Cody's Surgery

Cody's knee surgery seems to have gone well.  Though it definitely had some scary moments.

At the clinic - 11-15-11

Thankfully I was able to take the day off work, so after taking away all food except water after 10 pm Monday night and leaving her in a stall with no bedding for the night to make sure there was no temptation to eat bedding, we headed out with her Tuesday morning and arrived at the MSU vet clinic by 10 am.

Cody was going to be the last surgery of the day, and since I had the day off, I camped out with my book in a chair in her open stall door making sure she didn't eat any of her bedding so she didn't have to suffer wearing a muzzle, while she stood there with me either snoozing or poking at my head or my book now and then with her nose looking for attention.

She was a good girl while they got her IV put in.  Not such a good girl while the students tried to put her meds in her eye for her eye problem.  That is definitely a bit of a battle.  Not that she's throwing her head around or anything, she actually stands there pretty well, but Cody can clamp her eye shut tighter than any horse I've ever met, and prying her eye open enough to get meds in there before she clamps it shut again is definitely a challenge.

IV in, now nap time - 11-15-11

But finally they came and gave her some sedation, then walked her back to prep for surgery.  And I sat in my chair outside her stall with my book, waiting and worrying.

Finally Dr. Caron came out and said the surgery went well, and she was in the padded stall for recovery.  Instead of doing five passes like he did last time, he did seven this time.  So that should have cleaned up any cartilage left in the joint to encourage it to fuse all the way this time.  And the parts that were fused were fused pretty solid with bone, so there shouldn't be any trouble with that part of the joint refusing itself.  And hopefully it will be enough to get the parts that didn't fuse last time, to finally fuse this time.  Time will tell.

But my heart just sank when they brought her back to her stall after surgery.  I heard her calling on the way back to the stall, but what I saw when she came around the corner definitely had me thinking "OMG, what have I done to my horse!"  She was still very drunk and shakey from the anesthetic, but she also basically couldn't walk on her leg.  And it's really scary when the surgeon and the people working there are all saying "That's not normal!  That's not good!"

Still shaky after surgery - 11-15-11

As soon as Cody saw me, she stopped calling and pretty much dragged the lady leading her down to her stall as she tried to get to me as fast as she could on three wobbly legs, weaving around like a drunk as they tried to slow her down, but she wanted no part of slowing down.  When they finally made it to her stall, I stood aside out of the way since Cody was pretty unsteady on her feet, but then she refused to lead past me and go in her stall.  So I went in her stall ahead of her and she followed me in.  She calmed down some in her stall, but kept tipping and stumbling forward.  She finally planted her forehead against my chest and just stood there trying to keep her balance.

Her degree of lameness and pain apparently was a first after this type of surgery, and very concerning.  Dr. Caron ordered morphine for her right away, and also gave her a half and half short term/long term nerve block in her leg so she could stand on it as she finished waking up and make her more comfortable.  And added another three bags of bedding to her stall to give her a nice comfortable place to lay down.  He said it's the first time he's ever had to use morphine and a nerve block on a horse after this type of surgery.  I felt horrible.

Looking better the next day - 11-16-11

But, apparently she had a pretty rough recovery this time around.  It sounds like she started trying to get up a little too early, and fought them when they tried to keep her down a bit longer.  And stumbled and tumbled a little in the padded stall.  So they're wondering if she wrenched her leg trying to get up and stumbling around, and if that's where some of the pain was coming from.  She also started calling for other horses, but since she was the last surgery she was the only horse back there, and started working herself into a bit of a panic and trying to pace when no one responded to her calls.  So that's why she was still so out of it when they brought her back to her stall, as soon as they knew she wasn't going to fall down trying to walk, they brought her back a little earlier than normal, hoping being back in her stall and with me and the other horses would calm her down, which thankfully it did.  Poor girl.

When I left that night, she was still a wee bit shaky, but able to stand on all fours and busy eating hay.  But we'd have to wait and see what morning brought.

Give me cookies! - 11-16-11

Dr. Caron called me Wednesday morning and said she was still more sore than she should be once the morphine and nerve block wore off, so she had another dose of morphine that morning, and he wanted her to stay another day.  Apparently morphine can slow down gut function, so he wanted her there where they could help her right away if she started having any colic problems.  Which I completely agreed!  But thankfully they were able to wean her off the morphine and by that evening she was staying fairly comfortable with just bute, no colic problems, and was standing on that leg and walking on it gingerly, a little more normal for this type of surgery.  When I went to visit her Wednesday evening, she seemed in good spirits and was happy to mug me for more of the treats I brought with me.

