Worrywart Post

Alright, who knows some good rituals for making sacrifices to the horse hoof gods? Cause I need them.

Penn is now 5 days into his lameness. He's had a vet and two farriers look at it, all agree it's an abscess, and no one is willing to dig. Which is fine! I'm not eager to go that route. Obviously, it hasn't blown yet. It doesn't even look like it's anywhere near ready. Penn is signed up for his first recognized show May 21/22, and it would suck to lose almost $500 worth of hotel and entry fees... Plus we're picking up Guinness on the way in and that puts his show in jeopardy! Plus I just want to hang out with Guinness and Austen!

PLEASE SIR, HEAL ALREADY.
And yes, we need a chain to wrap his hoof. *facepalm*

Penn continues to make life hellish. Since he doesn't have a shoe on that foot, he's been on limited turnout while stalls are cleaned in the morning, then he comes back in for the rest of the day. He is trashing his stall on a daily basis. I got him that cheap boot, and while it certainly is holding up OK, it's a bit big for him and didn't make it through the night before he got it pulled off.

Getting the boot back on him last night was terrible. He let me cut off the diaper/gorilla tape bandage (because vet wrap is a no no), but then when I went to wipe some of the extra poultice off his foot, he became a raging, badly behaved demon horse. I'd pick up his foot and 3 seconds later he'd jerk it from my hands as he tried to fly backwards. I got his chain, put it on him, held the rope while I went back to pick up his foot, he flew backwards and right into the chain. We had a small discussion about not being a complete asshat, and then I was magically able to wipe extra goo off his foot, put some protection back on it, and put the boot back on. Lots of carrots happened too as demon horse became better behaved, so don't worry about him.

I turned him out for an hour since I didn't have anything else to do. He seemed sane, so I went and cleaned his stall and chatted while I waited for a farrier to show up.

I went to catch him later and he decided that letting himself be caught was bad, and went galloping around the field like he was in the Kentucky Derby. He's still lame at the trot, but he certainly canters and gallops just fine. He also bounces and bucks and spins just fine. He got sounder as he kept moving around, but I think he was getting high on adrenaline and that's pretty good for covering up lameness. I was only able to catch him once I pulled out my phone to video my "lame" horse galloping around. Note to all those who can't catch your horse: pull up your camera to take pretty pictures of him running and you'll be able to catch him.

Penn is not as athletically gifted as Mikey was in "airs above the ground."

The boot made it though the shenanigans, however it did get turned 90 degrees. One of the farriers checked his foot, found the spot much more reliably (last time he was hoof tested, the vet was only able to narrow it down to a 3" section of hoof), but the hoof was still kind of tough, so no digging into it. My own farrier will be out Monday, so he can have a look too. Maybe I should have called him out right away, but I'm going to guess it would have been a trip for naught, seeing as how this doesn't look ready to blow.

I wrapped his foot back up for the night... and I was able to use vet wrap! There was a bit of commotion in the barn that had Penn distracted (horses walking in for dinner), and I put his lead rope and chain between my knees so if he flung his head up to back away from me, he'd crank himself. The method was very effective, I was able to do poultice, diaper, VET WRAP(!!!!!), and gorilla tape quickly and easily. I decided to put his boot back on, and he let me readjust some of the straps so they were tighter... then I decided to vet wrap the damn thing on, haha. Same thing, held his lead rope between my knees, took the leftover vet wrap and covered the boot so it would stay on and hopefully not turn. It kind of defeats the purpose of why I bought the boot (to avoid vet wrap for the moment), but the boot has a thick heavy duty foam pad in it that both evens out his front end (missing shoe) and gives the sole some protection (for turnout). We're hoping wrapping like this will let him spend the whole day outside (standing in a stall didn't help it blow, and several people agreed that letting him move around should help it).

So much protection.
Yes, the vet wrap is high. The boot goes a decent distance up the pastern, and reviews online had issues with it rubbing... so there's vet wrap under it and over it so it hopefully stays in place.

I'm not soaking the foot yet, but it is getting packed with an epsom salt poultice every night. I know I've soaked hooves in the past, but it must have been post-blow out. One of the farriers said that you want to draw the infection to the sole so it blows out there, which is why she recommends the poultice first and doesn't recommend soaking until it's already blown, or you could inadvertently soften parts of the hoof you don't want abscesses to blow out of. (side note, she's a VERY good farrier and really knows her stuff, so I'm trusting her on this). My trainer said to pack it with ichthammol, which I one day express ordered from Amazon Prime this morning. I figure it can't hurt to try something else for a night or two.

So everyone, what's your abscess protocol?