Dare I say it?

Should I? Well, I guess it can't hurt: Jetta looked completely sound today. *Knock on wood and any other superstitious preventative against disaster tomorrow*

I'm being very (very) cautiously optimistic about the show this weekend, so we'll see how all of this goes.

I lunged Jetta on the lunge line today in the freshly dragged arena. I know I'm not alone when I say that I love it when I'm the first person to ride (or at least in my case, lunge) in the fresh and smooth dirt. Silly horse people :)

So nice.

 Jetta didn't seem too bothered by her big ol' boots, though to me it looked like she had to work a little harder in the canter not to trip, but then again she can be such a klutz. She looked good though. Yay for the Sugardine poultice!

After briefly lunging and then letting her sniff around, flirt with the gelding outside and then roll, I soaked her hoof again for 20 minutes and then cleaned out her boot and reapplied the poultice. She is such a good girl for getting her hoof soaked. Just plop down some hay in front of her and she won't budge!

I'm afraid that's it for news in my neck of the woods. Tomorrow I hope to do the same, maybe if I'm lucky I might do a short ride, then work on pulling Jetta's mane and clean some tack. Such is life with horses - they might drive us crazy and cause us endless worry, but I wouldn't trade them for anything :)

More of the Same

Well, AC came out and trimmed Jetta's hooves today. She's still a bit short at the trot on her right front, no improvement, so AC thinks that there might be another pocket of the abscess in there. Other than that she's got some fungus going on (I blame all the mud!) and her quarter cracks have not backed off yet, which again is the mud's fault despite my aggressive soaking in white lightning and spraying on hydrogen peroxide. But hopefully that will soon disappear.

Otherwise her feet are looking great. I put Jetta in her hoof boots with a poultice made of sugar and Betadine to hopefully draw out any lingering bacteria or pus in her hoof. AC said that there's no reason I can't ride if Jetta's feeling up to it in the hoof boots, so we may do that. I was still clinging to the hope that she might be sound by Saturday for the show I signed up for a while back, and AC thinks it's still possible we might make it so I'm holding out on scratching til the last possible second!

Jetta was such a pain for doing her hooves in the poultice. She's been very good about all this soaking and picking at her hooves the past week, she's learned that she really just needs to put up with it. But tonight I felt like I was dealing with a child the way my conversation was going:

"No, don't lick that" "Hey, don't you eat that stuff!" "Put those scissors down" "Quit touching me with your nose" "No, that is not edible" "Cut it out" "Stand still for just one more second!"

Geez, pony. She of course tried to sample the Betadine poultice (which I'm sure tasted just lovely) then she kept pushing my shirt up and nuzzling my back (that tickles!) or try eating my hair, then she'd stand there and bob her head which made her foot move too much. After being yelled at to knock it off, she'd go back to investigating my tools and at one point picked up the scissors in her mouth when I wasn't looking. Child, you are going to hurt yourself even more than you already are.

The hoof boots that I have are ones that my farrier gave me when I first got Jetta and they are giant, ugly things. They fit really well, they just look like boats on Jetta's hooves. Of course Jetta has quite large hooves, so though I looked into buying some Easyboot Gloves which I really like, they don't make them in size flippers-for-feet, so I've delayed purchasing anything else. But you can't beat free, even though they sure are ugly.

Betadine + sugar mixture

Looking oh-so-svelte with her boat hooves

Jetta trying to be helpful - "Can I eatz the camera?"

Still Out of it

Well, Jetta's still a little bit off at the trot, which my farrier says in normal, so we're still just hanging out. Add in the fact that I've gotten sick, so now at least Jetta can have some company in the sick ward ;)

AC comes out to trim Jetta's hooves tomorrow and we'll get her opinion on how the abscess hole looks, and whether or not she is in fact still sore. Since I'm awful at pinpointing slight lameness, it could just be my eyes playing tricks! Or I just need to hop on and see if she feels lame, since I'm way better at feeling it from a horse's back. I know it just needs time to heal, but I'm eager to be back in the saddle soon especially since the weather is feeling so warm and springy!

Sorry for the minimal post, but I really have nothing else, so fingers crossed that AC says her hooves look good tomorrow and that Jetta gets better as fast as possible!

Not a Fluke

I went to see Jetta today, half expecting her to be lame again. It was too good to be true that after two and a half days she was 100% sound again. But she still was great!

I brought her out of the stall and put her in the arena to lunge her just to make sure she wasn't still off a bit. She kept acting like she wanted to roll, walking along with her nose to the ground like some sort of hound dog, so I let her off the lunge line and after several circuits of sniffing the arena with no inclinations to roll, I went to reattach her and she took off. Guess she really is feeling better! Amazing how she can go from one day not wanting to walk to the next day rocketing around and bucking!

She calmed down and didn't take one misstep, though she did make me nervous when she took of galloping again when she heard the neighbors rolling in their garbage cans. She likes to wait until the last second to turn, silly pony.

Abscess hole

Exhibiting the toe-flicking portion of her pogo-trot.

I cleaned out her hoof really well and I think she did have an abscess exit through her toe, there's what appears to be a small hole so I scraped it out real good then applied a ton of betadine. I plan on keeping her inside for the next week with only turnout in the arena so it doesn't get infected from the mud outside. Just so relieved now!

Magic

Well Jetta is magically sound again! After yesterday when she was so lame she barely wanted to walk, I came out to the barn expecting more of the same. After a lengthy discussion on the phone with my amazing farrier (she wouldn't be able to make it out until next week) she too thought it was an abscess so I was all prepared to treat it as such armed with my new plethora of methods to treat it.