Thankfully Thursday she was staying comfortable all day on just bute, so she was able to come home that evening.

Trailering there and back was a bit of an adventure both ways.  Tuesday morning was the foggiest morning I've seen in a long time.  One of the awesome ladies that boards at the barn hauled her to MSU for me, and I followed in my truck, but even following a quarter of a mile behind the trailer, I couldn't see the trailer at all.  I noticed the running lights on the trailer weren't on (brakes and blinkers worked, we checked those), so I called Nancy to see if she could turn them on so anyone behind her, myself included, could hopefully see the trailer a little sooner.  Well, it seems her new Grand Traverse decides for you when to turn on the day time headlights, and the night time headlights, tail lights, and running lights on the trailer, and according to the Traverse, it was day time so we didn't need running lights on the trailer.  Gotta love modern technology.  I'm guessing the sensor on the dash needs to be covered so the Traverse thinks it's night time, but by that time we were finally on the express way and soon drove out of the fog.

Anybody out there? - 11-16-11

Coming home Thursday evening was another adventure.  Another of the awesome ladies that boards at the barn was bringing her home for me.  I met her at the barn to ride with her and we headed out.  It was still day light, but would be getting dark soon.  As dusk just began to set in, she turned on her headlights and bam, dashboard lights on the truck went out and no running lights on the truck or trailer!  Headlights, brake lights, and blinkers was all we had.  Blown fuse or something.  So we got Cody checked out and loaded up as quick as we could, so we could try to make it home before dark.  But we finally had to pull over because it was too dark to go any further without lights, and waited for my husband to drive out and meet us and follow us the rest of the way to the barn with flashers.  Thankfully Cody was an angel in the trailer for all of this.

Home sweet home - 11-17-11

Sometimes I swear Cody and I are cursed!

"It never goes smooth.  How come it never goes smooth?" - Malcolm Reynolds (Firefly)


"If we could bottle your luck, we'd have a weapon of mass destruction on our hands." - Edward Cullen (Eclipse)

Oh well, at least we can laugh about it now.

But Cody is finally home, and seems to be doing ok.  She's tucked in a nice deeply bedded stall for 3 to 6 weeks of stall rest.  And we'll see how sound she is in 6 months.  Here's hoping and praying!

Welcome home big girl! - 11-17-11

And things were back to normal with the girls.  Love each other one minutes, fight like sisters the next!

My hay! - 11-17-11

Laying down for a nap - 11-19-11

Blanket Washing

Today was blanket washing day.  Cody decided to help.

"Ok mom, I'll hold it down!  You scrub!"

Thanks Cody girl!  Lady decided to stay out of the way.  A little cold to be getting wet.  But blankets are washed.....well, rinsed and spot scrubbed, way too cold and insanely windy to do much more than that today.  Someday I'll actually do this during the summer instead of waiting till it's fall and cold.  But now I can get the ripped ones sewn up, and finish getting them rewaterproffed for winter. 

Cody's Turn

While Lady's had kind of a crazy summer with sunburn and sweet itch, Cody's hasn't been much better either. Things have been pretty up and down with her knee. I'm not entirely sure how successful I would call her knee surgery. She's definitely not rideable sound, and at this point, I have my doubts that she ever will be. But I'm at least hoping for pasture sound, which she seems to be lately, though I'm worried how things will be once cold weather begins to set in, will she be too uncomfortable to make it through winter? I don't know.

At MSU after surgery in December

But this summer she's had her ups and downs. Thankfully more ups as far as lameness than downs. She was hand walking 30 or 40 minutes 3 or 4 days a week ponying out on the trails with Lady and I without much trouble. Once she got warmed up, she seemed to move along pretty well. But Mother Nature kind of spoiled that with a long stretch of 90+ degrees with 100+ heat index. I didn't want to move much in that, let alone make my horses go for a walk in the hot sun. So cool hose downs and maybe a short walk were pretty much the name of the game. Lately, the skeeters will carry you away if you stray too far from the barn.  But even without all the walking, Cody seemed to do ok on her knee. She had a weird week at one point where she was really sore, then seemed to bounce back from it.

