the mare certainly didn't hurt.  I learned that this look of wonder in the gentle eye was not a temporary one, it was one that would stay with her.  What many foals would find frightening, she found intriguing.  She was, however, also quite lazy.

I've mentioned before how she wore booties to protect her heels when she was out in the field.  Well putting these booties on became quite the chore.  Not necessarily for the person putting the booties on (although she was a brat about that) but for the person holding her.  Not uncommonly this was me.  At this point, a lot of you who have dealt with foals, probably think you know where I'm going with this.  But, she was as quiet as could be.  Catching the inquisitive filly was never a problem.  And she didn't fight when you held her, in fact she would have been even easier to hold if she were just a hair bigger so I wouldn't have had to stoop so much. 

The thing is, she quickly learned that it wasn't to bad to have a human wrap their arms around you...it meant you didn't have to stand on your own feet.  Especially when her hind bootie was being put on, she'd slowly tip into me like she was laying down into a hammock.  No concern what so ever, and at less than 100 lbs, I could hold her.  The problem of course is that they never stay 100 lbs.  My supervisor recognized this, even without looking to see what the filly was actually doing.  So, we worked out the timing, she got out of the danger zone of thrashing hooves while still holding the filly's back hoof, and on the count of three I backed up quickly, dropping the filly to the floor.  The filly rolled backwards, looked momentarily confused in a "now how did that happen?" kind of way, and hopped back up.  Repeat for the other side.  Repeat for at least a week, eventually she'll learn!

The Hoof Saga Part 1

So much for waiting until finals were over.  This mornings final was so mind blowing, I had to take the rest of the day off to give my brain a hope of recovering for Thursday's test.  Therefore, I am going to delve into the beginning of George's hoof problem.  Not all of this is first-hand experience, some of what I tell is what I've discerned through text messages and conversations with the people George is boarded with. 

Up until the beginning of April, George was the perfect yearling.  She hung out in the field with her buckskin buddy Pip, ate her food, grew, and chased the dogs out of the field.  Around the 8th, I got a text message that George had an abscess, no big concern on my part.  Thoroughbreds get abscesses all the time, especially in the spring.  By Monday, she'd had the abscess for awhile and it still wasn't improving.  From my understanding, the farrier was on the farm for another horse, so they had him look at George.  The verdict came back that it was a deep abscess he couldn't dig out, it would just need time, but if it didn't clear up after a few more days he wanted a vet to x-ray it to make sure she hadn't fractured anything. 

Fast forward to the end of that week.  On the 14th the vet was scheduled to come out because she was not improving.  After a week of hoof packs, that afternoon I got a text message declaring that an abscess had popped out the cornet band.  I've never been so happy to see the words "yellow puss" in a text message!  The vet decided not to come to the farm after all, because with a normal abscess there would be nothing to be done.  Orders to soak the foot, keep her up for the night, put a hoof pack on and to give George some bute.



4/15/11 x-ray, black spot in heel is unpopped abscess.



The following morning, a Friday, my friend went to the barn expecting to find George climbing the walls because she's become a bit barn sour.  Instead, she found a filly still on three legs.  So the vet was called out for x-rays.  In the end, a different vet came out with a portable x-ray to look at the foot.  What he found surprised us all a bit, even the vet, but in the end I shouldn't have expected anything less from this goofy little filly.   She had 3 abscesses in one foot.  The one that had popped out the cornet band, one in the toe, and a very large one in the bulb of her heel.  No bone infection, no fractures.

As this was still an issue with abscesses, there was no change in treatment, there was no need for a change.  All that was unusual was the number of abscesses in the one foot.  The next day we were even happier when the heel abscess had popped.  George seemed to be on her way to recovery and was showing her attitude in the stall.  The twitch was very quickly becoming a requirement for each foot soaking and hoof packing.  By mid week, she'd be back outside after a report of her possibly acting colicky by another boarder.  The report I got is that she ran around like the crazy Thoroughbred she is, always a good sign.

