Laminitis! Ouch!

[altivo]

Tess was still standing and walking funny this morning, and reluctant to move very far, so we called in the vet. She says it probably is founder, but I caught the symptoms early enough that it should be OK. The immediate prescription is no more grass at all for a few weeks, no sweet feed, and forced exercise (walking or lunging, not riding) every day. She will be on bute for a few days and isoxsuprene for two weeks.

Doc says there may be a metabolic disorder that makes her prone to the problem, and I thought I had seen very mild symptoms like this in the past but I can't pinpoint the dates. We will have some blood work done to see if this is the case. Hopefully the symptoms will clear up right away with this treatment.

I was frightened by her behavior this morning, and I'm glad we called for help. I'm puzzled as to the cause though. It has to be the grass. But we put her out very gradually, starting with a couple of hours a day the first week, only in the afternoon, then the full afternoons for another week, and last week I started leaving her out all day. She seemed fine for several days, and developed symptoms only when it rained all day Saturday and we kept her in the arena under a roof that day. Sunday morning the first symptoms appeared.

This makes me realize how attached I am to her. She's a very sweet and usually docile mare, and I've "become accustomed to her" as the song goes. She's only eleven years old, and by rights I should be able to keep her possibly even for as long as I live. (Haffies tend to be long lived, often reaching age 30 or more. When she's 30 years old, I'll be 75, assuming we both last that long.) My other horses I could let go to other good homes if people wanted them, but Tess is mine. I don't want to lose her.

Comments

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Thank you, Rider.

You just qualified and helped me to understand a lot more about you, something often wondered about but to shy to bring the subject up.

The inner/deep most feelings about what we love and have compassion for are always difficult to share since they are so personal.

Trust me, please, my great friend, I understand, even if it not exactly my own, very personal, understanding and feeling.

I am smiling at you so much, today, because, for the first time I have caught a glimpse into your heard in a way I have tried many times to see.

Yes, Tess is a treasure and you are building a relationship with her that should last quite a while. I have a similar thing with Thunder.

I cannot imagine feeling more toward him being "my son" in the human context. I have always given him everything I know and understand about horses, animal upbringing, imprinting and everything else.

Much thought today about how we humans raise our children.

We usually do it all wrong. It is aimed toward how we feel we can help our kids find a place in society or even animal society and yet I think we are all going in the wrong direction. Look back over our human history and think... is this the right or the wrong and it becomes very simple to me, oftentimes.

Love is not war. Not greed. Not power. Never politics nor religion. Yet those four things create our history and work up to where we are today.

Sure be nice if we ever got a brain.

Steed

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I knew you'd understand what I'm feeling.

I'm glad my Imperator isn't likely to founder. I couldn't handle that either, even though he has the advantage of being able to fly to keep the load off his feet. ;)

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

Dear Rider.

As feel all these thoughts today as I cry with real, actual tears running my horseyman cheeks to watch Bear's white truck, a gift from his dad, driving off down the road or up the hill off to work a twelve hour shift tonight and be alone here again... once again with all my various projects and un-fulfilled dreams yet again.

Bear was very concerned about my need for private time as he talked to me for hours this afternoon about his new shift he would really like to swap to.

I only know how much I love the guy. How much I miss him when he is gone at work or me at work and how much I need him and he, me. Life is so weird.

Missing you too, Rider, my great friend Tivo.

Often this forum makes me laugh so much and it exactly, in return, makes me cry. Love and compassion and caring friendship does that to us. I love this place. To offer and be an idiot and yet find out more about who and what we are is an amazing thing to discover about ourselves. Thank you, Rider.

Imp

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I know. I understand, at least mostly. We share these things.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

There's nothing more worrying than an ill animal friend who doesn't show a lot of symptoms or has an illness thats hard to pin down.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

You've got it. All my life I have wished I could just talk to them like Dr. Doolittle. Nice as that would be for everyday, it's times like this that you really could use the ability.