My roommates came with me, a mini-field trip for the city kids, lol. And when I went to walk Jetta to see if she was still as lame as she was - nothing! No limp, not even at the trot. Nada. Tomorrow I guess we'll try some lunging and see how that goes. If it was an abscess, I can't find where it comes out. There's no holes anywhere, even around her heel or coronary band. So I think Jetta might stay in a few days more just in case there's a hole I can't find so it doesn't get infected in the muddy pasture (because we're talking about Jetta here. If it can, it will get infected). I don't think Jetta will mind that much though with all of the pampering going on - extra hay, tons of treats and lots of grooming time with no riding time! The other option of course that it was just a bonk to her fetlock. Anyways, we're going to take it slow but I'm relieved! No vet visit necessary.

Depressing

So, so, so bummed. I cannot express how bummed I am right now.

Jetta is lame. Quite lame. Not just slightly off at the trot, but hobbling around at the walk lame. Doesn't even want to try and walk, lame.

I went out to the barn yesterday evening all happy and when I went to fetch my pony I thought I saw her limp. I rushed over to her, hoping my eyes were playing tricks on me, but nope. Definitely, absolutely lame.

I brought her in and called the BO to see if she had noticed anything but she said that Jetta was 100% this morning when she went outside. After hosing off all the mud on her legs I found some limited swelling on the right front leg around the fetlock on either side, meaning that she could have done something either to her suspensory or digital flexor tendon. Agh!

We went outside and hosed her leg with cold water for 20 minutes till it didn't feel so hot, then brought her back inside, gave her a huge armful of hay and gave her a good grooming. I was being quite optimistic that she just bonked it and that she'd be back to normal in a couple days. I think I've been kind of expecting something like this. Take one young, hyper, accident-prone thoroughbred, add in minimal work and a really muddy pasture and you have a recipe for an injury.


I talked to the BO later and she iced it for me. She walked Jetta around a bit and said that it seemed more like an abscess than a tendon injury because she didn't want to put pressure on her heel. The weird thing is that Jetta was indisputably lame when walking in mud or uneven ground, but much better when on flat solid ground when I went out to see her. But when the BO walked her a couple hours later, she was having a hard time walking on the gravel, which is not normal for her.

Sigh. Today was not an improvement, in fact she was much worse. I led her out of the stall and she struggled to walk down the aisle. Her tendon where it was swollen yesterday was still a tiny bit puffy today but not hot in the slightest. I ended up soaking her hoof in water with Epsom salt in case it is an abcess to see if we can draw it out. No one at the barn has hoof testers but I couldn't find any sensitivity with my hoof pick. I also put standing wraps on in case it is the tendon or just to support her legs if it's just an abscess. She also got some bute which will help with the pain and any inflammation.

Soaking her hoof while waiting to put her other wrap on.

Needless to say, I'm just depressed right now. I have a very limited experience with lamenesses, in fact I can count three times in the last 10 years of owning horses. 1) Grady and I went to a show and warmed up. The footing was really deep and he came up lame. He must have strained a muscle because 2 days later he was fine. 2) Grady over the summer had a slightly swollen knee and pronounced limp at the walk. After cold hosing it and applying liniment, the next day it was almost back to normal. And 3) When I first got Jetta with her awful feet she had quite a few abscesses going on, and once was hobbling lame. Next day, 100% sound. Her hooves were pretty much riddled with holes and cracks where abscesses came up. Four years later - hasn't been unsound once.

The vet and farrier are both scheduled to come out so we'll see what this is... Might sound a little weird but I'm crossing my fingers that it's "just" an abscess.

Round and Round

I finally (finally!) got the round pen all weeded and trimmed back the blackberries. It took me a whole week but it's done!

And that meant that Colton got to go for a spin in the newly cleaned up round pen. I've been meaning to teach him to lunge for a while now but it's difficult without either a second person to help or a round pen and since I have no helpers, round pen it was. He was pretty good.

Of course it takes a while to build up stamina and learn how to respond to cues but for the first time not bad. At least he didn't try to body slam the panels to get out (unlike Jetta did). I guess he reserves that for the gate when he decides he wants in Grady's stall, lol. No wonder the gates are all bent...

Anyways, he walked and trotted nicely and we got a few strides of canter in each direction. He's quite hard to get going at the moment, but it would help if I had a lunge whip and not just a dressage whip. I really like his movement. I think he moves nicer than Katy does - at the trot when he's going at a good rate, he really tracks up, lifts his back and arches his neck. He looks like a dressage pony!

I meant to lunge him with the saddle on but of course I can't find the girth extender and the girth is just a titch too small. Now I have to figure out where it is - I hate it when you are 99% sure you know where something is, then discover that it isn't there. So Colton spent a couple days just carrying the saddle around without a girth and he didn't pay it hardly any mind. Even when we were walking up the hill and I wasn't paying attention and it fell off. Oops. But that is why I use a cheapy old saddle :)

Here are some pictures:

Slightly skeptical

Love it when he looks like this!

Extension!

Mane blowing in the breeze... Looks like he needs to be in a detangler commercial or something, lol.

Brief moment of canter

Are we done yet?

Looking much slimmer than when he arrived here, wouldn't you say?

Learning how to come in when asked

 Excuse the dirtiness, I was letting him sniff around the round pen and he decided to roll in the wet sand which stuck like glue! At least he's mostly black. And then the icing on the cake, I finally have a video that I was able to upload! I think youtube hates me. Just sayin'. Here's a very quick video, you might want to watch it without sound because of my clucking and such ;) And sorry about the wobbliness - it's hard to take a video and keep the horse going at the same time!