Gus And His Hoof Troubles

So, unfortunately Gus is starting to have a few issues with his hooves again. Of course that is nothing new. Here's what I was looking at last Wednesday...

By yesterday, the left front was even more broken up. Sad thing is, this is only a 4 week trim. It's unfortunate, but we had such a wet spring and that was followed by HOT, dry weather. Everybody and everything seems to be breaking up. So, I bumped Gus up from a 6 week schedule to a 4 week schedule, least for the next two cycles.

Yesterday, Gus and I had a lovely ride outside. Due to his hooves, I opted to not ride in the outdoor arenas as they are like riding on concrete right now. The indoor would've worked just fine, but it was beautiful outside. So, we worked in the fields. We started off with working on down and round at the walk and trot. When I asked for the canter, we got both leads - correctly - the first go around. I figured we'd try our hand at the hand gallop again... and what a lovely hand gallop we had. Of course is was on the forehand and no where near proper, but since when has Gus had a proper hand gallop?

Tonight is another lesson night, so I'm hoping we can work more on getting him round and forward again. Last week's lesson was primarily working on round and forward. We did the 3 and 4 loop serpentines again at the trot, followed by 20m canter circle figure-8s. We also worked on leg yields, from the quarter line to the rail. Gus was better doing the leg yield off the right leg when I was posting. The left leg yield was fine regardless.

He's still getting bute prior to every ride, as long as I remember. The bute seems to take the edge off and make him a little bit more comfortable. The farrier wanted him bute'd before he works on him in the future, so hopefully Gus will be good for J tomorrow when he gets retrimmed.

Oh, and I asked the BM about how Gus is eating his new grain (Triple Crown Senior). She said he's eating it all up, every meal, including his supps. However, he's not eating his Pergolide unless they break and crumble up the tablets. So... he's obviously been missing a few dosages as she's seen as many as three tablets in and around his feed area. She and the BO break up the tablets, but none of the other workers do. So I'm thinking about crumbling them myself when I make up his grain every week. And speaking of his grain, he's currently on about 1.5lbs twice a day. He's looking great at this current amount, so we'll see how well he holds his weight.

4th of July

I had to take advantage of a day off AND nice weather, so I took the time to work with both boys.

I started off at my in-laws place to work with Gringo. Same ol', same ol' with him. I tacked Gringo up and we went to work in the pasture. We started off just w/t without the side reins. Gringo remembered what we worked on last time, so the whoa was easier to establish this time around. After going around both directions for a couple minutes, I added the side reins. I placed them on the lowest ring on each side and tightened both reins by two holes. I think I may have done too many things at once with that move. While Gringo did move out once the side reins were added, he did so a bit unwillingly. Our only real issue was going to the left, he shook his head (due to the nasty flies everywhere) and freaked a bit when he realised his head was attached to the side reins. After going backwards a couple steps, he stopped (found out the whoa does work) and waited until I came up. So, while we had a moment, it was a learning experience and nothing bad came out of it.

I did attempt to ask for the canter this time around. After the episode I had a few weeks prior, I was a bit leary. We did get a nice canter to the right but I was never able to establish a canter left. So, we left that for another time. I'd rather Gringo have a nice, calm workout then one where he ends up frustrated and freaking out.

Note for next time, bring out a lunge whip. I haven't used one since I was working with Gringo at the vet's place (where I boarded him for a while). So, that'll need to be introduced slowly, but I need a bit more control of those hindquarters and I think I'll be able to get that with the lunge whip.

Gus and I had a really nice ride today. Nothing too amazing, but we did w/t/c/hand gallop outside. I had to take advantage of the weather and decent footing...

So, we started off without lunging today. First time I've just hopped up on him in ages. He started off stiff but worked out of it. We began the ride in the stadium field and trotted over a few of the downed jumps/cavalletti. After that, we proceeded to walk and trot down the field service road. This road runs on the north side of the property and is minimally maintained. So there are pot holes and rocks like you wouldn't believe.

