The Snoot: Part II

Basically this is a post on the firsts I've hit with Opie so far....which is basically just an excuse to share Opie pictures because THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS TOO MUCH SNOOT.

wrapped all around in case he went wild and whacked
himself. clearly he's a very wild child.

First Walkabout

I didn't want to get on him the first day he was at his new home, but I do feel strongly that fresh OTTBs need to maintain human interaction and not just get kicked out of the field to "be a horse and let down". Most of these horses have never just been kicked out in a field since they started racing. I used to be really good at running, but I would hate if someone was like, "You're going to be a runner again now, so go out and run all day! You're welcome!" Bitch, no. My life is eating snacks now. I'm good at it, and I need some hand holding to get back to the running game.

But that was a pretty poor tangent since I'm never going to be a runner again. #lolno

i turned around to see how he would react to the little
bridge but he just followed along behind me right over it.

Anyway, my plan for Day One was a walkabout of the property to let him check things out and see how his manners on the ground were. After a quick groom where I got my first introduction to grey horse poop stain (At least I know he had a nice snooze overnight?), we headed to the outdoor first. Opie was on a mission to see ALL THE THINGS, and I started giggling immediately. 

You guys. He's Zoe's long lost brother. 

snoot it.

snoot these too.

He's doesn't have Zoe's adorable and out-of-this-world smooshy nose, but that big white snoot loves to put itself on everything. It's like his snoot is his lead man. If the snoot says it's safe, there's nothing for Opie to worry about. 

snoot this tractor

even snoot yourself

Once we were done snooting all there was to be seen at the front of the property, I asked barrn mate K if she would walk around with pond with us. She was in the middle of a walk break on the horse she was riding, so she agreed and we headed out with some moral support should the snoot need it. 

spoiler alert: he didn't.

Our first obstacle was the bridge that crosses over a little creek/runoff from the pond. It's maybe three strides to walk across it, and Opie was game to just follow me wherever we were going on this adventure until he heard my foot hit the wood. He stopped for a second, but before I could even take another step to show him it was fine, he was like, "Well, whatever! Adventure awaits on the other side. Carry on!" and marched right across. 

We took a minute to practice standing patiently in the field behind the pond as standing still is definitely Opie's weakest point. Gosh, what a massive problem to have on a baby racehorse. 

We tromped through a muddy patch before walking over a low cross rail without even looking at it, and then heading into the little wooded path and walking over a stacked log jump with no hesitation. He needed some convincing to get over the actual creek/runoff since there was water in it, but a few times each direction and he was half walking, half hopping over it without hesitation.

Dudes, this horse is so cool. He just loves everything, and sees new things as amazing and fun and where is the next new thing so he can snoot that too. As soon as someone is around as the same time as me on a trusty trail horse, we're leaving the ring.

if you liked it then you should have put a snoot on it

First Ride

After getting a better feel for his personality, I didn't think I'd have any issues getting on him Monday. A was there to ride her horse so I asked her if she'd hold him for me at the mounting block before she got on because standing. It's not Opie's thing. 

I hooked him to the crossties with lead rope still attached while I tacked up and he was pretty squirmy, but never actually hit the ties. He would stand still then look down the aisle and be like, "Ahhh, I'm getting ridden, time for ADVENTURES!!!!" and start dancing around again. 

We finally made it to the ring and as expected he was like, "Yeah, this mounting block is stupid. I have things to snoot, bai." A finally popped him once on the shoulder--something he's fortunately very responsive to--and he held still long enough for me to swing up. 

my long lost riding buddy who moved back to nicole's was in town for the weekend
so obvi she had to stop and meet opie. we tried to get him to run around, but he was like, 
"imma take a pass on that" and trotted all of ten steps.

Since he's a little dude--maybe not little little, but certainly nowhere near the height and breadth of Bobby--I was really worried I was going to feel like a fat sasquatch on him. I was pleasantly surprised to find that he already takes up quite a bit of leg width-wise and I didn't feel big on him at all. 

We marched around at the walk both directions for awhile. He wasn't spooky or looky or even particularly strong. He wanted to take a pull, but I just gave him a quick, sharp tug and relaxed the reins a few times here and there and in no time at all I was actually having to give him a little squeeze to keep him from straight up plodding. Same thing at the trot. "Can we go fast? No? Well, okay. And now I'm already tired."

