I am having my girlfriend, Leslie, work both Bodhi and Wrigley on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

The boys love her and she loves them… it works.   Funny how I give her the biggest horse and the slightest horse…  The coldest and the hottest.  Totally different horses in just about every way, but it works.

I trust Leslie totally to come do her work even when I am not around.

Like today…

WHEN I RETURNED HOME, THIS WAS WHAT I FOUND

I came home Leslie had already gone.  I felt contented, knowing that both Wrig and Bodhi had received quality attention today.

A nice sigh…

I put away the groceries and went to my desk to read the current zillion emails.

…Odd.  There was an email from Leslie.  ??   I knew she had been here so how did she email me?  Did she email me from my computer here?  And if she did, that was a bad sign.

I opened the email:

call me at your house asap

OMG!  I went into a panic!  What happened that I don’t know about?!

Below that email was another email from her:

worked Bohdi and then went to get Wrig….found him with a huge gash on his upper shoulder/neck……dripped water on it as my vet had said to do to help healing process, but cannot find any first aid stuff….looked in your tack room and trailer, only stuff is that spa ointment, do you have hydrogen peroxide anywhere and any healing spray? It’s probably too late for stitches, so best bet is to clean it good an put antiseptic/healing balm or spray on it………call me as soon as you get this…I don’t want to leave without treating him best I can……..

and then this one:

Hey there,
I’m home now…………
So, I found the antimicrobial surgical scrub, cleaned his wound really well, then put the wonder dust on it to stop bleeding and keep the proud flesh away…….it looked fairly fresh (like it happened sometime in the am) and was actually hard to see with all the hair matted to it, but after cleaning it out, it’s about 3 inches long and 1/2 in deep…..I’ve had worse on my boys and they healed without stitches and without scars, so hopefully he’ll heal up fairly quickly, but please check it tonight and let me know how he’s doing. He was a super good boy, letting me tend to him in the wash room of your barn……

I flew out of the house and down to Wrig’s pasture.

He was standing there, looking normal.

I walked up and cooed to him.  I told him that Auntie Leslie had told me that he was hurt…

He showed me his neck.

I wanted to puke, a bit…  OY.  This was not good.   I could see that it was very, very deep.  But he was moving normally, so I thought that maybe it looked worse than it was?…

I put on his halter and calmly walked him to the barn.  I didn’t want him to see me sweat.

I gave him some grain and put him in a lovely stall with some nice, cool water.

And than I sprinted up to the house to call the vet.

MY WONDERFUL VET

My wonderful vet said he would be here in 45 mins.

So, I decided to try to take some pics of the wound.

I wasn’t very successful.  Wrig kept moving and I had a hard time holding him, the camera and the wound open.

Wrig didn’t seem to be in pain and I hoped that was a good sign.

My vet arrived sooner than expected.  As usual, he and his exceptional assistant got straight to work.

They flushed it, abraded it, searched for any foreign matter and then started sewing.

But, before the sewing he said,

“You are lucky.  He missed his jugular vein by just this much (holding up his fingers – just a smidge apart). I can stick my entire finger into this.  It’s really deep, but only sliced the muscle.  He will be fine as long as we beat any infection and he heals.”

I gulped.

My vet said that the wound was rough and deep.  Probably a blunt something that he was pushed into or tripped into or fell into.

He would stitch up the top part of the wound but the bottom was too deep and would have to drain.

Wrig got several stitches a shot of antibiotic in his muscle, a tetanus shot (again) and pain killers.  I was given a jar of powdered antibiotics to administer for 5 days.  I will use my Anti-Flam to help with the pain.

Poor Guy.

RUNNING THROUGH THE PASTURE

As they continued to work on Wrig, I ran up to the pasture to try to find the culprit.

The wound was not a clean cut but there were no pieces of wood or stick in there so they felt it was a dull or blunt piece of metal.  The cut was very deep.  So this object was dull and long and most probably metal.

His pasture is 4 acres and full of trees – and a lot of fencing.  I checked all the fences.

Nothing.

So, I’m thinking he might have caught it on one of the older gates.  I’m grossed out to think how, but that is my only conclusion.

Even if it wasn’t the gate, it could have been the gate.  And replacing it will make me feel better.

A close call.

I’m buying a new gate tomorrow.

PHOTOS – KINDA GRAPHIC SO DON’T LOOK IF YOU ARE QUEASY.

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