We then ended up on the cross-country course. After walking up and down the new bank jump, we did some canter work. Gus was hesitant to pick up the right lead in the field, but I was able to get the correct lead after making a small circle prior to asking for the canter.

At the end of the ride, we had some nice long canters. I was trying to get a hand gallop on the left lead but Gus was more interested in just cantering along. When we turned back for the barn, I was able to get a very nice, forward right lead canter and then a hand gallop on the right lead. Gus was actually having a little too much fun then.

Our cool out consisted of walking the field service road again and the inner perimeter of the cross-country course.

Both boys got sponged/hosed off after their workouts. Gus got the added benefit of a bath, complete with shampoo and conditioner.

I took some new photos of Gus and his hooves again today, as I noticed that the hoof walls on the fronts were breaking up again. This trim is only 3 weeks old and he's already chipping the hoof walls up. I'm hoping to not have to put shoes on Gus this summer, but if he needs them then they'll be added.

In the last photo above, you can just barely see what's left of the nasty hoof crack that originated back in October 2010. I think with just another couple months, it should hopefully be fully grown out. I'm still debating about keeping Gus on a hoof supplement. I'm sure it doesn't hurt him at all to be on it but does he need it?

These next photos are some new body condition photos. Kinda hard to take photos in the barn and with my cell phone, but I think they do justice.

That last photo shows Gus's topline or rather, lack thereof. It's a work in progress, but I'm hoping that if I can keep him sound we'll have a nice, strong topline back before we know it. Least one can hope.

Re-training Gringo

So, it was decided by my MIL that I should start to work with Gringo and get him going under saddle, finally. Seeing as the vet okay'd the work since the x-rays showed no serious changes, I've slowly started working with him again to see what he remembers.

Well, the first attempt about a month ago was a disaster. Gringo was really good w/t on the lunge but the moment I asked for a canter, he kinda lost it. I was able to get him back and I thought all was well, until we switched directions. Cantering on the right lead he again lost it and thought "Yipee". Out pops the left shoulder and there he goes... literally.

After watching him run around, like the lunatic he is, I finally was able to catch him again. I didn't attempt to ask for the canter again, but I did end the session on a good note by having a nice w/t and WHOA on the lunge line. Called it quits for the day after that.

So this past Wednesday, I decided to work with Gringo again. Better try to make it more consistent, otherwise I won't be getting anywhere. I started off the same way as before, but unlike the first time, this time Gringo was fully tacked. Bridle, surcingle and side reins. We worked on the same things. Walk/Trot/WHOA. The WHOA being especially important. The biggest thing I've learned with Gringo is that he loves positive attention, so as soon as he does something that I like, I praise him. Same goes for if he doesn't something wrong.

I didn't push for the canter, so I only got it a couple times each direction. But he did listen a lot better this time and I think being fully tacked up helped tremendously. Eventually, I'll be adding a saddle up there, but I've got time. I'm in no hurry to get him going under saddle. If it happens, it happens. I won't be upset if it doesn't. And I WON'T be the first person on his back.

So here's to small, baby steps in the progress of Gringo's training. He is listening to me and is understanding what WHOA means. Hopefully one day, all I'll need to say is "whoa" and he stops on a dime. That's my goal for him.

Chiropractors, the Equine kind.

So yesterday Gus saw Dr. K again, his equine Chiropractor. She's amazing and has loads of patience. It also helps that she's also a dressage rider, so she understands the needs of a dressage horse more then someone who isn't familiar with that discipline.

Gus was out in a lot of the same places as before, but Dr. K said she was able to get better adjustments this time. I'm hoping that Gus shows marked improvement like he did back at the end of May when he saw Dr. K for the first time.

This time, she found him out in the low back/SI region again. He was locked tight in the left side and that in turn caused all the vertebrae in the lower back on the right side to tilt. This could very well be part of the reason why he is reluctant to pick up the right lead canter, specifically on the lunge/at liberty. Other points of soreness included the right hip/pelvis area - just above the right stifle, the left side of the base of his neck - near/on the withers, and the left side of his skull/right side of poll - if that makes any sense.