A couple weeks ago she came galloping and bucking full speed all the way across the pasture trying to escape one of those B-52 Bomber flies. The last time she pulled a galloping stunt like that this spring, she was three legged lame for days, it took her a week to get back to where she had been as far as lameness. She was so worried about the fly attacking her and trying to get away from it, I wasn't sure if she remembered the gate was coming up fast, let alone be able to stop in time, I'm just picturing the wreck about to happen. This is Cody after all, and "disaster" seems to be her middle name. And sure enough, her head pops up, her ears fly forward, and that look of "Oh sh*t!" crosses her face as she realizes with the fence on one side and Lady galloping along on the other side, there's no where to go but straight into the gate. Somehow she managed to execute a sliding stop that would have been the envy of any reining horse and brought new meaning to the term "draggin' ass", and only bumped her nose on the gate. And sure enough, she was three legged lame from her antics (but she did get away from that fly and managed not to crash). Oh Cody. But thankfully she seemed to walk it off after a few steps, and an hour later, was pretty much back to her "normal" level of lameness. So that there is progress. Small victories.

She is due for x-rays again. The last ones were back in April I believe. But instead of having my regular vet do the x-rays again, I decided to take her back to MSU to see the surgeon this time. Since Cody seems to be the first successful failure of this surgery, I really wanted Dr. Caron to see her again and get his thoughts, what went wrong, has the joint healed like it should have, see if maybe there's something more than just the knee adding to her lameness, what more can I do for her to try to keep her as comfortable as possible to be a retired pasture pet, especially with cold weather a few months away. Thankfully I do have options still to try, such as daily bute or a different devil's claw and yucca supplement, joint injections to the other two joints in that knee, Adequan or Legend injections, maybe one of the magnetic/ceramic knee wraps, she'd probably benefit from seeing a chiropractor.

So she was supposed to go in to MSU on Tuesday this week, I couldn't wait to see new x-rays and see what Dr. Caron thought. Especially since last week, she started getting really lame again. Good thing she's going to MSU on Tuesday. It kept getting worse, by Saturday she was three legged lame, it took her forever to walk across the pasture to come in for dinner. I cleaned out her foot, and that seemed fine, no rocks or anything stuck in there. I couldn't find any heat or swelling in her knee, but she wanted no part of walking on it. I was just sick and heart broken, her knee was giving out, just like Wayne's did. I went home in tears. Sunday she was marginally better, at least walking on it, but still horribly lame.

But when I went to pick up her foot to clean it out, I discovered a tiny weeping sore at the front of her foot on the coronet band! She blew out an abscess! No wonder she'd been so lame lately! I feel awful, and feel like an idiot, I never even thought to check for an abscess (yes, I clean and handle her feet daily, but I always have gloves on about 90% of the time that I'm handling my horses since a few years ago my body decided it was allergic to horse dander, so I totally missed the heat in her foot)! I just assumed it was her knee getting worse. But I have never been so happy in my life to have a horse with an abscess. An abscess is far more treatable than a knee giving out. And after a good cleaning and soaking, sure enough, there was the tiny pinhead sized black hole in her whiteline on the bottom of her foot where everything started. Poor girl!

This is the first abscess I've had to deal with on one of my own horses. So I called my farrier, because I know he's really good with abscesses, there are some vets that call him to come and dig out abscesses for them. Since it had already blown out the coronet band, he probably didn't need to come dig this one out, at this point it should drain itself pretty well, so soak it twice a day to help draw everything out and call him in 2 days with a progress report, or sooner if it starts building heat again or she goes dead lame again and he'll come right down. And blow out an abscess she did. What started out as a tiny hole in her coronet band about as big around as the end of my little finger turned into about an inch and a half weeping sore by Monday night. Ouch!

But so far so good soaking twice a day. At least it's not oozing any more, still pretty angry looking, but not draining. And she's walking better, but still a little ouchy, but I'm not sure if it's because of the foot, or the knee, or both, with the knee problem added in the mix, it's hard to tell. And thankfully in a better mood the last few days, Monday night while crouching down to work on that foot, I felt the careful warning scrape of teeth across the top of my ballcap letting me know how she felt about the situation, along with several dirty looks. Yesterday the heat was finally gone in her hoof wall, but still some heat right at the coronet band, so my farrier said soak her a couple more days till the heat was gone there too to make sure we get rid of any infection. I also took pictures of it and emailed them to him. He said it looked like your typical abscess and looked to be starting to heal fine, just keep an eye on it and keep him posted.  Tonight the heat in the coronet band was finally gone.