The beginning...

The farm I worked for began purchasing mares in the fall of 2009 to expand their breeding program.  The mares were all carefully selected with the initial intention of breeding them to a particular stallion in 2011.  One of the mares purchased came from Florida and she was a maiden mare.  For those who may be reading this and don't know what a maiden is, it's a mare that has not previously had a foal.  These aren't unusual in the sales, they are typically 3 - 6 year old mares that have recently retired from the track.  However, this mare was 10 years old.  We made jokes about her not knowing how to handle the herd and stared at her in wonder for her lack of winter coat (felt bad for her too). 

George at a few days old.

A few months later, she finally had her first foal, a little bay filly with a triangular star on her forehead.  The foal was two or three weeks late and by far the smallest in the barn, less than 100 lbs. at birth.  I first met her when she was two days old.  The tendons in all four of her legs were lax, so much so that all four of her toes were up in the air and she was walking on her heels.   In order to protect her heels we used gauze pads and elastikon to make little "booties" for her.  My job that day was to hold her so that my supervisor could put these booties on her.   Before we started my supervisor realized she didn't have enough gauze, as I was already in the stall, I decided to just wait there.  The filly was on the other side of the mare, and I had no idea how skittish she would be, so rather than play ring-around-the-mama (especially dangerous with a maiden), I decided to peek under the mare to get a look at this filly.

Standing at the mares shoulder, facing her hind  end, I leaned down to look under her.  Looking under the mare, a little brown face with ears erect stared back at me, wondering exactly what I was.  Throwing caution to the wind, I decided to see if she'd sniff me and reached my hand under the mare's belly.  The filly sniffed and stared.  Because I have a weird compulsion to do so, I did what I do with many horses I meet, I lightly poked her between the nostrils.  A majority of foals would have freaked out and run backwards into the wall.  This little filly felt my finger on her nose, and pulled it back an inch or so, out of my reach.  I poked her three times, each time she pulled her nose out of my reach just a fraction for a fraction of a moment, slightly surprised, but not in fear.

This tickled me so that I stood up chuckling to relay the story to my supervisor before she returned from the lab.  As I laughed and started to try and get her attention, I suddenly felt something poke me three times in the hip.  The little filly had walked under her mare at the girth and done to me exactly what I'd done to her.  We got the booties on her, and as we turned the filly and her mother out into the paddock, I dubbed her Curious George.

Hello!

I'm told the world loves to blog.  I'm typically one late to the party when it comes to technology, for instance, I still don't have Internet on my phone.  I'd love to be able to use horses as my main mode of transportation.  And I could go on, but the thing is, I suddenly been hit with something I need to share somehow and spilling my guts here seems like the way to do it.  This way, I don't annoy my friends with the incessant stories (or tell them a million times), and those who could care less don't have to read it!

George around 2 months old.

Here's the deal, I'm a first year law student, actually in the middle of finals right now, so really almost a second year student, and I have this horse George.  George is actually short for Curious George, which is what I started to call her as a baby when she was born on the horse farm I worked at before law school.  And yes, I said her and she; George is a filly, which makes conversations highly entertaining at times.  People drop into conversations, think I'm talking about a potential boyfriend, and then suddenly a comment about a tail or she did XYZ this weekend gets priceless looks!  Well, George went and did it this time; George got an abscess, that went hay-wire and caused a bone infection, that resulted in having 1/3 of her coffin bone removed and did this all as I was starting exams. 

My goal is to share this interesting journey with you, of course, I need to get through finals first.  I'll also try and provide some of the back stories to this little filly and how she got the nickname George, her personality fits it perfectly, it also fits her registered name perfectly, but I won't share that right now it's part of the grander, larger story.  My guess is most of my readers will already know it, and those that don't, well, stick with George, that's all she really gets called anyways.  Hopefully you'll find some humor in the dumb things my horse has done, maybe you'll learn something.  My warning now is, if you don't like horses, or people talking about there horses, give up now.