Anyways, I did ask about the excessive yawning. She mentioned that it could be due to him being out in the poll/TMJ/etc or it could be also due to something else, I forget the name. But regardless, she related it to the same reason why Apolo Ohno yawns before any of his races... to get more oxygen back into his body/muscles/etc. So, who knows why Gus decided to take up yawning... the world may never know.

On this past Wednesday, Gus and I had a really nice lesson. We started Gus off, as usual, on the lunge. Nothing new there, just tried a couple different settings with the side reins as Gus decided to be counter-bent, even with the inside reins shorter then the outside. B, my trainer/BO, noticed that Gus seemed more short-strided on the left then on the right, which is the opposite that he normally is.

Undersaddle, Gus ended up being short-strided to the right, which is typical for him. Going to the left, everything was normal. All we did undersaddle on Wednesday was work being round, forward off my leg and "joggy" trot. We did 3 and 4 loop trot serpentines along with canter figure-8s. With the figure-8s, we added an extra circle at X, typically 10-12m in size - still at the canter. We opted to not push Gus with a smaller canter circle to the right, so we stuck with just the 20m circle that direction.

Needless to say, it ended up being a good training session. Gus had some nice moments and only towards the end of the lesson did he start showing some bad steps behind. I definitely think the chiro + squared off hind toes makes a world of difference for him.

Updates... LONG Overdue

It has been FOREVER since I've updated this blog, my apologies. Life has been chaotic and hectic at most and crazy busy in the least. Needless to say, this hasn't been one of my priorities, but I do plan on changing that... or at least updating much more frequently.

Now on to the boys.

I'll start with Gringo.

 

Gringo is doing just a good as he's ever been. Soundness wise he's probably at 99%, 95% of the time. That other 5% of the time he's just slightly off on the left front due to his mainly healed, fractured coffin bone. I had the vet out back in April to take new x-rays of Gringo's left front hoof. Surprisingly, not much has changed but some arthritic changes have started to appear. So it looks as if he's as healed as he's going to get and we just need to basically move on and see how he goes. Vet has cleared him to begin undersaddle work, yet again. But, yet again, I'm very leary to start working with him.

Below is a side-by-side comparison of his March 2008 and April 2011 x-rays. Still EXTREMELY obvious where the fracture site is, but thankfully there are no major red flags with the new x-rays.

Weight-wise, I think I've finally got Gringo down to a weight that is acceptable. He was PUDGY this winter, which is somewhat okay given the fact that he is pasture-boarded in Minnesota in the winter, but I think this was totally unacceptable. He was down right FAT.

These photos were taken in February.

And here's a few that were taken just a few months later, earlier this month in June.

He's still a bit heavy, but better now then he was then. He's only getting 1/3c of alfalfa pellets daily along with his hay. And a lush pasture he shares with just one other horse, Jade. However, I think the combination of hay AND 24/7 pasture is making him still too pudgy. You can feel his ribs though and the vet did like his weight when she saw him in April... so I guess that's saying something positive. I think I'm just used to seeing horses with muscle and Gringo sadly lacks in that department, as does Gus.

Here's a rundown on Gringo's feed stuffs:
* 1/3c of alfalfa pellets
* hay... lots of it (I really should weigh it sometime)
* pasture, again LOTS of it
* 1oz Mega-Cell
* Mag-Ox 56% - 8g
* MSM - 10g

And here's a picture of Jade, Gringo's girlfriend. She's a pretty, young thang ... haha. Actually, she is quite young and very green. Surprisingly still, she's 100% Appaloosa.

Alrightly, now on to Gus. So, what's new with Gus? or what all has happened since October 2010? Gosh, where to start.

October 2010
Well, after my last blog post, we did end up injection Gus's stifles again. Both this time. However, because of his Insulin Resistance and Cushings, we opted to not use any steroids at all, just plain old Legend. Well, in doing so, there was nothing to control the inflammation that is associated with joint injections, so Gus was extremely uncomfortable after his injections and for weeks later.