When we had him loose on Sunday, he was trotting towards B and I to get a cookie when he saw the ground pole. He slammed to a stop and put the snoot on it which had us both doubled over in laughter. The snoot deemed it safe so he popped over it and didn't think twice about it from there on out. I walked him over a different stack Monday from both directions without any troubles. So cute, so smart!

I let him finish with about twenty minutes of w/t work. He didn't so much as glance at A's horse in the ring with us, and when Farrier pulled in and started unloading her truck he was like, "Adventure? No? Better keep strolling then." Farrier ducked in to boop the snoot and take a picture to commemorate our first ride. 

side eye because i'd just kicked him for dancing all over. he was also chewing on
a peppermint so don't feel too sorry for him.

She also pulled his racing plates behind so he could get turned out for the first time without fear of clipping himself with toe grabs before he gets all new feet tomorrow. First turnout is going to be a WW tomorrow because this post is already too long and picture heavy. Let's just say thank goodness there was some nice fall foliage to make the pictures pretty because there wasn't a whole lot of excitement. 

The Snoot: Part I

On the off chance anyone missed what I was up to this weekend, I bought a horse!

this horse, to be exact.

I thought for sure I'd need a long break after I put Bobby down, but there's nothing quite like still having to go to the barn every day to take care of other people's horses to make you get antsy in a hurry to have something of your very own again. I wanted something, but I also would randomly wake up in the middle of the night with this nauseous clenched feeling in my gut like I had a horse and something was very, very wrong with it. So that wasn't great.

But I kept casually clicking through the Finger Lakes Finest listings since I live thirty minutes from the track and Instant Gratification is my middle name.

There were a couple that I really liked the weekend before last, but they sold on the spot to people walking around with the volunteers. I figured if I wanted first pick of something nice--and I didn't have to call people on the phone to set up a time to come out (win!)--that would be the best way for me to go, too.

I messaged them to let them know I wanted to walk around with them when they went back out this past Saturday, told the volunteer my budget, and met up with them and another girl who was also shopping first thing that morning. I figured even if there was nothing I liked this time around, there were worse ways to spend a morning!

So what was I looking for? My specifics were basically no mares; no greys; no small, piggy eyes; no bulging psycho eyes; something that had raced more than once or twice; something still in training, not something that got thrown on the walker for half an hour while still being fed a steady diet of rocket fuel and that was his life; and he had to be sound. Age didn't bother me. My main goal above all those other things though was he had to have a brain.

The volunteers showed us a war horse first who was well put together without a blemish on him who seemed like a really sweet guy. He didn't excite me though, so we moved on to two more--a cute chestnut that was at the end of rehabbing a suspensory (pass), and a really pretty big bay who hadn't been in training all year (pass) and had shit feet (pass) and a big knee (pass).

We wandered over to another barn to see if the trainer still had a horse they thought I might like available. He was gone, but the trainer said she had a cute grey they could list and a couple mares. I was like, pass. Again.

And then they led The Snoot out.

"hullo, frenz. you has candies?"

The other girl who I was shopping with also didn't want a grey, but the second he came out we all let out a collective, "Awwwwwww." They told us his name was Opie, he had a great brain, that he was five years old, had just raced two weeks ago, and did they mention his great brain?

I quickly snapped a couple pics to send to Riding Bestie who was shopping with me via text, then remembered to get pictures of his feet to send to Farrier for her approval. Opie stood quietly in the road, snuggling his groom and accepting peppermints from all of us while I went over every inch of him.

We headed across to the trainer's other barn to look at the mares, one of whom the other shopper instantly fell in love with. Meanwhile Farrier had given her stamp of approval so it was basically on me to decide if he was the one. Both me and the other shopper were both trying to play it cool, so we followed the volunteers to the next barn. We lasted about two minutes while the first horse got his listing information taken before we split and went back to the previous trainer's barn to make things official with our picks.

home!

I ran home to grab my truck, ran to the barn to grab my trailer, got distracted showing pictures of his cuteness to barnmates, and then ran back over to the track to pick him up. He'd never been in a two horse before, but he put both front feet on the ramp before stopping to assess. Deb's husband was leading him, and Deb came out of the barn behind us and said, "Oh, you've never seen one of those before. Oh, well. Opie, get on there!" and he scrambled right in.