So it's been a long week. Every morning has pretty much gone something like this (and repeated every evening):

• 5:30 am - crawl out of bed
• 5:45 am - stumble to truck, hot water and breakfast in hand
• 5:47 am - eat breakfast on way to barn
• 5:52 am - arrive at barn
• 5:53 am - sweet barn kitty demands to be fed
• 5:54 am - furkids demand to be fed, Cody's pawing, Lady's weaving
• 5:55 am - both nickering at me "Feed the starving ponies!"
• 5:56 am - breakfast shortly, hold your horses!
• 6:00 am - one foot soaking

Needless to say, I am thoroughly exhausted after this week, and about to go fall in bed for the night!
 
As for the MSU knee checkup, well, we rescheduled. There's no point in taking her in for a knee checkup if she's lame on that foot from an abscess. So we'll get her foot healed up, and then hopefully we can get a better idea of where she's at with her knee, or if there's something else in the foot that's adding to the problem. 

So the MSU trip will be in two weeks. And the furkids and I will keep trudging our way through this crazy summer.

Happy barn kitty!

Holy Sunburn

It's been a crazy summer to say the least.......

Silly Lady and her freckles.

I do love "chrome" on my horses, especially a blaze. Wayne had the text book perfect shaped blaze down his face. Lady's freckles in her blaze are just cute. And while Cody's blaze is more narrow and subtle, it's still perfectly pretty. But Cody definitely has one distinct advantage in the blaze department.....her blaze ends before it reaches that soft delicate peach fuzz nose, and the only white she has there is a tiny little diamond snip.

My poor sweet Lady and her nice big blaze. She usually gets a mild sunburn on her pink little muzzle every year (as did Wayne, though he at least had the advantage of massive forelock to help protect his face), but normally some sunscreen gets Lady through it till she "gets her tan on" and then she's fine till the fall when the "photo sensitivity sunburn" due to whatever it is she decides to eat every fall sometimes happens. But anywho, mild summer sunburn......not so this year. She fried. And I mean fried! Even with using 90 SPF sunscreen twice a day the minute she started looking a little pink on the nose. And of course I couldn't find a long nose fly mask to try to shade more of her face anywhere around town, so had to order one, which meant waiting a few days for it to arrive, and no matter how much I poured the sunscreen to her, she continued to fry.

Collar and almost healed up face!

Within a matter of days 3/4 of Lady's pretty blaze was burnt, peeling, angry red, weeping, and even the dark skin on either side of her blaze was showing signs of an angry red burn! She spent a couple days in the barn in Cody's stall just to get her out of the sun. I didn't even bother trying to put a halter on her head, just looped it around her neck, and finally gave up on the halter all together when I finally found a horse collar, which she's been wearing ever since, thankfully she's an angel about leading and tying.

Since stalling her every day wasn't an option since she's pasture board, I waited on pins and needles for that new long nose fly mask to arrive, praying that would help shade her face, but it took forever to get here, holiday weekend and all that good stuff. So in the meantime, I went in search of zinc oxide, since the highest SPF sunscreen I could find wasn't doing a bit of good. I finally found two big bottles of zinc oxide sunscreen, and Lady ended up with lifeguard nose or the bald face paint look twice a day.....which she promptly tried to wipe off on her knees the minute I got out of distance to stop her. Thankfully if I could get her to leave it alone long enough to dry a little bit, most of it would stay stuck through her attempts to wipe it off, but we had a lot of white knees and legs in addition to white face. I guess she was going for the full bald face paint look with high white socks? Occasionally Cody had white stripes on her butt, as did the Richie waterer. But the zinc oxide definitely help turn the tide in the war against the sunburn, protecting her enough to at least keep her from burning more, and let her skin slowly begin to heal.

Bunny ears!!!

Finally that new long nose fly mask arrived, complete with pink ears and her name embroidered on the front. It was perfect, shaded her entire face, right down to that normally soft pink skin right between her nostrils that was currently angry red and peeling. Finally shade for her face, and no more lifeguard nose.....she was such a good sport, but you could tell she was really getting tired of having stuff rubbed on her face. Day one with the new fly mask went great, you could already see the difference in her burn!

Day two, not so good, she rubbed it off, went all day without it, and got fried. Ok, two can play this game little girl, say hello to your friend zinc oxide! War paint slathered on, then fly mask! Double protection, so when she took the fly mask off, at least she still had something protecting her from the sun. And an extra bottle of zinc oxide sitting out in the barn, so other boarders could have fun with face painting if she managed to rub off both the fly mask and the war paint while I was at work. Of course, Mother Nature didn't help much either, sneak attack thunderstorms that soaked her new mask to the point that it had to spend a day or two in the barn to dry out, then more rain to wash the war paint off her face while her fly mask was drying, and then hot hot sun.

