How To Train Your Dragon: 9/18/16

Saturday, September 24, 2016

BYEEEE Money

Ah, Throughbred's.

So very good at maiming themselves.

I am lucky it wasn't worse, given the present issue with his face, but B managed to mangle his hock overnight. Luckily the vet was already coming out, so that save me a vet call. LOLOL

I really appreciate everyone's concern too- you all are the sweetest!! < 3

Poor, sleepy, maimed and hurting B

He first gave him his yearly exam, fall shots and pulled coggins. He palpated his face, with little reaction, inspecting it, trying to figure out the mystery. He did not think it was an infection, since there was no smell or discharge from the nose. Instead he thinks B knocked his head on something (no surprise there), creating underlying hematoma's, and ultimately blocking his tear duct. Then we dyed his eye to check for ulcers and see if any of the dye drained into his nose. It did not, and most of it spilled out his eye, answering our question of WTF is this.

Looks pretty gross TBH

So, he got a heavy dose of sedative and we spent the next half hour flushing his tear duct with saline. We think we got the blockage, but he will be back Tuesday to re-flush just in case. he said if symptoms persist we can X-ray, but he is certain that this will take care of it. Poor B did not enjoy it, but I don't blame him. He honestly was a good boy compared to what he would have done last year (reared, kicked us to death, the usual).

Such small orfices causing such large problems

Apparently blocked tear ducts happen all the time even without trauma, and he should be just fine. We will monitor closely of course, but that is a MASSIVE sigh of relief. Hot compress to the face and banamine for 5 days and he should be good.

So his hock. Who the fuck knows how horses manage to do these things, but it honestly looks like an animal attacked him.

It was pretty deep, and swelled immediately, but we still opted for no stitches due to the placement and verifying none of the tendons were damaged. Cold hosing took the swelling down a bit ,along with IV Banamine, so we shall treat with compression and salve for a few days and then it should be OK.

B was a trooper for his care and stood very still for us, which is uncharacteristic for bandages. He's never enjoyed wraps or boots, so I think he knew we were helping. Poor lad.

Pink vet wrap with PIGS ON THEM, adorable

Poor baby

Could've been much worse and he should be good as new very soon, but waking up to that text was still no fun. This year has been a bitch and I really could've gone without all that, but he will at least be OK. Stuff like this makes me think of all the other blogland horses that are lame, hurt or sick and I am sending them all some good juju and healing jungles.

Honestly now I think I am just a little numb to shit like this and simply handle it instead of freaking out like I used to. No point. Just drink more coffee and handle it. Channeling my inner Amy here.

Besides, money is only temporary right? LOL

Friday, September 23, 2016

Our Turn

Well, shoot.

Everyone else has lame or hurt horses so B felt like he had to play.

Fingers crossed its nothing, or something simple but I'm bringing the vet out anyways to be safe. He was LITERALLY just here yesterday for a very sad reason, but I'm mad I missed him!

Backing up though.

Last week B's eye started to leak clear fluid, and I actually thought nothing of it except that maybe with the pollen count his eye was getting irritated with the large pastures and long turnout times. My allergies have been terrible, so I just chalked it up to that at that point in time. Probing produced no soreness and he seemed fine otherwise.

Minus the weirdness of suddenly having issues turning right.

Hmmm.

I haven't ridden since the show (Saturday) due to stuff and things, but still came out to give pets and cookies and it was the same, no change. So when I came out yesterday to ride, I was quite surprised to see thicker discharge and a slightly swollen bump under his eye.

Weird.

I called the head groom over, and Supertrainer (aka BO) to verify this WAS new and I wasn't insane. They agreed, very new. We poked at him though and nothing seemed to bother him. Odd.

I asked if he was off his feed or acting strange and they said nope, he cleans up everything per usual at his usual speed.

Horses, Y U no talk?

So I tacked up, planning to just hack around anyways to try out my new half pad (way too big) and girth (perfect). I also was incredibly sore from weightlifting and didn't think I could do much but plod around on the trails anyways. Figured it would do us both good to just get out and walk around/loosen our muscles.