He rode over quietly and let out one neigh when I stopped the truck in the parking lot. He was a little anxious about being in the trailer, and he backed out one step, got his hind feet on the ramp, and jumped backwards to get out. Once he was out he stood still on a slack lead, but he's going to need some trailering practice to get used to his new chariot.

he's super excited too, i promise.

I let him graze while he got ogled by my barn mates, and then got to creeping. Probably should have made more of a point to do that before I bought him (for next to nothing I should say. Like, tack on a zero and he'd probably bring that with six months of retraining), but we couldn't figure out how to spell his JC name.

He's actually four, not five, though he has an early January birthday. He's a NY-bred by Maybry's Boy (which was obvious once I saw that as they look exactly alike) out of an Eltish mare. He raced 31 times, 12 times this year alone, and was actually entered to race today. He only won twice, and the groom told us, "He won for us once last year. He looked like they were chasing him, and he's never run that fast again."

He's on the smaller side, maybe 15.3hh, but he's a little butt high yet so I think he might grow a touch more. Spoiler alert: he doesn't feel that small when I'm on him.

He's been here since Saturday afternoon and has already settled right in. He was the only horse in the barn when he got here so he had to hang out by himself while we drove the gator up and down the aisle shoveling gravel into stalls and throwing mats around. He didn't make a peep, just kept an eye on us and accepting peppermints whenever they were offered.

they gave me his nice leather track halter, but i wanted him to have a t/o halter
to abuse. the only breakaway left in his size was blue, but i think it suits him.

I feel like I could just keep writing for hours gushing over him, but I'll save that for part two--his first trail walk, his first ride, and his first turnout with his new friends.

Is it obvious I'm super excited to own a horse again? To own this horse? Because I feel like maybe I'm being too subtle about it...

Saturday at Fair Hill

My current coping mechanism for having to put my horse down is complete emotional detachment through eating--which works great until I'm like, "Imma bring this extra apple to Bobby tomorrow cuz he's gonna love it!" and then I break down into hysterics because I can't feed my horse.

Literally the most surefire thing to make me cry is give me a snack I can't feed my own horse. THINGS ARE GOING GREAT, THANKS.

But I don't want to talk about that. Like, ever. Let's move on to far more exciting things!

way to jump that giant thing, 2* rider!

About a week and a half earlier, I decided on a whim that this was going to be the year I finally went down for cross country day at Fair Hill. Nevermind we used to only live three hours away, it made much more sense now that we're easily seven hours north. I texted Riding Bestie to see if she was available to come too (yep!), told Hubby my plans and had him sign on quickly as well.

We got down to PA Friday night, met up with Sarah early Saturday morning, and began driving the most ass-backwards way known to man. I have no idea which way we used to trailer down to Plantation and Carousel Park to show, but holy fuck I'm glad it wasn't that way. What a giant cluster fuck.

sally cousins in the 2*

Approximately five trillion years later we finally made it to parking and jumped onto the shuttle bus just after ten.

i have no idea how mags's fluffy ass fit on that seat
with hubby

meanwhile pig had adopted herself out to a new
family and had zero regrets about it

We had no idea where to start, so we picked a path and started wandering. We watched a little bit of one of the waters, and then plopped down at the coffin complex where Austen soon found us.

lyra has no time for your shenanigans. 

Austen was stuck with us for most of the day and quickly won over the favor of Hubby by giving him her extra beer tent wristband, and by Sarah for her copious use of the word "fuck" which is honestly the easiest way to win any of us over.

We missed quite a bit of the 2* riders while strolling through the trade fair where we lost Austen in the Eponia booth for awhile. I don't know how you Rolex bloggers had such a problem with her shopping habits--the next time we saw her she had a large bag slung over her shoulder...

it was hard to miss buck. he was on practically every other horse.

i would like this jump at my house. #adorbs

We grabbed some vastly overpriced but delish lunch, and then headed over to the tailgate area to meet Niamh. I've met Niamh a couple times before--she was actually the very first blogger I ever met in-person!--and she was just as fun as ever. We were soon joined by Emma and had to get together for an epic dog party blogger pic!

i see your white snow bunny and raise you one black bear.

this poor pooch was like, "let's be friends, guys!
JK I'VE MADE A TERRIBLE DECISION!"

