Back in the Saddle

I am FINALLY back in the saddle! Thank God! D, the farrier, arrived right on time and had Jack fixed up within half an hour.

First he fitted the shoe to the hoof. But that was a tad too big so he had to go a size smaller.


Contrary to what I said last week about Jack having 3 size 4 hooves and 1 size 3 hoof the farrier actually found that he has two size 4 hooves and 2 size 3. His right side is smaller then his left.

Then he cut the pad to the correct size.


He then pasted the underside of the hoof with a concoction of special things that help heal and harden the hoof and keep all the naughty little stones that like to get in there out. I can't remember the name of the stuff but it has eucalyptus and pine tar in it. It smells really, really good and is incredibly sticky.
He then positioned the pad and nailed the shoe over top.


D's dog Cruise "as in a Cruise Missile not Tom Cruise" hung out with me (between my legs) while I held Jack (dad took the photos).


Once D was finished I finally got on to ride. 30 mins of walking, walking and more walking. Actually Jack decided to have a bit of fun with a few rears but most of the time we walked.


You may notice that Jack is looking a bit on the heavy side of the scale at the moment. He's put on a whopping 30kgs in the last 2 months! I know! Until we weighed him, I didn't think he looked fat at all bit now when I look at him I can see the massive crest on his neck and his huge belly. And its not like any of the weight is muscle. He's been sitting in a paddock for the last month and a half. Its pure fat. What a chubster! Hopefully it will all tone up fast now that we can ride again.

Jack is also a master at ripping and demolishing his cover so he went for a week without a cover and he's faded a bit. I got him a new cover today and as soon as I put it on my friend's horse Rocky, started trying to pull it off. I shooed him away and then put Jack's fly mask on. I ended up tying it to his cover so I would be able to find it easier if he managed to get it off. He looks like a donkey cross mouse with this thing on. Thats Rocky at the side, waiting to pounce.


A couple of minutes later, as I was driving past the paddock on my way home, I saw this...



I had always wondered how Jack got his mask off so quickly and now I knew. It was Rocky. The little mongrel. I yelled at him from the edge of the paddock and he dropped it instantly, looking innocently over at me like he hadn't just been caught in the act. (You can see the peice of bailing twine trailing from Jacks cover to the mask on the ground. In hindsight it doesn't look very safe haha.)


Rocky then picked the mask up off the ground and ran off with it in his mouth. That rascal. The elastic snapped on Jack's mask so it was no longer attached to him. I didn't get any pictures of that as I was too busy laughing at him. I went and recovered the broken mask and then cut the bailing twine off Jack. I'm going to have to come up with a sure fire way to keep that mask on Jack. Any ideas?

So now we're starting from day one with the fitness regieme. For the next three weeks it will be mainly walking with a few trots thrown in the third week and gradually building up from there. I hoping to compete in a Show Jumping competition on the 4th of January but we'll see what happens.

I am FINALLY back in the saddle.

I can't believe it...

The farrier cannot come to until Wednesday next week.

I'm quite annoyed.

Please Wednesday... get your butt here fast.

And so it continues

'Sigh'

Well the abscess saga is still not over.

Nope.

It keeps going on and on.

D, the farrier, arrived nice and early to shoe my horse. I was hoping to get Jack' s hooves clean and dried before he arrived but when I got to pony club I discovered that my halter and leadrope had disapeard from my boot. I searched my whole car and then the pony club but I couldn't find them anywhere. I found someone elses halter and leadrope but the halter was far too small so I ended up catching Jack with just the leadrope. A friend who lives close by saved me by bringing me a halter. But unfortnately Jack's hooves were muddy and wet when D arrived.

I already had the two front shoes from Jack's previous owner so all he needed was two new back shoes. D did the first front hoof fine and then moved onto the back hoof which had been causing all the problems. He soon found that the abscess was not completely healed and had in fact spread towards Jack's toe. So he dug out the rest of the abscess.

This is a picture of Jack's hoof.

The white arrow indicates the hole that the vet dug out when she first discovered the abscess. The yellow arrow on his heel shows where the abscess popped out a few days after the vet made the first hole.
And the red arrow and outline show where the abscess travelled downward towards Jack's toe. This is also the part the farrier dug out.