Oh Lady girl, you're so naughty!

Thankfully the fly mask stayed on more often than not, though she likes the one ear out look, and seems to think the forelock hole is supposed to be an ear hole, but we finally won the war against the sunburn. Her skin is finally healed up, except for the occasional scratch now and then from trying to rub that mask off on something, and her hair is slowly growing back. Still no halter though, that skin is a little too delicate yet with only peach fuzz protecting it. But that was definitely the most bizarre sunburn I have ever had to deal with. And I felt just awful, because you could tell Lady was miserable. I'm not even sure what caused it, I know some weeds can make them photosensitive, but honestly, there's not much in their pasture and they were on the same hay and grain diet they've been on forever now, so who knows. But at least this time I know how to fight it should sunburn rear it's ugly head again. Long nose fly mask and zinc oxide seem to be my two best weapons....I'm ok with owning a part time bald face paint or war pony, and the "lifeguard nose" is just funny.

Salted pony anyone?

Course, then we went straight from sunburn to sweet itch when good ole Ma Nature decided to crank up the heat for an extended period of time, going from low 80s to high 90s. Poor Lady sweats easy to begin with, so she was just wringing wet during the day, some evenings she was so covered in salt it looked like it had snowed all over her. And while her mane isn't nearly as long and thick as Wayne's was, apparently it was long enough and thick enough to cause her to sweat enough under there to create the perfect storm for sweet itch on the underside of her mane.

And itch she did! I pulled in the driveway one evening after work to find Lady girl out by the shelter going to town itching her mane for all she was worth on the corner of the shelter. And when I brought her in the barn, she was itching like a mad woman on anything within her reach; post, stall, door, stairs, cross tie, me, Cody (that one did not go over well). She'd rubbed out half the underside of her mane and her scalp was a scabby, scaly, weeping mess. I guess this is where Cody's pitiful Thoroughbred mane is a blessing.

So, braided Lady's mane to the opposite side for ventilation to get some air flow under there and slathered on the MTG. That didn't help much. She was still pretty itchy. And it made one heck of a mess down both sides of her neck. Time for a betadine shampoo. Did you know MTG will waterproof your horse? Seriously, even after three shampooings, the water just beaded up and ran right off her neck and mane like she'd been waxed or camp dried. Why can't fly spray stick like that? But at any rate, betadine shampooed and braided to the opposite side again, and still pretty itchy and not healing much.

Crooked, but still covered!

Then I remembered the mysterious yellow ointment in the plain white jar who's label only says "Scratches" that Dr. Irving gave me last year when I couldn't get rid of the scratches on Cody's legs. I have no idea what's in it, the jar literally only says "Scratches" on a taped on paper label. Looks like furazone, but he assured me there was none of that in there, and rambled off a few names of things that I don't even remember now, but it's a concoction of some kind that the MSU vet clinic apparently came up with, and whatever it is, boy does it work, it cleared up Cody's scratches in no time flat last year, and did the same thing for Lady's sweet itch, by the next day, her scalp was nearly itch free! And the skin on her neck where she'd rubbed some of her hair thin while scratching out her mane was turning pink with sunburn......yes, here we go with the sunburn again......

Apparently skin that has spent 17 years under the dark side of a mane doesn't like full time sun exposure. Oops, my bad, braids out, sorry girl. And of course, even though her mane was only braided to the opposite side for a few days, it decided to stay there. Skin's a little pinker and looking a little flaky peely. My poor horse! So back in braids to retrain her mane back to where it belonged. At least the braids gave her a little shade, and after a couple flaky peely days, her skin was back to normal, her scalp was healing up, her mane trained back to where it was supposed to be, and acclimation to the insane heat and humidity makes for a less sweaty pony under there, so hopefully no more sweet itch.....or sunburn!

Super models!

How come yours has a long nose and mine doesn't?

Salted Pony Anyone?

Was it hot outside today? According to Lady, yes it was!  I know Lady sweats kind of easy, but dang! This might be a record for her! Darn weather!

Fancy New Jammies!

Lady got herself some fancy new jammies!  A Weatherbeeta Orican turnout sheet!  I loved the Fleur-de-lis on it, so had to have it!  (Might have to see if I can find another one in Cody's size!)  And Lady seemed quite proud of her new jammies, she struck a few great poses for the camera in between attacking the grass!  She's such a cutie! 

And so a little picture spam!