Everyone split into opposite directions from there and Hubby, Sarah, and I headed off in the direction of the start to see more of the course as the 3* kicked off.

jessie phoenix

i can't be the only one that has a huge crush on this mare

We watched the first few riders come through where we could see two big galloping fences at once before deciding we'd move on to a combination to see some action. After all, these upper levels horses weren't going to have any issues cruising over these "easy" jumps. About two minutes later we were maybe six feet away as Jenny Caras's horse came in on a half stride and hung a leg on the picnic table, high-impact splattering them both into the ground. They were both instantly up and seemed no worse for wear fortunately.

We quickly hoofed it over to the corner combination where the first pair we saw was Heather Morris getting eliminated on refusals.

#nope

y u so pretty tho, charlie tango?

That was plenty of drama for us, and we didn't see anything else besides really nice trips from there out.

super bummed colleen wasn't able to hold on for the win

Right as the 3* was finishing up, I think on the very last rider, Britt and I finally managed to run into each other for a quick meet up before we both left.

why can't i look so nice and polished after
six hours of walking around in 90% humidity?

I also met Megan K quickly as Hubby ducked into the beer tent one more time, but my head was pounding so bad at that point I completely forgot to get a picture. Blogger fail. She and her girlfriend were both great though!

here's freebee instead

It was a great event overall, made all the more fun by getting to meet so many bloggers in one place. The massive amounts of doggos wandering around waiting to be pet helped cheer me up, too.

wild puppy

wild black bear

I'd definitely like to attend again, if only it weren't so fucking far away. I hear the Geneseo Hunt Races are a great party day, guys! And only forty five minutes away from me...so probably about sixteen hours for everyone else on the planet.

and for everyone concerned, don't worry.
hubby got his crabs in a bag.

One last celebration

Riding Bestie wrote this poem for me the other night:

Roses are red
Violets are blue
I fucking hate horses
I wish you drank vodka, too

sarah is #judgingyou for your treat whoreness, bobby.

Riding Bestie came up to say goodbye to Bobby and help me torture him with one last photo shoot. It only involved one ugly crying moment for which I am very proud of us.

bobby says, "torture? i got to hang out and have fun while we tortured these puppers!"

I want to thank everyone who contributed to the care package for Bobby and I, as Bobby ate the entire bag of German Horse Cookies in the space of about fifteen minutes and was very upset when they were gone.

"but i don't want those stupid apple nuggets, i want the fancy cookies!"

And, of course, just a giant thank you to everyone who has commented or simply read along over the past several years. Most of you guys never got to know my original heart horse, Red. Bobby has been the star of the blog for so long and has expanded my horse community horizons so much that it feels like I'm losing part of my identity.

so many memories, and probably just as many shows where we fucked things
up and didn't come home with anything. 

Despite Bobby's unwavering joie de vivre, there's no doubt in my mind it's his time no matter how unfair it is. His coronary band is getting worse by the day--it's practically crumbling apart at this point--and I can tell he's starting to get bored living in his stall even with the never-ending treat supply. He's going to go out while he's happy, and his pain is being managed, and never knowing how truly awful his situation is.

who knew barking dogs locked in cars were the key to his posing all along?

There will be another horse, and the blog will continue. However, I don't want to make the same mistake and rush into another horse and end up resenting them for the first year like I did with Bobby when Red died. Horses actually cost real money, a concept I am most unfamiliar with having gotten all of my horses over the years with a combined purchase price of less than $1,500. Once these final two vet bills are paid off I'll start saving and see what shows up on my radar....you know, for around $0.

the only bad part about all these ribbons is having to hang them back up in chronological
order because that's how i roll. 

In the meantime, Bobby will be spending his weekend getting every single food item he can possibly want stuffed down his throat, and on Sunday I'll turn him out in the indoor over night with his bestie so he can have one last rumpus epic rollies fest. He's given me the gift of being the kindest, most patient horse throughout this whole process. I want to repay him by letting him do whatever the fuck he wants with a side order of ten thousand pounds of carrots.

and check with the local tack store to see if they carry fancy cookies

And that was that

As scheduled, the vet was out yesterday afternoon to get another set of eyes on Bobby and take some new images of the cursed RF.

if you just, you know, removed the upper half
it looks pretty okay on the outside.

