Hannibal

Meet Hannibal (aka Gus).

After Gus's nasty behavior last month when the chiropractor was out, we came up with a unique solution to Gus's attempts at biting people. A grazing muzzle. Worked wonders and he was so ashamed to be seen wearing it as well. Was quite comical.

So, Dr. K found that Gus has more or less the same issues as he's had in the past, just to a lesser extent this time around. Most of the issues were isolated to the right side of the neck, the lumbar region of the back and the sacroiliac joint. For the most part, all on the right side of his body. He was also out at the poll again, so he was adjusted there as well.

I definitely think we made some progress, as far as behavior goes. B, the barn owner, actually gave Dr. K the grazing muzzle to use on other clients. Kinda funny, but it should help make her job safer. FWIW, Gus would never try doing what he did last time with me. He respects me. I don't think he has any respect for C, the barn "manager". Which is too bad (though I secretly think she doesn't like Gus - which horses can sense when you don't like them).

I had a chance to soak and rewrap Gus again today. He's looking a bit better but I honestly can't tell if he's healing up or what. Dr. N will be out at the barn tomorrow to look at another horse, so I'm going to have her recheck Gus again as well. If he doesn't need to say wrapped, then we'll pull the wraps. Otherwise hopefully on Monday, when J's out to retrim Gus, he'll be able to let me know what he think. Haha - if he'll even talk to me.

I guess we'll see what Monday/Tuesday brings for us. Not sure when I'll be able to make it back out to the barn because I'll be out of town until Sunday evening (going to IA/WI to see family and go to the apple orchards - family tradition).

Wednesday, Day 14 of Abscessing

Today is day number 14 of the second round of abscessing. I guess if you were to count from day one, back in August, we're on day number 36. Yikes. That's depressing, when counting from the day it was first diagnosed. Anyways, here's the abscess photos from today. Like ususal, I did a 15 minute espom salt soak followed by a hot pad of Animalintex, cotton, vet wrap and finally topped off with some duct tape.

Gus was a bit embarrassed by the hot pink name tag. Haha. 

I did take some new body conformation shots as well. Just for comparison sake, here's Gus from today:

And here are photos from May 2010. Granted he's in his spring coat - clipped, but weight wise, he was still pretty dang skinny. Just comparing his neck muscles... it's amazing. And the above photos, taken today, show Gus about 6 weeks out of work. He looked a bit better at the end of July, muscle-tone wise.  

Wish Gus still had his mane. Sadly he decided to rub a chunk of it out and it just never grew back right. So we'll see how it grows over the winter. 

I also took new photos of Gus's hooves in general. As usual, they are taken left front to hinds, ending with the right front. 

I already posted this photo above, but note to the left of the abscess - the hoof wall. Doesn't it it look odd? In the pictures posted above (the abscess ones) you can see the odd separation. I'm not entirely sure what's up with that - I plan on leaving a note for J. Then again, why should I even bother when I never get any answers?

 Ugg. Note the flaring of the hoof wall. Yikes. 

And the quarter crack... sheesh, when will it end?

This hind (right) hoof is also flaring badly. For whatever reason this hind has been having more issues flaring then the left, but regardless, IMO, both hinds are flaring badly - and they shouldn't be. Again, the hooves are only at 6 weeks out - Monday when Gus is retrimmed, it'll be 6.5 weeks. 

God, the bottom of his RH looks like a dinner plate. Sheesh!

Underrun heels much? 

Anyways, I think there is not a lot to be desired with these hooves. No telling what I can get the farrier to do. But I'm thinking something needs to change again. Maybe I should run things by the vet? 

Abscess Updates... Long Overdue

I've been horrible about updating the blog this past week. My bad... life just got in the way, you know how that goes. Anyways, as I type, we are into day number 12 of dealing with this latest round of abscessing. Sheesh. Still no end in sight as it's still draining. Go figure. I was out this past Wednesday (the 14th), Friday (the 16th) and Saturday (the 17th). Nothing seems to have changed much. Here's the photos from the past three trips to the barn.

Wednesday, 14th (Day 7)

Friday, 16th (Day 9)

Saturday, 17th (Day 10)

It's obviously looking a lot better, as evident from the last couple of photos I took on Saturday, but still no where near healed. Farrier won't be out until next Monday, so hopefully everything will stay together until then. I'm still a bit concerned about the hoof wall that seems to be separating a bit - it's to the "northwest" of the abscess - left side of hoof if looking at the photos posted above. Not sure if the white line is separating or if the hoof wall is just seriously chipping. Gus will be at 6.5 weeks when he's trimmed again on Monday... not sure if we need to bump up the timing or just keep up what we are doing.

Anyways, I wasn't able to make it to the barn yesterday or today. Tomorrow isn't looking so hot either (due to my work schedule), so I asked the BO to see to Gus and make sure his hoof stays wrapped. I had kept his Soft Rides off for the past few days, just to give his hooves a break... but with the little bit of rain we got yesterday, I'm not sure if the duct tape boot is enough. I suppose I'll have more information and photos again by Wednesday or Thursday (I'll be out to the barn Wednesday night to soak/rewrap).

Hoof Troubles

Besides dealing with all the abscess drama, Gus's hooves are becoming more and more brittle. Now that they are kept under wraps 24/7, the chipping isn't getting any worse, least at the moment, but boy do they look pretty crappy. I'm still questioning the toe length on Gus... it looks awfully long in some of these pictures.

This first group of photos is from September 8th:

 Note the nice chipped outside hoof wall and toe (this is the LF).

 Note the chipped outer hoof wall on the RF.

 This is a view of the inside of the RF. Very chipped.

These next photos were taken today, September 11th:

Again, I'm just amazed at the poor hoof quality that Gus has again this year. This is two years in a row that we've been dealing with crappy feet. I'm not 100% sure that just the weather is to blame (hot/dry, then hot/wet, rinse and repeat) but I don't know what else to blame. It's frustrating to Gus to have to deal with all these hoof issues, but there isn't much that I can do about it. Gus is still on a hoof supplement - currently he's on SmartHoof pellets. I'm looking at switching to Grand Hoof pellets as it is comparable to what he's on already, plus it supplies some MSM as well. We'll see. I need to reorder supps ASAP anyways.

Besides dealing with the crappy front hooves, Gus has also developed a hoof crack in his RH. I had originally posted photos of the hoof crack last week... here's some new ones from last Thursday.

At least it's not progressing... but still frustrating. Unfortunately Gus still has to go another two weeks until he gets trimmed again. Here's hoping that we're over these abscess issues by then and the quarter crack doesn't further develop.