Bummer it's far too cold for a turnout sheet right now, but soon.  Though the mud is so god awful right now (as you can tell by her feet) that I might wait till the mud dries up a little bit before she wears her new sheet, since she still has the old one too.

The English translation of "fleur-de-lis" (sometimes spelled "fleur-de-lys") is "flower of the lily." This symbol, depicting a stylized lily or lotus flower, has many meanings. Traditionally, it has been used to represent French royalty, and in that sense it is said to signify perfection, light, and life.

In the twelfth century, either King Louis VI or King Louis VII (sources disagree) became the first French monarch to use the fleur-de-lis on his shield. English kings later used the symbol on their coats of arms to emphasize their claims to the throne of France. In the 14th century, the fleur-de-lis was often incorporated into the family insignia that was sewn on the knight's surcoat, which was worn over their coat of mail, thus the term, "coat of arms."

Well, she's a Rocky Mountain/Quarter Horse.....so she's rather American, but we can pretend she's French Royalty!  lol!

Fall off the earth?

Did I fall off the earth?  No, just haven't had much positive or fun to report lately.  I started this blog to share the fun I have with my horses, past and present, but it seems like things have spiraled toward the negative all too often lately, and a blog that's all negative is just depressing.  And the past still hurts sometimes.  I miss my Wayne something awful still.

But how are the girls doing?  So so.....  (if you want to skip to the fun stuff, head down to the pictures at the bottom, otherwise welcome to my horse life)

Cody's knee surgery has been anything but successful so far.  We hit the 3 month mark on March 2nd and she's still dead lame.  We've past the 3 1/2 month mark, and last Saturday she refused to put any weight on it.  She's a little better now, but still not as good as she was, and even then she was anything but sound. 

The vet came out Feb 1st and x-rayed her knee and sent them to the surgeon at MSU.  He said the x-rays looked good, but behind schedule as far as healing.  So we decided to give her till mid April or so and re-x-ray and re-evaluate, and see where we're at, see if it looks like things are healing or not.  Dr. Caron says he's never had one of these surgeries not work, but I'm worried sick Cody's going to be the first and I'm going to end up losing her too. 

But I'm trying to keep my spirits up.  She's had a lot of things going against her over these 3 1/2 months, that's for sure.  This ridiculous weather, insane mud, rough frozen ground, deep snow, ice, ice, and more mud and snow, lack of sufficient bedding to pad the front of her stall, among other things.  She's also the oldest horse he's ever done this surgery on, going on 17 this year.  And then there's Cody's momentary lapses of reason from time to time.  I had to quit hand walking her in the indoor arena, because every time we did she wanted to roll first thing, then would explode in a bucking fit as she got up and could hardly walk after that, so hand walking has to be done on the driveway....when it's not insane mud or sheer ice.  And I hear she was trying to canter in her pasture the other day.

So we're taking things day by day and we'll see what happens.  Working on getting her weaned out of standing wraps right now, and hopefully out of a knee wrap soon.  Trying to keep my chin up, but I worry.  My luck seems to be in the toilet lately.  Having just lost Wayne those few months ago, I'll be all the more heartbroken if I lose her too, and questioning my place in the horse world.  How can something I love so much just go so completely wrong over the past year.

Lady, she's doing ok.  She started having some lameness issues in December (on top of some sudden major diarrhea issues that seems to have been encysted small strongyles and sand related, resulting in Panacur Power Pacs and Sand Clear for both the girls), so I gave her several weeks off, then slowly started working her on the lunge line, mostly at the walk with a little bit of trot to try to get her back into shape, but even doing that a few days a week and her lameness came back.  Not real noticeable, but something just wasn't right.  So I certainly didn't want to ride her.  I haven't been on the back of a horse in three months.  I think this is the longest I have ever gone without riding since I first bought Wayne back in 2002.  A little depressing.

But I did get very lucky, since the vet student that used to board with us (and who's wife used to use Lady for riding lessons one day a week), got Lady into MSU for me for the musculoskeletal rotation he was on.  That was pretty exciting!  Lady went up to MSU for the day, and Jesse and the rest of the students in his group went over her from head to toe.  Basically a full lameness exam.  Flexion tests, movement on straight lines and circles on hard and soft surfaces, nerve blocks to pin point painful spots, and about 50 x-rays of her knees, hocks, and front feet, and consultation with the two vets overseeing the students.  And since it was a learning experience for the students, I didn't have to pay a dime for any of it!!! 