[kildoo-lonewolf.livejournal.com]

I won't lie to you, it is a serious condition. Laminitis is what usually cause founder to occur. And once the bone in the hoof has move, it never comes back to its original place. And another cause of worry is that once they have a crisis, they are more prone to do so in the future. On the bright side, if you are very careful about what she eats and not to put her to too much stress or big changes there are good hopes that she'll have a comfortable long life. Here are a couple of things you could do if the situation worsens in the future. You can put her in a box of sand. Sand box is the best for any limping horse (but you'll have to be in the watch to see if she is prone to sand colic). There are some corrective shoes that can help release the pressure on her sole. A good blacksmith can, with the help of X-rays, trim her feet to change her hoof angle to match it with her third Phalanx. And in the worse case, a veterinary can sever her nerves in the bottom part of her leg and she wouldn't feel the pain anymore (but you would have to watch that leg very carefully every day since she wouldn't feel any wounds there either). So you see there are many things that you can do if, god forbid, her situation worsens. I have seen horses doing jumping classes (without any pain killers) even after four founder crises. They have lived nearly 27 years old too. So take this situation as a good warning but don't dispair, I am sure that the future is reserving you both many happy summers to come.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Yes, I know it can be very serious indeed. This is really very mild so far and we don't expect it to get worse, but the next few days will tell.

[kildoo-lonewolf.livejournal.com]

In the meanwhile, hang in there. I know she'll improve greatly in the next few days with the good cares you're getting her. She is very lucky that you acted so promptly.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

You feel about Tess exactly as we feel about Selene, Tonka, Thunder and all our children.

I call them children because they are entirely dependent on US for everything that happens in their lives. That, and I love my 'quines every bit as much as anybody could love their kids.

We launch our compassion but often our aim is bad. That is an old, traditional aspect of veterinary doctoring. I think it was Mark Twain who first mentioned that a Vet, in the most critical way, has it harder and thus, is better, than a human doctor in that the animal cannot just talk to you (Dr. Doolittle comment noted) and tell you where it hurts and how it hurts, etc.

I did forget to mention that dogs, ie example my beloved Brilli-Peri and several others (Great Danes, German Shepherds) get bloat and it, in his case, did him in at age eight. Very expensive operation but too late. But in the dog's case, and occassionally in the case of horses, it is a twisted stomach or gut (intestines) that is like putting a tennis ball in a sock and holding it in both hands twisting it so that the ends on both sides of the tennis ball are twisted once around thus cutting off blood vessels and causing that part of the stomach or gut to basically die. It is the poisons from that that kills first by the way).

It is a hard and very painful way to go and, for some reason we do not fully understand, animals can turn it off in their brains and just lie there and die.

So when Selene had that life-threatening (heck, she was gonna die lying there giving up) I knew I had to do something drastic so I beat her and whipped her and kicked her until my foot hurt to get her up and led her into the garage, a place I knew would upset her so that she would get so upset it would make her take a dump. Which she had to do to live. Which tore my heart but my human brain kept saying DO THIS TO SAVE HER LIFE.

It worked and she is still here, as beautiful and sexy and alive as ever. She is such a doll. I am still her friend. Sometimes drastic measures are needed to save our loves.

[goldenstallion.livejournal.com]

It was Will Rodgers who said a vet is better than a human doctor.

Could not remember his name but good old Google, via Wiley Post, showed me. Yes, this great, American comedian and lecturer (He was very influenced by Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain, which was a nick he got from his steamboat days... marking twain was a depth measurement of the river bottom to find a safe channel for a steamboat which had a depth of only one... one yard (about a meter). Will Rodgers died along with Wiley Post, possibly the greatest aviatior who ever lived, in a airplane crash at Nome, Alaska.

What a loss. Now I am thinking of how many great men and women in art and music etc... died at their prime in airplane crashes. In fact it has influenced my attitude about being an airplane mechanic in a negative way.

Strange how our minds work, sometimes. Or, maybe, usually.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Yes, and I have thought several times in this about that buggy whip that lies in the back of our wrecked wagon, tarped up and parked behind the arena. If I must use it to make her move about, then I will retrieve it from there. Hopefully it won't be necessary. I've never lunged her on a line, but I have the line from working with the boys and I have Parelli's "carrot stick."