Bobby seemed to be holding up well with his new diet and restricted turnout to the indoor. Everyone kept telling me how he was prancing around the ring looking happy and cheerful. In his stall his attitude has been bright and perky, and he hasn't made any fuss about his new schedule.

"HAI I NEED EXTRA COOKIES PLZ."

Bobby's usual vet is out of town all week, but I liked our substitute vet a lot. She was perfunctory and didn't get caught up oohing and ahhing over his leg when clearly his foot was the disaster area. She got the facts, gave me the facts, and that was that. She had me take him to the indoor to walk him out and trot him back, both of which he did with zero hesitation despite being severely crippled.

I told her he'd never had to be tranqed to get rads before and she put the syringe away without argument. He was a little difficult to get pictures of because he was so uncomfortable standing on the blocks, but we made it work and got what we needed. Really, after the first shot, there wasn't much of a need to take anything else.

I know absolutely nothing about reading x-rays or what the inside of a horse is supposed to look like, but even I could see as soon as the image popped up we were fucked. Positively, no returns fucked. Where we were hoping for maybe an abscess track or mild rotation, instead his coffin bone had dropped and was about 2mm from blowing through the bottom of his sole.

You can't un-drop a coffin bone. Best case scenario was he grew a massive amount of sole in a short amount of time and we could figure out shoeing to keep him pasture sound. But realistically Bobby has always had bad feet, and he obviously wasn't about to grow a new one out of thin air.

The vet's best guess was that it wasn't diet related at all, but that it all came back full circle to the fucking sarcoidosis. She felt that whatever hot mess mystery was going on in the coronary band had damaged the connective tissue to the coffin bone causing the rapid sinking.

You can't cure sarcoidosis. You can't regrow the inside of a broken foot. As vet handed over a bottle of Bute and gave Bobby's giant lug head a hug, she told me I had maybe two weeks before the coffin bone was probably going to come through. "I've never had a horse where I wanted to do a leg transplant so badly."

"does leg transplant mean moar cookies?"

The RF was burning up this morning and we're on high alert for signs the LF wants to go, too. After a sleepless night, the appointment is set for late Monday morning. I hope that's not pushing it too far out, but so far the Bute, ice, and his pad have kept him pretty stable.

Bobby outwardly seems no worse for wear. He's so happy and in your face that it's made this decision hard, but at the same time I'm glad I get to let him go while he still thinks life is great and nothing matters more than where his next snuggle and snack comes from.

New Vocabulary

Usually when people see Bobby's leg and foot we get "weird" as the response. The farrier Farrier brought in, Other Farrier (OF), coined it "remarkable".

Which, like, I could do without, but it did make me laugh.

I wanted to give a quick update on how Bobby is doing and how the consult with OF went mostly so I have everything in one place to go back to.

team farrier trying to make some magic happen

Bobby was doing worse this morning. Without even seeing him go I could tell he was not feeling okay. He's the perkiest creature on the planet, and this morning he just looked flat out despondent. I turned him out in the indoor to see if he wanted to walk around a bit, but he just rolled and stood there staring at me until I put him back in his stall while we waited for Farrier to arrive.

OF poked and prodded first thing then took a look through all the rads we did last month while Farrier and I filled him in on all the details of the last six months.

"What did Vet say about it?"
"She told me to send him to Cornell because she was out of ideas."
"And what did Cornell say?"
"They gave me a bunch of steroids because they didn't know what to do with it."
"Have you tried--"
"WE HAVE TRIED ALL THE THINGS IN THE LAND EXCEPT STEROIDS, ASK ME AND I HAVE TRIED IT."

favorite activity: stalking kitties

Basically what everything came down to is that OF felt strongly that Bobby is pre-laminitic in both front feet. Probably the acute lameness in the RF in that area I was suspicious of is an abscess resultant of the oncoming founder as Farrier suspected.

He thought of the bulging coronary band as an event line, saying that it's resultant of trauma and if it was viable tissue still it would be weeping blood and/or pus, but since it's not it's unlikely any vascular activity is getting to it. Likely the swelling was from a gas pocket and he could still try to brew up an abscess in it. He thought that underneath it Bobby could be growing a new coronary band, and once the bulging mess on top gets ahold of itself better, Farrier could start rasping it off and we'd see something significantly healthier underneath. Farrier seemed dubious about this theory, but I thought it was pretty interesting. Not sure I believe it, but interesting nonetheless.

