One Month

Lucy's de-clogging and first trim with Candy was on 12/15/11; and on 1/15/12, I brought Lucy out to the paddock, took her halter off...and she bucked and trotted away from me. I grabbed my phone as fast as I could and managed to catch her trotting back.

In one month, she went from possibly being put down at eight years old to cavorting in the paddock like a normal horse. Major props to you, Candy. :-)

Frankenstein Feet

Lucy might not have bolts in her head, but she most certainly had many, many bolts in her hooves. On Thursday December 15th,  Lucy's hooves were finally placed into the care of Candy's capable hands. On the phone, I had told her, "You might want to bring a power drill with you because I'm pretty sure those clogs are screwed into her hooves." And, unfortunately, I wasn't kidding.

Our first challenge was removing the fiberglass casts that covered the clogs. We started off wetting them with the hose, and then Candy hacked away at them with a hoof knife. We were getting nowhere. So, while I frantically Googled "How to Remove Hoof Casts" on my phone and waded through pages of completely useless information, Candy and Judy discussed our options. Call the farrier and ask him to come out and remove them? Only if we wanted to wait around for, oh, a good six weeks. Call the vet? Since he was present when the clogs were put on, we figured he was a pretty safe bet. His assistant told us to use a handsaw (?!), so I went poking around for tools and came up with a small set of pruning shears. Luckily, the vet called back within five minutes and said to use hoof nippers. At that point, Candy was having some luck with the pruning shears, but she grabbed her mini hoof nippers and went to work.

It was like unwrapping a really horrible, upsetting, disturbing gift. Not quite last-scene-of-the-movie-Seven bad, but bad nonetheless. Because by then, we knew what was underneath. The vet had told us to use a Phillip's head screwdriver to remove the screws from Lucy's hooves in order to get the clogs off.

After searching high and low for a Phillips' head screwdriver, Candy remembered that she had one in a previously unopened toolkit in her car (thank goodness!), and she quickly got to work unscrewing Lucy's hooves.

Finally, it was time to remove the clogs once and for all.

And, surprisingly, her hooves didn't look nearly as bad as we thought they would (especially considering the state of Tiffany's hooves--Lucy had the same farrier). Yes, there was a ton of bruising and the trademark ridiculous square toe. But, luckily, Candy was put on the case before too much damage was done. Lucy foundered back in September, whereas Tiffany foundered somewhere around 9-12 months ago; so, the farrier didn't have nearly as much opportunity to morph Lucy's hooves into odd and previously never-before-seen shapes.

However. I assume most of you have heard of a "hot nail," right? That's the term for a nail that has been driven into the live, sensitive tissues of the hoof. Well, Lucy was hot-screwed, and not in the good way. She had multiple screws that had been drilled directly into her live tissues. And then people wondered why she was crippled to the point of not eating for several days. It's a mystery.

Here, you can see the dental impression material that was between the clogs and Lucy's hooves.

I had always thought that it would be soft and cushy, and was surprised to find that it's actually

quite rigid--not comfy-feeling at all

As soon as Lucy was trimmed and booted up, we videotaped her walking off. But to show you the difference in her movement, I'm also going to post the video I took approximately one week before (a few days after her final farrier appointment).

And that's in hoof boots that are ridiculously large. If you think she looks good there, wait until you see the latest videos of her. This mare endured what most people have commented to be "torture devices" for several months, but she has bounced back from it like a rubber ball. I only hope that people can watch her progress and realize that wood screws and giant clogs are not the answer to laminitis. There is a better way. It doesn't involve power tools or nuts and bolts. In fact, it doesn't involve anything you can purchase at Home Depot. It involves knowledge, skill, patience, and time. A little arnica helps, as well. Let's hope Frankenstein feet will quickly become a thing of the past.

Never A Dull Moment

No matter how long you've been around horses, you've never seen it all. And just when you think you've seen it all, some horse will catch wind of your ego and set out to prove your wrong.

Well, I can now check Giant Scary Lump-on-Side That Grows At An Alarming Rate off of my "Things Seen List." Poor little Tiffany just can not catch a break--as if Cushings, founder, and arthritis weren't enough, she had to go and develop a basketball-sized lump on her side (and give me a few grey hairs in the process, I'm sure!).

