When it's your horse, it's a different story...

Honestly, I think I'm adding July to my least favorite month list, though January is still on top. Last year we dealt with a flash flood and illnesses; mine, my husband and my dad. This year, I just couldn't believe the luck July threw at me yet again!

Three weeks ago, on a quiet Sunday evening, I had the misfortune of dealing with a serious horse injury. I have been more than fortunate for the 6 years I've had my guys. A couple bouts of mild colic. A few minor scrapes and bites, mostly on Spirit. Bo tends to be a tad too bossy. But other than that, nothing I deemed serious enough I couldn't handle.

I worked at a riding stable for 2 1/2 years and dealt with many horse injuries and problems in that time. Funny thing though, when it's your own horse, it's a whole different ball game!

Sunday evening, Hubby and I had fed the horses around dusk. It was a quiet evening. Nice actually, if not sultry for Southern Ohio. About thirty minutes later, as I was cooling down in the house I heard our dogs barking. That isn't so odd, they bark alot. We live out in a rural area. However, this barking is what I term "horse" barking. Lucy, our hound, has a certain bark she uses when alerting to the horses. She often barks like that when the horses are rolling in the dirt or playing around at the water trough. I opened the back door to check and was surprised to see Bo and Spirit roaming on our back hill behind our house. I figured I'd forgotten to close a gate. 

First things first, I needed to get both horses back into the corral and stall area. They'd already been out in the front field grazing earlier in the evening so I figured the front wasn't going to be quite as appealing as if they hadn't been out there. So, I grabbed their grain buckets and put a handful of grain in each one to get them inside. Never once looking over the horses to see if they were OK, because, I thought I'd left a gate open.

I ran out to the suspected gate, but it was latched. I didn't want to run all the way up on the hill or out into the back field to check the fence line, but did close the big gate to that field. Then went back  to the house to inform Hubby of my suspicions that there was probably a tree down.

It was dark now. So I turned on the stall light where the horses had been eating the grain and was stunned by the sight of a pool of blood where Spirit stood. My stomach flip flopped. I have to say I panicked big time. I went into the stall to find out where all the blood had come from and in the meantime, Hubby had gone to check the fence line.

Spirit had a  4"X 6" laceration on his back leg, right below his elbow bend, on the hock. I didn't see pumping blood, only blood from the wound but that was bad enough. My mind raced back to the time one of our horses at the stable had gotten into a barb wire fence and tore her leg in a similar area but tore the artery. Talk about a mess! She did survive by the way though the injury was very slow to heal as I've since learned, these types of leg injuries can be. I didn't observe any bone and he was still able to walk though I was thinking shock might set in if I wasn't careful.

I immediately got my head together and with Hubby's help,started with first aid to the wound as best I could. I got it cleaned, and wrapped enough to settle myself down. But  was concerned about Spirit's shock factor. He's a very sensitive horse. He was very hot. Since he still seemed able to walk, we walked a while. I checked the bandage and didn't see major bleed through. When Spirit seemed calm enough, I walked him to the front field to be with Bo. My thoughts, Spirit would be better off walking at his own pace through the night, keeping his circulation going, than standing in a stall. I checked on him hourly, needless to say a sleepless night for me. Besides, Spirit's not the type of horse to take inactivity well.

We don't use barb wire we have horse fencing. Hubby found a solid tree had fallen, bending and breaking a section of fence down to the ground with just enough room for the horses to walk over and out. The odd part of this, in my mind, the horses escaped on the forest and creek ravine side of the fence line. I would not have expected that. But I have a scenario in mind of how it happened and how Spirit ended up the one with the injury. Bo had no marks on him, no scratches, nothing.

I believe the tree fell after we went in the house. At first the horses were probably scared, but then Spirit's curiosity got the best of him so he went to investigate. After he figured it was OK to snoop around, he probably tested the waters over the fence, probably half over and half back. Then, Bo joins the investigation but pushes Spirit, which he often does, and Spirit panicked, then caught his back leg on the sharp ends of the broken fence as he tried to hurriedly get out of Bo's way. Bo, on the other hand, was able to gently walk over the broken fence, plus, he's taller.

Well, it took Hubby three days to fix that fence. We tried to fix it that night but it was just too mangled. I was possibly overly concerned about Spirit's wound and called a local equine vet (we have only one, the other vets are hard get for farm calls) who informed me if it wasn't an emergency, the horse wasn't bleeding out, he couldn't stop by until Tuesday morning. Wonderful.

In the meantime I watched for leg swelling which fortunately didn't occur. I learned how to wrap a Figure-of-Eight leg wrap from my horse first aid book. When the vet arrived that Tuesday morning, he looked at the wound and informed me he'd seen worse. Nice to know. The vet did his own cleaning and wrapping. He didn't think antibiotics were needed but told me to wash with Betadine scrub and re-wrap every three days, for three rounds, then dry bandage every two days for the following fourteen days. Spirit already had his tetanus so that wasn't needed either.

I've learned, it's not an easy task to keep a leg wrap on a horse that is pastured. I'm pretty sure after the first week, Spirit had learned to pull the wrap down. Unless I used a whole roll of Vet Wrap, I was wrapping that part of his leg daily. Keep it bandaged three days, sure! I was lucky to get twenty four hours most days. 

Spirit was a gem through it all, I'll give him that. He's not one to stand still long, he's got to move but when I was working on his leg, he stood perfect! Until last Friday. I guess it was by then, and almost three weeks of all the wrapping, he decided he was done and enough was enough. I got a little irritated with him and finally decided maybe he knew better this time. The vet had told me that eventually air drying would be my friend for this wound. I sprayed some Wound Kote on it, right or wrong, and it's healing fine. He's walking fine. So, in my opinion, we won this one.

