THIS IS A STORY OF SERENDIPITY

I walked into the pony pen to check on Pepper. He was lying down but got up when he heard my voice. He was bearing some weight on the lame foot by the time I got over to him. He walked off and seemed a little better. He wasn’t dragging the toe like he was two days ago and there seems to be a little flex in the joint. I observed him for a few minutes and decided I wouldn’t call the vet. Today is the day the vet is in Portales area and it costs less on a farm call.

I had started my truck to warm up since I was heading to town. As I was climbing in realized I had the good cane with me. Also, I coughed just a little and thought I really needed cough drops to take with me. This meant unlocking the house to go in and take care of these two items. Neither was drastic and I didn’t really ‘need’ to do it. But, I chose to.

As I came out my door, a white truck turned in with a man driving. As he got out of the truck he held up a bottle and said he was close and decided to run the Xterra by here rather than leaving it in town at our drop off. It was Ryan, Doc’s new vet. Since he was here I asked if he had just a few minutes to look at Pepper. He said yes. I gave him the health information from the last two days as we went to the pen.

Now, I want you to visualize just how prepared we were for this undertaking. We had neither halter nor means to catch and hold him while Ryan checked him out. And the only help he had was me – an old lady with cane.

We actually were able to make it work even though Pepper had other thoughts about the situation. As he cleaned the foot and found nothing he realized that Pepper was sensitive to pressure on the frog. He retrieved his hoof testers from the truck and found a tender spot. He dug it out and opened an abscess. He told me to pack it with Betadine and sugar and wrap for 24 hours.

Later in the day when I had both Tiffany and Jas here to help, they worked together, one holding the foot and the other cleaning, packing and wrapping. He actually seemed to walk a little better immediately although you could tell by the leg lift the hoof felt very different.

Yes, horse ‘band aids’ are like those of people – all colors.

Week later update: His foot is back to normal.

CHRISTMAS PAST

          

  This photo was taken at a Christmas Barn party several years ago and there is a story to this picture. It is of my husband, Ray, who was the Christmas Grinch.

   He would always refer to the helmets as ‘chicken hats’ and, of course, being the old cowboy (real deal believe me) he wouldn’t be caught in one of them.

  One of my students got the idea that we needed to make Ray his very own ‘chicken hat’ so we did. Spray painted a broken helmet bright pink and pasted pictures of chickens on it.

  This was wrapped very carefully and, when we had a lot of bystanders, it was presented to him.

  The old cowboy was a good sport about it and we all had a really good laugh.

COWGIRL UP broken arm

THOROUGH INVESTIGATION WITH NO ANSWER

As soon as I got to the barn after my helper arrived, she asked me if Drafty was hurt. I told her no and asked why. She had gone to start water and it looked like there was a lot of blood on the fence in his pen.

I came into the pen and this is what I found.... There was a lot of it over a rather large area.

The next stop was to check out Drafty. I began at his head and when I reached the other end this is what I saw....

We caught him and took him into the barn to check out the wound and put medicine on it. The gash appears to be about 2 inches long and it is about an inch deep inside. I trimmed some of the hair, rinsed it out and put medicine in. Drafty stood as if nothing was wrong so apparently it didn't hurt too much. After treatment it looked like this.

When we took him back to the pen, we backed him up to see if we could figure out how it happened. When you see the wound at a little distance it doesn't look so gross.

"CSI" Tiffany trying to figure it out. To get the rub marks as high as they are he had to lift his rear end. My guess is that he was kicking at Sadie, the horse in the  next pen and somehow came down or into the cable holder on the fence just right to sustain the injury. If horses could talk ....