A little over a month ago, I was grooming Tiff and felt a medium-ish hard lump on her right flank. I remember telling Judy that I wasn't sure if it was some kind of sting/bite or a fat lump or what, but we would need to keep an eye on it. For several weeks, I saw no change in it. Then about two weeks ago it looked like it had a little scratch on it, almost like it had been lanced. And over the next few days, it shrank until it was almost non-existent.

But Monday night I pulled her sheet off and went, "Hhhhmmm, that thing is back and bigger than ever." I called Judy and left her a message to give her a heads-up--I said it certainly wasn't an emergency situation, but Dr. F should probably look at it in the next few days.

Well, Tuesday evening I peeked into Tiff's stall and my eyes just about popped out of my head. I could see a massive lump under her fly sheet. I pulled it back to find this:

I immediately called Judy (who was down in the Keys with her family for her dad's birthday) and started texting her the pics. Of course, she said she would call Dr. F and get back to me as soon as she heard from him. In the meantime, I slathered a whole bunch of epsom sat poultice on the lump and took Tiff out to graze. She seemed completely fine apart from the massive growth--she had eaten all her dinner and happily munched away on grass as soon as I put her out. 

Within a few minutes, Dr. F called Judy and told her it didn't sound like an emergency and he would be out to see Tiff first thing in the morning. Wednesday, Judy got a call bright and early--Dr. F told her that his best guess was Tiff had been either bitten by a spider or stung by a scorpion, and it eventually got infected. He drained about 15 ccs of fluid out of the area and gave her a shot of antibiotics. He also left a tube of Surpass for us to rub on the lump daily and some antibiotic packets to sprinkle on her dinner for 6 days.

Well, Friday night it looked like this:

Apparently, the fluid is draining down to her belly (???). I told Judy I didn't think it was an emergency, but she called Dr. F just in case. He will be out to see her tomorrow morning (Christmas Eve), so please keep your fingers crossed for her. According to the barn owner, Tiff has been spending more time lying down the past few days, which is not a good sign. She's been eating voraciously and chipper as usual, and happily goes out in the evening to eat grass, which is promising. But. Judy and I found three more little hard lumps on her left side tonight. What are the odds of four spider bites/scorpion stings?

Send some positive vibes our way, please! This mare has been through so much and she really deserves a break.

A Girl With A Rasp...

...will always have much to do at my barn. :-) Take, for instance, Lucy:

This sweet girl is an 8-year-old Quarter Horse who foundered back in September(ish?). Luckily, it was caught very early and Lucy received standard protocol care--she stood in a giant tub of ice water for several days in order to lessen the damage done to her hooves, and was put on IV DMSO (some of the worst-smelling stuff ever invented). It was found that her laminitic attack was brought on by Insulin Resistance, so her diet was given a drastic overhaul.

On October 7th, the farrier came out to drill Lucie's front hooves into clogs. About two days later, one of the other boarders said to me, "Have you seen Lucy's back hooves? They're ridiculously long--can you rasp them?" Of course, I told her I'd get on it right away, so I grabbed my trusty rasp and gloves and pulled Lucy out of her stall. Imagine my shock when I laid my eyes on these hooves:

Right Hind Before

Left Hind Before

This hoof has such a bad case of thrush that the frog had rotted halfway off

Obviously, those hooves were in need of some major work. I did what I could with my trusty rasp, taking the toes way back and lowering the walls. Her bars were so overgrown that I was also rasping them while I took the walls down.

Right Hind After

Left Hind After

Yes, those hooves are still miles too long, but it's a huge improvement. Hey, it takes a LONG time to get rid of that much hoof wall when all you're working with is a rasp! Luckily, I was able to cajole Candy into knocking Lucy's walls back a few weeks later. But it was Lucy's front hooves that I really wanted Candy to start working her magic on--I couldn't actually see them because of the hoof casts, but I was unfortunately quite familiar with Farrier X's work and was worried that he would transform Lucy's hooves into nightmarish zombie hooves like he did to Tiff.  Again, I had to just bite my tongue and wait for the right opportunity to present itself; but I knew that I would eventually get Candy on the case and those clogs off of Lucy's hooves.