What did we learn?  She has some pretty good arthritis in her left knee that was causing the lameness I was seeing.  So I'm now three for three on screwed up left knees.  At least Lady's most likely isn't from getting kicked in the knee like Wayne and Cody, it's probably just wear and tear, but still, what are the odds?  Apparently I have no luck when it comes to knees.  Makes me scared to even think about ever own another horse someday, at least not while I'm still having to board anyway.

So when our vet came out a couple weeks ago to do vaccines, we injected Lady's knee to see if that would make her a little more comfortable.  It seems to have helped, but then I haven't done much with her lately, either haven't had the time with doctoring Cody, or this rotten weather has left me unenthused about doing much of anything.  I did work her on the lunge line for a bit on Sunday, but that didn't go as well as I would have liked.  My intention was just to walk and a little trot, but Lady had her barrel horse brain on and was a complete dork ripping around at the canter and cross canter, head tossing and galloping a couple times for a good 10 minutes before she finally settled down to her normal self.  She looked and was moving great!!!  But was very sore the next day.  Maybe this weekend I'll get her back out and try again.

Thankfully her hock arthritis doesn't look any worse now than it did from the x-rays taken a year ago of her hocks.  For now, I skipped injecting her hocks, since last summer she did pretty good on them, and if old man winter would just GO AWAY, I think that would be a big help too.  But we'll see.  She'll be 17 this year too, and from the history we've been able to piece together of her life before I got her, she seems to have been used pretty hard at a young age, so I guess it's to be expected. 

But hopefully I can at least keep Lady trail sound.  And pray that I can get Cody healed up and sound again.  These last 5 months have been really tough.....

So to keep this from being a completely depressing blog entry, some pictures of what the girls have been up to lately......

Cody gets some love tonight from sweet Miles (be sure to check him out at Miles On Miles):

Thoroughbred Kisses

Lady finally got some shipping boots of her very own, instead of always having to wear Wayne's pony shipping boots, which really were way too small for her!  And she got to try them out on her trip to MSU!



Cody is determined there is grass under that snow somewhere if she just digs far enough!

The girls discover the new mirrors in the indoor arena!  Lady was a little puzzled....then curious.....then didn't really care, she took it in true Lady form.  She's so darn cute!

Hey, that looks like me?!?!

Who's that pretty Lady?

Cody was a bit more dramatic.  Typical of Cody.  She did the stop dead and whip the head around with a bug eyed stare, then had to go check herself out.

Whoa, who the heck is that?!?!?!

Mirror mirror on the wall.....

Cold Outside?

Is it cold outside? 

According to Lady, that would be a Yes!!  At a whole whopping 9 degrees out Thursday morning, Lady had a rather frosty muzzle!  And she wasn't the only one around the farm with a little frost on the whiskers.  Burr!!! 

Of course Cody was frost free in her stall in the barn.  And of course it's 9 degrees out the morning my farrier was coming.  But thankfully the main barn is insulated, so it does stay a little warmer in there than it does outside, and after having four horses in there all night to warm it up with their body heat, the barn was close to 30 inside, so the farrier appointment wasn't so bad. 

I'm so glad they got trimmed though.  Cody's feet weren't too bad, but Lady's feet grow like weeds, even in the dead of winter, and with her hoof walls a little on the long side, she was getting some serious snowballs in her feet!!!

Where's Lady?

Over the past few months my mares have been up in the front pasture by the barn owners house, the furthest possible pasture you can get from the barn. And since the barn and indoor and outdoor arenas sit well back from the house, it's a bit of a hike up there to go get the girls to bring them down to the barn to feed them and do whatever else I need/want to do that night, and then another hike back up to the pasture to put the girls back out and return their halters to the barn. Ok, call me lazy, but the worse the weather gets, the more I hate that hike up to the front pasture. Believe me, it's no fun in the pouring rain, mud, whipping wind, snow, and I've been dreading making that trip every day this winter, through snow and ice and unplowed/half plowed snow drifted driveway. And it's not like I'm one of those boarders who only comes out to see their horse once a week or less, I'm there every day, because I live two miles down the road and I grain my horses and give them their supplements myself every day, so it's a two round trips daily trek that was getting more and more annoying the worse the weather got. At least Cody is in the barn now and individual turnout near the barn because of her knee surgery, but Lady is still up in the front pasture, and the other day I couldn't feel my fingers and my face was hurting by the time I made it back to the barn with Lady, and that was wearing plenty of layers, snow suit, and carhart.