He wanted Bobby to trim down significantly as he felt he was carrying way too much weight and not enough muscle. I was slightly perplexed by this as no one has ever accused Bobby of being fat--in fact they're usually asking what I feed him to imply it's not enough. And, you know, he's a pretty solid as shit Second level horse. He hasn't been worked like a beast lately, but he's not some flabby, floppy retiree.

The idea was basically that less weight on his feet is better, and obviously no sugar so we cut his grain completely.

And no snacks. Because this farrier is a SAVAGE. #wouldratherhavecancerthannosnacks

Multiple attempts of setting Bobby up with various pads and glue-ons were highly unsuccessful as he couldn't get comfortable with anything. He needs sole support for the founder, but he doesn't like any sole pressure because of the navicular. They finally just taped his giant pad back on and set the ground rules:

• No more grain.
• No more alfalfa.
• No more snacks.
• No more grass.
• No more turnout unless it's in the sand indoor, and only if he wants to leave his stall. No forcing him into turnout. 
• Check pulses and temperature daily. Full blown founder is the biggest threat right now, but there's still the threat of detachment. 

Overall he thought that the internal structures of his foot looked good. In fact, everything below the coronary band looked pretty okay. He thought Farrier was doing a good job working with what we have. Hopefully the diet change halts laminitis at X and they'll be able to reassess to see what type of shoeing and padding he needs. He felt confident there was more to be done to get him back to work for awhile longer yet. 

I don't know if I feel any better because I still feel very doubtful this is something we can fix without dragging my horse through months of pain which I absolutely won't do, but I do like having a solid plan of attack. Regular Vet is on vacation all next week, but the vet office assured me she'd kept everyone up to date on Bobby's medical marvels so I'm going to have a different vet out on Monday so that they have a baseline in case things go south in a hurry. 

Very importantly in the meantime, what's everyone's favorite sugar-free snacks? Bobby cannot go without snacks, dudes. Unacceptable.

Fucking Fuckity Fuck Fuck

Alternate Title: Not sure if I'm going to lose weight because I'm so tightly wound I feel like puking all the time, or if I'm going to gain ten thousands pounds from stress eating candy nonstop.

But clearly too long for a title, so there you are.

"hai, i love cookies and making everyone
SUPER CONFUSED about how i'm still alive!"

Saturday morning I was out and about at the barn helping set up for the next day's hunter pace when the barn worker texted me that Bobby looked more lame than usual and did I want him to go outside. I scurried back inside to take a look for myself. Everyone at the barn is pretty familiar with Bobby's various stages of "What in the actual fuck is going on with your leg/foot? Oh well, just look the other way!" so I knew he actually had to be lame lame for her to ask. Sure enough he was gimpy as fuck on the RF, but looked perky otherwise so I tossed him out.

On Sunday he looked about the same, but I gave him some bute after body clipping him anyway. Then I drove home and had a crying panic attack that I was going to come out Monday to see my horse covered in weeping sores from generalized sarcoidosis because when Cornell shaved his leg to ultrasound it, it set it off again.

Spoiler Alert: Didn't happen. His coat looks just as lovely as before, it's just not causing him heat stroke any longer.

except when we do intense rollies and get it filthy

He looked a little ouchy still on Monday, but nothing to be concerned about as Farrier was coming out today to do him anyway.

When I went to feed him breakfast Tuesday, he stood still in the middle of his stall on an island of shavings he'd pushed together before slowly shuffling over to his bucket to eat. I gave him the hairy eye and quickly finished up graining everyone else before investigating further.

I keep my emotions pretty in check when it comes to Bobby's various lameness cycles--at least while I'm at the barn. (I do a lot of crying in my car.) I'm more the type of person to dive in and tackle an emergency calmly head on and then freak the fuck out about it later. On Tuesday I pulled the Back on Track wrap off (Generously donated by Archie!), didn't see anything out of the ordinary on Bobby's ever swollen-ish leg, and moved on to his foot.

I check his feet every day for signs of heat from laminitis or cold from detachment--both things we're constantly concerned about. Nothing felt out of the ordinary, so I picked it up and dug around. Once his foot was clean, I looked at it from one direction. Then another. Then from over there, and over here. I tried to get some pictures of what I thought I might be seeing and sent them to Farrier--at seven in the morning because I'm that client.