When D pushed the sole down near the abscess little bubbles of pus seeped out from under the sole. D's opinion was that we should leave the abscess to 'dry' out over the next couple of days and then on Thursday if it looks to be dried out sufficently he will put a pad on his hoof and then shoe over that. Once the shoe is on he'll be fine to ride.

He then moved onto the other hooves. The other back hoof was fine but the front hoof was a shocker. One side was flared out and the other was chipped and broken. He filed it but when he went to fit the shoe on (the one I had been given) it was completely the wrong fit. He showed it to me and we both couldn't believe that who ever had shod him previously had forced that onto his hoof. It was far too small for him. He got a new shoe from his truck and fitted it correctly. It turns out that 3 of Jack's hooves are size 4 and the other one is a size 3 (the first front one).

So currently Jack has three shoes on and is barefoot with his bad hoof. Hopefully it will dry out by Thursday because I really, really want to start riding again.

The Abscess saga continues

It has been a hard week but we're finally on the road to complete recovery. This past week has seen me working in the city which meant I couldn't make it up to Jack until about 7.30pm. This in turn meant I wasn't home until 9.00ish and since I am unable to handle late nights I would collapse straight into bed. I would be up at 6.30am the next morning to start it all over again.

His right hoof is by far the worst of the two. On Monday and Tuesday he tolerated putting weight on it but on Wednesday he was obviously in a lot of pain and refused to let his right hoof touch the ground. This meant I couldn't treat the abscess in his left hoof and so I had to leave it alone for a few days. He was walking with a strange clicking motion in his ankle which seemed to be caused because he was trying desperatly to keep the weight off his heel (where the abscess was). I decided to pen Jack for the night and my friend Simone offered one of her horses as a room mate for him so he wouldn't have herd seperation issues. The next day he was much better on that leg.

I’ve been having problems with the bandage staying on his hoof. Since I’ve never done this before so it’s been a bit of a ‘practice makes perfect’ situation. First I used bandages by themselves and they came off very quickly since the sharp edges of his hoof cut through them. Next I tried using tape on top of his bandages, just around the edges of the hoof but since it was electrical tape it didn’t stick for long. My next plan of action was to get a boot to place over his bandage but the type of boot I wanted was unavailable in his size. So we used another type of boot but it was much too big and he hated it. That was a no-go. Next I used the classic fix-it-all commonly known as duct tape. Although his bandage still comes off, I’m pretty sure it lasts a lot longer then the bandage by itself.

Yesterday I noticed that a strange opening appeared on his heel, straight above where the abscess was positioned. I had a quick panic attack, thinking that something else was wrong with his leg. I then realized that the vet must have not dug the complete abscess out which would have caused his extreme lameness on the Wednesday night. So now that the abscess has burst we are almost in the clear. I just need to keep the holes clean and hopefully we’ll be ready to ride next week. I’ll get him shod next week and we’ll be ready to get fit and get started on our eventing career. Please God, let our teething problems be over.

Two's company

You can imagine my shock when I arrived to re-bandage Jack's hoof yesterday only to see that the vet had treated the opposite leg to the one that's been giving us the problems. I couldn't believe it. All this hassle with that dam leg and then the bandage is on the wrong hoof. I went to catch him and he decided to be a prick and try to get away. Unfortunately for him, but fortunately for me, he could only hobble away and I easily caught up to him. It was quite a sad sight to see him limping like that. He was defiantly favouring the hoof that I thought was the bad hoof. I rang my dad to get an explanation and he assured me that he had given the vet my note about what had happened to that leg. He had even trotted him out for her. Obviously she saw something wrong with his left leg and not his right. I called the Vet Clinic but she had already left for the day and they said she would give me a call today.

She rang me about 10.00am this morning and came down to check his right leg. Yep, there was an abscess there too. It was in the same place as the abscess on the other hoof but this one was a bit bigger. She also said that it was more than likely that the previous owners had left the shoes on longer then they should have been and as a result the shoes had pressed down into the corns and left a bruise which then developed into an abscess. I couldn't believe it. All this trouble because his previous owners couldn't be stuffed to get his shoes re-set or even just taken off.

Anyway, he now has two beautifully bandaged hooves wrapped in a very fashionable yellow vet wrap.

The pus should drain within the next few days and he should be alright to be shod next Friday. My bank account is looking very, very empty. The things we do for the animals we love huh?