Worried about Wayne

What a week......I'm very worried about Wayne.  Thursday I found him in his pasture rocking back in the founder stance trying to get weight off his front feet.  Upon inspection, it wasn't founder, but rather his good front leg had a very swollen fetlock and tendons, big hard bump in the tendons between knee and fetlock that were painful to the touch, and everything was hot.  So the reason for the founder stance was he didn't want to put weight on his injured leg, but didn't really want to put all his weight on his other front leg with the bad knee, so he was rocking back on his hind legs trying to get weight off his front legs.  Looks like a bowed tendon.  I'm crushed.  A bowed tendon is bad enough, but a bowed tendon on a horse that already has a bad knee on his other leg is a disaster. 


Wayne looking good in his brand new leather
halter yesterday! - 10-15-10



So we slowly made our way in the barn, got him started on bute, cold hosed that leg, then dried everything good and put a dmso/furizone wrap on, put him in standing wraps, and on stall rest he went.  He was so dumpy and depressed and not wanting to eat.  I cried.  I may be facing a decision I'll never be truly ready to make, but I can't make him suffer either just because I'm not ready to loose my old man.

My husband (wow, still getting used to saying that, lol) and I went down to check on him Friday morning before work, and while he was in better spirits and more alert, he was still horribly lame, and doing the founder stance a little.  But his appetite was back, as he'd finished the two tubs of haycubes that had been in his stall sometime during the night, and dug into his morning grain and haycubes.



Last night he was moving a wee bit better and still eating good.  Slapped a bag of frozen corn over his tendons and put a standing wrap over it to keep it in place, and took him out to graze a bit while he cooked his corn.  But he was a little too excited to be outside and see the other horses, and more interested in strutting his stuff regardless of how bad his leg hurt, so back in the barn we went. 

This morning he was walking better and pacing in his stall.  No more founder stance, but that leg is definitely still ouchy.  Put his frozen corn ice pack on his leg again, and attempted to go out and graze again.  He was more interested in the other horses than grazing, but at least studly contained his excitement a little better this time, so we went for a very slow very short walk down the driveway.  He's definitely got his personality back, and was into everything while I was cleaning his stall and had him tied to one of the cross ties in the barn aisle........I finally had to shorten the cross tie so he couldn't go very far or I was going to be there all morning trying to clean his stall out, stopping every few scoops to go get him out of something.......

"Wayne, get out of there, that's not your beet pulp!  Leave the cat food alone!  Blake isn't going to share his hay!  Leave that lid alone, that's not your beet pulp!!  See, rice bran taste bad, that's what you get for getting into something that's not yours, now don't take that lid off again, go eat your hay cubes!"

Yeah, he's like a little kid sometimes!  It felt good to laugh this morning though, and have him into his usual mischief.  But I am still worried about him.  Bowed tendons take a long time to heal, and can easily happen again.  And a horse needs at least three good legs to stand on, so to have a bad knee on one leg and a bowed tendon on the other just worries me sick.  I know most people would put him down, but at the same time I have a really hard time playing God when he seems alert and happy (ok, he's not thrilled with being in a stall and voices it rather loudly at times) and he's eating good again and seems to be responding to treatment. 

So we'll take it one day at a time.  Stall rest for the rest of the weekend, then see what next week brings.  Heading back down there with his frozen corn ice pack again soon.  I'm sure he'll be thrilled.

Somebody slept good last night. - 10-16-10