I don't have the luxury of depending on a vet to come out when I call. It's just not something that private horse owners in my area can depend on. Maybe it's like that everywhere. But, I managed,and we all got through it. At some point in horse ownership, you will have to deal with something. That's just the way it is. Try to be as prepared as possible, but more than likely it will be something you've probably not dealt with in the past and it'll happen on a hot sultry or freezing cold night. Just the way it seems to work.

Detective Work

I'm a straight forward kind of person. I want the facts, straight up. I want to be able to know what's going on, not have to figure things out. Maybe that's called lazy, but at any rate, when you have animals, and especially horses, you'd better be ready to be a detective when it comes to illness or injury.

A week ago, Monday, things were rolling along as they usually do. Fed the horses in the morning. I always eyeball them making sure no one got into anything during the night. Both looked fine. Spirit seemed like himself. I remember a couple of hours later I glanced out the back door, noticed the horses out on the hill near some trees. Everything OK, again.

Around 12:30pm I went out to open the gate to the front field. Both horses were standing in the stall area. Bo standing near the water tank. Spirit partially in the stall with shavings blanketing the left side of this body and mane. I took that in as being a little odd, but then dismissed the thought. Walked straight for the front field gate and both followed though they were hanging back more than usual. Most days, Bo is right up front ready to go through first.

Still not noticing anything amiss, I opened the gate and Bo walked quietly out to the field. Spirit stood right where he was and it was then I noticed he was shaking. His whole body trembling!

Now, I must admit, I sort of went into panic mode. I'd dealt with various injuries and illnesses with the horses in my care at the ranch, from colic, to a slashed leg artery, to hoof abscesses among a few. But, when my own horse was standing there shaking and trembling I became weak in the knees!

Thoughts running through my head "What if he collapses right here? Where will we bury him? Crap! What's my next move? Crap!"

The poor guy tried to walk out into the field to eat some grass. I quickly ran back to building to get his halter and lead rope. I knew I needed to get him back to the stall, at least to see if his vitals were irregular. Then there was the mud he'd have to wade through. My mind simply said CRAP! Although I'm pretty sure I used the other form of the word. "What if he collapsed in the mud? Oh gosh that would be awful." Pushing those thoughts out of my head, I waded in mud up over my boots, and sloshing mud water on my clothes, I gently coaxed him back to the stall. In the mean time I had to close Bo out in the field because if he came in, well, he tends to bully Spirit out of what he deems, his corner.

I get Spirit into the stall. I break out the first aid kit where the thermometer is stored. I check his gums. Capillary refill seems OK. Doesn't look like shock yet. I take his temp. It was up to 102. I try to check his pulse, unfortunately, I am very lacking in that talent and curse myself for not being able to find that darn artery under his jaw. Check respirations, fairly normal, not rapid and not slow. He does not seem in distress except for the shaking. I'm thinking about which vet would be easiest to contact, but, I don't want to jump to that conclusion too quickly.

My next move was to get an old blanket to throw over him for a little while in case it may be some kind of toxic shock. I feel all over his body, his legs, shoulders, ribs, don't see anything out of the ordinary. He's still shaking.

At this point I'm frustrated. I go into the house to find my two horse vet books. I still can find nothing that really fits. Maybe it's wait and see. I spent the afternoon in the stall with Spirit. There was definitely something going on with him. He wouldn't miss an afternoon out in the grass. I gave him some hay. He started nibbling. His manure looked fine and he wasn't dehydrated.

Eventually the shaking subsided. He walked around the stall. He ate some more hay, slowly. He drank the water I offered in a bucket. The only thing that really started standing out was when I ran my hand down his right front leg, he would lift it up. Now, That's not something Spirit does. I mean, he'll give you his foot if you ask, but to just lift it like a dog would lift it's paw, that was odd.

At that point I started pressing on his shoulder and ribs while watching his face. I noticed a bit of a wince on his part and he looked back at me. It was right then and there I decided that Bo had probably kicked Spirit. I found no outward evidence. No hoof prints on the skin. I'd seen that happen with the ranch horses plenty of times. Usually the mares, Kleo or Lena, hauling off and kicking one of the others leaving a dusty hoof imprints.

From this evidence, I deducted that the reason Spirit had shavings all over him was because he had either been down in the stall, lying or rolling, or whatever, and Bo decided he wasn't happy with that, because Spirit was in "his" space. In response, Bo kicked the crap out of Spirit. That's the only thing I can really come up with. Through the rest of the day and evening, Spirit walked gingerly on that leg, dragging it a little as he walked. I'm pretty sure it was a shoulder or rib kick. Bo usually does the double legged kind of kick. Spirit, on the other hand, is more of a cow kicker type.

The next day, Spirit was not dragging that foot. I still had in my mind any type of toxic problems from EPM to Lyme disease, but he didn't fit any of those symptoms. Over the next few days Spirit was back to his almost usual self. The only other evidence of an altercation that I have witnessed is the fact that Spirit appears a little more wary of Bo. I don't like that, but in the horse world, they have their own rules. I don't stand for any kind of aggravating when I'm around, but when I'm not there, well, there isn't much I can do about their disagreements. Most of the time, Bo and Spirit get along fine. I'll never know what sparked the incident, and I'm not even sure if I'm right about it. I'm only going on clues, evidence and gut feelings.

I never did like playing Clue!