This was also the start of the beginning of the end of Gus's hooves as we know it. I'd let the pictures speak for themselves, except I must have lost some in the process. Anyways, what was minimal damage in October ended up major damage in December.

November 2010
Nothing notable happened... least nothing that I can recall.

December 2010
All h*ll broke lose this month. I think pictures explain things well enough.

Taken right after being reset in mid-December:

  

So, as you can tell, Gus had two nice sized cracks, one of each front hoof. The left hoof crack was on the inside near the heel, the crack on the right front was located on the outside of the hoof, also near the heel. To this day we have no idea what caused the cracks.

January
After discussing things with the vet back in December, we opted to remove Gus from all work, least til we could get his hooves figured out. So, we ended up pulling Gus's shoes on 1/13 and the vet took some new rads. Had a new farrier out to pull the shoes. He ended up doing just that but no trimming of the hooves. We also ended up putting Gus in come Cavallo hoof boots (a pair was generously given to Gus from a CoTHer) with 2 degree wedge pads. He ended up in that boot combo for about 6 weeks.

Here are the photos and rads:

 Right Front

 

Left Front

February

Again, no big changes from January to the beginning of February. Gus still had not had his hooves trimmed since December, if I'm not mistaken. Still off work and spending 24/7 in Cavallo Simple Boots.

Here's the sequence of photos from the month of February.

February 13th:

The brusing and cracking that you see around the heels/back of coronet band are due to the Cavallo boots. The day I took these, I pulled his boots. It was so icy out that Gus was ending up way sorer then he should have been.

February 19th:

What you see above is all from damage from walking on an icy pasture. There was really nothing to do about it and it was mostly due to not being trimmed since December. This was partially my fault but also due to the farrier. He did not want to trim Gus until more hoof grew out. We more hoof grew, that's for sure, and we ended up with some severe breakage.

March
Again, the photos speak for themselves.

March 2nd:

Basically, more of the same photos, except this shows what happens when he was allowed to continue to walk on long hooves. I was still waiting to get the farrier out when I took these. Believe it or not, Gus was still fairly sound, though still out of work.

March 15th:

So, after talking to the farrier and verbally agreeing to trim him in earlier March, I had to call the day AFTER he was out wondering why the heck Gus was not trimmed as agreed to. Needless to say, the farrier made it out on a Saturday to trim Gus and only Gus. I made sure to tip him for the trip, even though it wasn't my fault that Gus wasn't done when he was out a few days prior.

It was around that same time that a very generous CoTHer sent Gus a pair of Soft Rides. So for the next few weeks, Gus sported these boots, which I LOVED. I highly recommend Soft Rides. They are fabulous.

It was also in March that we got the go ahead to start lightly working Gus again.

April
April started off and continued just like any other month. No major hoof issues with Gus, but as the month progressed, Gus was starting to have stifle issues again. So a call was made to our favorite vet and an appointment was set for the beginning of May.

The farrier also came out in early April to touch up the fronts and actually trim the hinds. Here's the photos from that visit on the 6th.

As you can tell, the hoof cracks slowly but surely were growing out. And other then being off in the back due to his stifles, Gus seemed to be getting over whatever was ailing him in the front.

May
At the beginning of May, the vet was out to reinject Gus's stifles. We opted to do the Legend again, but added a little bit of steroid to the mix to help with the inflammation. Back in October when he was done no steroids were added, because of the risk of laminitis. Well in not doing so, we ended up with more inflammation issues then we had to begin with.

The injections were a success and Gus started to improve. However, we were still dealing with some sticky issues on the right hind. We opted to start Gus on a round of Adequan to see if that would help at all, so a week after the stifle injections, Gus started the 7 series injections. Dr. N also recommended having the chiropractor out to see if she could find any sore spots. Oh and boy did she ever.