WAHHH too big. Time to trade in!

Of course though, a MILLION things were happening during my ride. Power washing, construction, turn-out, horses galloping in fields and mega horse flies because its still 90 fucking degrees here, UGH!

Translation; recipe for no good ride

I knew we had it coming, its been nothing but rainbows and cupcakes for weeks. We were due for a bad one, which is expected every now and again.

However, he was weirdly off. Like, in the head.

Shaking it more than usual, EXTRA sensitive and literally could not. would not. turn right.

Okay bud, I hear ya.

Amongst the galloping horses (literally, they did not stop for hours, WTF) though, he was losing his shit and I just wanted to end our very short ride at the walk, on a good note (aka not snorting, prancing, head shaking sideways). I really truly just wanted to walk around, but he was struggling to keep his shit together.

When that was impossible, I gave up after a grand total of 20 minutes mounted, with B lathered in sweat. I shit you not, we just walked, he was just that wound up about something.

Why though

Again, I probed his face, and nothing.

But yet, he was not acting right. His face didn't look right and the discharge from the eye was funky. Nothing from the nose, but he did cough and yawn too, in a struggling manner so I'm like, oh shit.

So I called the vet.

He's a literal saint of a man, dealing with all of us and our incredible accident/injury prone OTTBs and their cray owners who have him on speed dial. He should be coming out today or Monday, so I'm playing it safe, giving B the rest of the week off.

*I* can see a difference in his face, BO and HG could too, so I know I'm not dreaming. The pics do not do justice though.

Can you see the difference?

Big ole lump

Can you see the difference now?

Ugh, hoping its not something awful...I've heard horror stories about sinus infections, teeth issues, surgeries etc and my mind is whirling even though he seems mostly normal, despite the wound up ride. Hoping whatever it is we catch it early....worried

Thursday, September 22, 2016

7 years, 700 posts

Somehow I've found the energy and time to write 700 posts on this very blog. 7 years of posts, memories, worries, failures and successes.

holy shit.

I was debating what to do with this blogiversary, since everyone always seems to do cool shit and have the hook-up with fancy sponsors/ hosting giveaways and whatnot. Alas, I do not have such things, only mediocre art skills and have nothing to giveaway except maybe some non-equestrian paintings of mine, or offer to make you a saddle pad. But lets be real, I don't have time for that unless you pay me.

For real, give it to me.

Christmas is coming up you know. People love paintings. Essentially, give me your money.

So instead, I spent about 2 hours yesterday digging up 7 years of photos from this blog to share with my people. If you've been around all this time, congrats to suffering through my seriously cynical and depressed college writing and thank you for paying attention to my horses. I obsess over them, so its nice to have internet stranger friends who do as well.

I also was going to try to write a short recap of each year but oh my god no, that would take me days and aint nobody got time for that. It was really fun looking back through posts though, reminiscing on everything Ive done. That was in fact, the entire reason I started this blog. If it got deleted somehow I think that would be the cherry on top to do me in for good. I would literally cry and lay in bed for days.

For those of you that might be new, here is a super short and fast recap of the last 7 years. In college I trained horses for show money. I went to school in Missouri, so those horses were owned by rednecks and were generally ridden in western gear. It was still fun though and I made a ton of money doing it. I also got injured a LOT. Its apparently my thing. I spent my entire college career trying to move up to Prelim with Yankee and never made it due to one thing or another. Usually money, because I am an actual broke bitch. Also injuries, as mentioned. We still did fun things like dressage and showjump and won lots of cool shit. Yankee is the actual best OTTB and I don't deserve him. Then after graduating, I taught painting for 2 years, because I didn't want to adult. Then I moved back to Ohio, got a real job, bought Bacardi, ~~suffered~~ worked through his bullshit for two years and here we are today with two, very alive, badass horses. I count my lucky stars everyday that they are mine and that Yankee lived through colic this year.

Enjoy this random collection of pictures dating 7 years back, in mostly chronological order. Lets start with the extra shitty pics from a flip phone!...