"Not to be an alarmist, but I think I'm seeing some sinking of the sole on the right side of Bobby's foot. Should I be being an alarmist about this?"

And then I went into full alarmist mode anyway because what the fuck do I know about how to treat a horse that might be foundering? NOTHING. I KNOW NOTHING.

fucking coronary band getting worse by the day and no one knows whyyyy

Farrier texted me back right away because that's the type of farrier she is and told me to slow down the alarmist bells. Was his foot hot? No. Was he standing tucked under himself? No, but he doesn't want to move in his stall and is awfully fucking shifty. Was the sole actually soft and sinking or was I just imagining things? ...I don't know, I could just be imagining things.

She suggested it could just be an abscess, but since she was going to be out first thing the next day she thought he'd be okay to wait. I went full on founder protocol anyway. I iced, I packed his foot, MOAR ICE, MOAR PACKING, BM bedded his stall to his eye balls, I gave him bute, and we cancelled his grain dinner.

By late afternoon he was still lame, but he was able to walk down the aisle to the wash stall without any resistance or trouble. With that much improvement, I didn't call the vet and updated Farrier that he was looking better.

barn cat here for your moral support needs. snuggles R free.

This morning he didn't look great in his stall again, but he was more mobile than the morning before. Farrier arrived bright and early and went right in his stall to begin poking around herself. She didn't feel any heat either and wasn't too concerned with the sole. She didn't think we were dealing with a laminitic episode quite yet and still thought abscess was the best bet....but the abscess was likely an off shoot of something going very wrong inside the foot and not just some foreign object causing discomfort.

Shoes off, there was no sign of separation, and he was willing to put full weight on it. Farrier looked at it some more before asking if I would be okay if she brought someone else in to take a look because she was out of ideas. Um, yes, duh. Someone please just make my horse sound. She cut him a pad from 4" thick foam and taped it on until Other Farrier could come out in the next day or two. His LF heels were starting to contract a bit from the wedge on that foot (Oh yeah, remember how he has navicular too?) so she tacked a flat aluminum shoe on and moved on to trim his hinds.

duct tape and foam. hmm, i could be a farrier if
it were this easy!

When she was out last week working on other horses, she asked how Bobby was doing and I was like, "LOLZ, I think he's starting to go neurological actually." And there was much LOLing because why not just add something else catastrophic to Bobby's list of medical marvels?

But I was only kind of kidding.

While warming up, whenever he'd circle his hind end would disappear for a step before he caught himself. Once he was warmed up and collected it wasn't an issue. He could circle and do all the lateral work without any problems, so I didn't give it much credence. Maybe he was just stiff, or sore, or needed another chiro visit. Bobby's stifles have always been a big weakness on him, although this felt more overall hind end than his usual stifle problems.

Turning in the aisle has never been something he does gracefully--something Vet knows to ignore because it's just him--so I didn't see anything there to raise alarm bells. Only now in his stall I was starting to see him pull his leg across to itch his face on it and leave it crossed.

When Farrier went to ask him to step aside to center back in the aisle, he didn't budge at first so she gave him a push on his haunches. His hind leg crossed over and he nearly fell down before managing to get his legs sorted out and catch himself. Farrier froze and stared at me.

I must have looked as awesome as I felt because she quickly joked, "No, he's fine, Carly! He's not neuro! He's not going to founder! That right foot is just fine! Everything is fine with him!"

is his leg eating his foot or his foot eating his leg?

Since the initial diagnosis in May, it's always been a matter of when and not if we were going to have to put him down. Bobby has been doing his best to turn back every new malady that his freaky body can come up with, but it was clear pretty early on that eventually that foot was not going to hold out.

Farrier said she'd try to get him through laminitis when it comes--and it will come--if that's what I wanted, but pointed out that there wasn't going to be any hope on the other side if he made it through. He'd still have sarcoidosis. He'd still have navicular. He'd still have this crazy coronary band set to detach at any time. He could be neurological. He could founder again.

It doesn't matter. I won't let him go through that. If we can't get him sound in short order, Bobby's time has come. I'm not ready. I'm never going to be ready. That won't stop me from making the right choice for my horse to repay him for everything he's given me.

forever the nosiest, most personable and obnoxious horse