Dr. K was out at the end of May and Gus was out just about everywhere. Actually mainly just his back, SI and withers, if I'm not mistaken. I did mention to her about Gus's increased yawning... I have noticed since the beginning on May (when we started to increase his work load) that after working out, he would yawn excessively after the bridle was removed. I don't think we really addressed that issue, so in June I'm hoping we can find why that is going on.

Below are the hoof shots from May:

June
Needless to say, from the end of May until now (the end of June) nothing major has happened with Gus. He's still continuing to improve although was are still dealing with issues on the right hind. He will willingly enough pick up the right lead canter under saddle, but it's nearly impossible to get it while on the lunge.

Speaking of the lunge line, part of Gus's workout includes lunging. We typically spend anywhere from 10 to 20 minutes lunging Gus before riding. He goes in Vienna balancing reins (a type of sliding side rein) and we try really hard to NOT do circles. Circles are bad for stifles.

We are also working over cavalletti and ground poles. Gus can successfully navigate 3-4 trot poles in a row and can also canter two poles, spaced 1/4 of a 20m circle apart, if that makes any sense. I plan on incorporating more cavalletti and poles in Gus's future work, as they really work well in strengthening the stifle.

Just a couple weeks back, Gus was trimmed yet again by the farrier. He seems to be doing okay with his hooves now, and slowly but surely those cracks are growing out. The one on the left front is gone or very nearly gone, if I'm not mistaken. The right front crack is still there, but it too is nearly gone.

Here are the photos:

We also opted to drastically change Gus's hind hooves. He now is sporting a squared off toe. This actually really seemed to help him break over faster in the back. He's now w/t/c without tripping, or at least not tripping nearly as frequently.

Here's the photos of his hind hooves:

So, that's where we stand right now. Here's some basic body shots I took of Gus just the other day. Weight-wise, I think he's looking pretty good. Definitely needs more muscle but the only way to get that back is with proper work and time. Lots of time.

 Gus is due to see Dr. K again on Thursday. I'm hoping we can get the last bit of his TMJ or whatever is causing all the yawning taken care of. I'm also hoping we can get the rest of the SI/back issues resolved. He improved about 85% with the chiropractor back at the end of May, but I want to try to get that last 15%. The only issues noted are the sticky right stifle which is only noticable when attempting the right lead canter and general stiffness, which is mainly resolved with lunge work prior to undersaddle work.

Goals for Gus for the summer are very minimal. I just want him to stay sound and comfortable, both front and back.

Final Diagnosis
We sorta put a diagnosis to what Gus was suffering from all last year. Dr. N says it was subclinical laminitis. Basically we didn't see the root of all his issues, so while we were treating the symptoms we weren't treating the cause. Gus is now, and has been since ~ April, on Pergolide. It's a prescription medication to treat Cushings. Gus started off on 0.5mg daily and just recently (in the last 3 weeks or so) has been on an increased dosage of 1mg daily. The reason for the increase was we didn't think the 0.5mg dose was making any improvements. He is still carrying his winter coat, or what's left of it, on his barrel. The rest of him has been shedded out since about mid-June. He is currently about 3 weeks behind his normal schedule for shedding out. I'm not sure if that is due to the odd spring we had (or lack there of) or due to being on the Pergolide.

While Gus continues to improve with his hoof issues, I don't think he'll ever be totally out of the clear. It'll be something I need to continually watch for the rest of his life. His diet is closely monitored as well, and that in addition to the farrier and prescription makes Gus truly a "hard keeper" now.

His current diet includes:
* 2lb Triple Crown Senior (divided into two meals)
* hay (couldn't tell you what or how much though, I really should retest it)
* MSM - 10g
* MagOx 56% - 8g
* SmartHoof
* Pergolide - 1mg

We keep changing his grain as Gus has decided that grain is the enemy. So, since oh November/December, Gus has gone from Progressive Nutrition ProAdvantage Grass (had to cancel due to feed store closing) and alfalfa pellets, to Purina Enrich 32% (a comparable "grain" similar to PN), to Purina WellSolve L/S to the Triple Crown Senior. Hopefully he'll maintain his appetite with the TC Senior.