The Founder Warrior came back again! Yay! She had several important events happen that kept her from making the 5 hour round trip to see Tess this summer. I cannot blame her for wanting a break.
And, Dr. Dreamy was wonderful to step in for her. Mama Tess is not a case for the faint of heart and I greatly admire any vet willing to work on her. Truly.
Although Dr. Dreamy loves Tess, he hasn’t seen her as often as The Founder Warrior and therefore doesn’t have the intimate knowledge and confidence of her feet.
For me, to have Cindy back was like a comfortable baton pass. Another trooper, familiar with our command. A bit of relief.
“FIX THIS!” Tess had been showing me her right hoof every time I went to the barn. I knew she needed a trim badly. With foundered horses, it is important to trim them every three weeks to keep the angles correct.
TRIMS AND LOVE
Tess isn’t so happy to see Cindy… but Cindy was happy to see MT.
She trimmed all fours. Tess was more comfortable instantly.
And, we decided to order more maggots that will arrive tomorrow. Maggots are amazing, by the way. They get in tiny cracks and clean out whatever dead flesh may be in there. For us, much better than any kind of surgical debridement.
This is her right foot. She still has the abscess drainage hole.
- This is her left foot – which looks much worse, but hurts her much less. It has a crack up the center and a large drainage hole in the sole.
TESS FELT MUCH BETTER ALMOST IMMEDIATELY – so she went on a walkabout…
MT slept for a bit and then she popped back up to go on a walkabout. I was unloading the care at the time so I took some pics.
Her water trough is outside (unless she is really sore). So she got up, shook herself and grabbed a few glugs of fresh water.
Then she nudged me a couple of times and I did what I was told. I brought her lunch.
Look at her eyes popping out when I offered her a treat! She rarely gets anything different in her diet, but she had been really good for the trim so I treated her.
All the barn cats eating lunch.
BODHI CAME TO VISIT!
Bodhi is a heavy draft-cross horse. He is very heavy up front and needs his walls for support. Sometimes barefoot trimmers forget this about him… and they trim to the shape instead of the hoof. Poor Bodhi was trimmed too short. Arrrgh. I totally freaked out when I saw his feet. I had to remember that Bodhi is not MT. He is young, not laminitic, not metabolic, not Cushings, not hormonal… he was just quicked.
So, I put him in the barn with deep shavings. He and MT are making good barn fellows. She was fine with him in there. He looooved being near all the food!
Bodhi is taller than MT… as you can see, he is helping himself to the stored hay.
There wasn’t much light in the barn, but you can see that Bodhi is in the big stall, MT is quietly eating on her shavings (I couldn’t hang her buckets on the gates or Bodhi would annoy her intentionally) and Scoutypants and Shiva are waiting for dinner.
A better shot.
Bodhi says, “Hi!”.
And these were the colors as I left the barn…