Yesterday my husband and I went down to the barn in the morning to check on Lady, because it had been pouring rain all night, and the lead mare in that pasture doesn't share the shelter with anyone, so I knew Lady had been standing out in the rain all night, and I had a feeling her winter blanket was most likely soaked. And sure enough her blanket was soaked and she was wet and shivering. So we dried her off and put her in her other winter turnout blanket and headed back home, we'd be back later in the evening to feed them. And since bad weather was rolling in, we decided to save ourselves at least one trip up and back to the pasture, and put Lady's halter in the truck so we already had it with us when we came back later.

Lady - 2007

 Rain turned to snow and after dinner we struck out into the blizzard to go check on Lady (Cody stayed in yesterday so her knee wrap stayed dry) and get the girls fed. It was definitely one of those high winds, whipping and drifting snow, ice underneath, white out, can't see much of anything, 4WD kind of nights. So we pull in the driveway and my husband jumps out with Lady's halter as I drop him off at the front pasture, and I proceed to drive down to the barn. He'll go get Lady out of the pasture and bring her down to the barn, while I get their grain ready.


So I get their grain all ready to go, and still no husband and Lady. I'm beginning to wonder what's taking so long, since my horses usually meet you at the gate and Lady knows my truck. But still no husband and Lady. It's then that the barn owner tells me she just moved all the horses around before I got there, and Lady is now over in the pasture on the other side of the driveway and the herd of geldings now have access to the front pasture. Great, so my poor husband is up there in the dark in the snow trying to find Lady and she's not even in that pasture anymore! And I can just picture him going "Where the heck is Lady and where did all these extra horses come from?"

I called his cell phone, he had left it at home. I decide to walk up there, but the blast of wind and snow in the face as soon as I walked out of the barn had me jumping back in the truck and driving back up to the front pasture. As I get there, my husband is leading a horse out of the gate, and as I get out of my truck and the flood light up there finally turns on, I hear him say "You're not Lady!" and he puts the horse back in the pasture. Nope, that's not Lady, that's Waylon!

The poor guy had been up there looking for Lady, and since it was dark and blowing snow, he was looking for the big white blaze with a blanket, because when we were there in the morning, the big white blaze without a blanket was Cheyenne and the big white blaze with a blanket was Lady. So he found the big white blaze with a blanket, put a halter on it, headed for the gate, and realized he had the wrong horse.

Lady, Cheyenne, and Cody - 2009

Well, at least he realized he had the wrong horse before he made it all the way to the barn. Which did almost happen last winter, when he went out into the dark pasture to get Lady, and realized when he got halfway to the barn that he had Cheyenne instead of Lady. But then it's not to hard to mix those two up, they're similar in build, size, and color, they both have a big white blaze, and when Cheyenne wears a blanket in the winter, they both have purple blankets, so in the dark, they do look an awful lot alike, even I've had to do a double take sometimes, along with Cheyenne's owners. And while Waylon is actually black, in a dark pasture, he's similar in size, build, and blaze as Lady and Cheyenne.

So I guess the moral of the story is, if you find a big white blaze in the pasture in the dark, check their feet and count the socks to see who you've got. Four white feet is Cheyenne, two white feet is Waylon, and no white feet is Lady!

Of course, once he got in the right pasture, he found Lady without much trouble, but actually catching her was another story. With so many horses having been moved around all at once in a snow storm, they were all riled up! But eventually he got her caught and we finally got her in the barn. So much for saving on time out in the elements!

So last night at the barn was an adventure, but we survived, and I'm so glad the mares got moved to that other pasture now that winter is here full force! The gate to that pasture is much closer to the barn. And the shelter in that pasture is bigger and so much safer than the shelter in the front pasture, so hopefully Lady (and eventually Cody too) will have shelter this winter, since it will be a little harder for Cheyenne to hog the whole thing to herself. And they managed to share that shelter last year, so hopefully they'll share it ok again this year!

Days are getting shorter!

So I was looking at Cody tonight and her coat just seemed darker to me than normal.  Not much, but just a hint darker than I'm used to seeing her.  Upon closer inspection I realized the days are getting shorter, and Cody's starting to get just a hint of winter fuzz!  My thin skinned girl is always the first one to start fuzzing up for the winter!  Though it's anything but winter out there today!  I'm ready for the fall temps!

Baby it's hot outside!

You know it's a hot day when Lady has white salt residue all over her back and butt from sweating out in the pasture all day..... 

You know it's a REALLY hot day when Cody has white salt residue all over her back and butt from sweating out in the pasture all day!