Bored, bored, bored...

Dublin's abscess is healing nicely but he is bored, bored, bored. He has taken to pacing up and down the paddock fence and occasionally charging it--like maybe he can chase it away and be free, or maybe he thinks he can jump it, although he never builds up quite that much of a head of steam. Cowboy has been confined to Dublin's end of the pasture to keep him company, making him unhappy as well.

I'm trying to carve out some time to keep him amused. Today I scattered items in his paddock--an old brush, a big square of plywood, and his feed tub with another smaller tub inside it, upside down, with cookies hidden beneath. Then I pulled the mounting block in the paddock and just sat there to see what he would do.

For a while, he studiously ignored me and all the new toys. Finally, he checked out the brush. It wasn't edible, so it was of limited interest. Next came the plywood. Turns out if you catch the edge just right, it actually is edible. But a diet of big splinters is not what I have in mind for him, so I had to cut that short. Then he came to visit me and chew on his rope for a while. Still not very interesting. He started over with the brush again. At long last, he checked out the feed tubs. Ah, now we're getting somewhere! He could smell the cookies and started trying to figure out the puzzle. It's amazing how smart and organized they can be about this. There's a lesson in there about success somewhere. Try one thing. If it doesn't work, try something else. Eventually, you figure out that if you pull the big tub toward you and then nudge the little tub really hard so it flips over, you get the cookies. Then if you pick up the little tub with your teeth, you can fling it a ways and get to the rest of the cookies.

I haltered him and we played a few more games. Mirror me. If I take a step forwards and then stop, you do the same. Ditto for backwards. Back up and stand still. Touch the brush. Put your foot on the plywood and keep it there until I tell you to move it. Can I get you to back up by pulling your tail? Yes I can.

After some time, I figured he was settled down enough to be left alone and headed back to the house. At just that moment, FedEx showed up with Dublin's Christmas present. So of course, back to the barn to try on his new burgundy Parelli halter and lead rope. Doesn't our boy look good in burgundy?

Just a note...

Just a note...After just a couple days of working on administering meds, Dublin has become a model recipient. He has abandoned his headflipping and accepts with grace the daily doses of probiotics and Bute.

Update

This is such a great horse.

You take a 5-year-old Thoroughbred, off the track, with a hoof abscess. He is cooped up, bandaged up,and asked to curtail his activity.

It's time for his first bandage change, to be accomplished by his owner who is definitely inexperienced in this field. It is dark. It is raining. His dinner is late.

But he is asked to stand still while his bandage is cut away. He does. He is asked to put his foot in an iodine bath for 10 minutes and stand still. He does. Then his klutzy owner tries layering iodine, cotton batting, a diaper, bandage material, and a boot (which she puts on backwards and sits around scratching her head trying to figure out what is wrong), and he puts up with it. A minimal amount of pawing and pulling his foot away. But in the end, his foot is wrapped with the least imaginable amount of drama, he is given the rest of his dinner, and all is well.

I just can't imagine why anyone would think these animals are disposable. I love this horse.

Ouch!

It's been one thing after another, as usual, around here, and horse time has been scarce (I think I've written about this a few times before...). So this morning I was rushing to feed so I could get some work done before meeting my family to conduct some business at 10:30, and there was Dublin--on 3 legs. Well, he was actually using his left fore, but only to hobble on. No obvious injuries or foot irregularities, but then again, I wasn't wearing my glasses and the sun was in my eyes. Call to vet, who got here quickly and did her level best to get me out of here by 10:00. Of course, not to be. Apparently Dublin has a gravel at the tip of the frog, and it took a lot of digging to get close enough to the source to relieve the pressure. Called family to let them know I'd be late.

Dublin's Owie

Finally, the pressure was relieved (Dublin was drugged and snoozed happily through the procedure). Then the diaper poultice went on. He is now confined to Cowboy's paddock, which is a lot smaller than Dublin's, and on antibiotics and quite a cocktail of that, probiotics, and Bute. 

Next challenge--this horse has obviously been given Bute before. He has the head toss/lip flip down to a science. And don't forget he's tall, so when he tosses that head, it's very much out of my reach. So being good Parelli types, we are now convincing him that syringes being stuck in his mouth are really good things, by using a syringe full of applesauce to give him a treat. He's still quite suspicious and it took a lot of attempts before he figured out that the stuff hitting his lips and gums actually tasted good. That had him pretty confused, but he finally stopped the head-flipping and at least showed a little curiosity about the syringe. Of course, eventually we had to give him the Bute so now we're suspect again, but it's a start.

The good news is that, after getting the pressure relieved, he is no longer very tender on that foot and in fact, you have to look closely to see that he is off. The poultice stays on until Sunday when his personal physician will be back to check him. Outlook is uncertain as far as how long he'll be out of commission and what kind of complications to expect, but he sure looks good tonight. Good chance I'll be learning to put on those poultices, though. I've gotten the overview of the process from my veterinarian and from attending Stuart Greenberg's Farrier Science class at the JC. Just have never had to personally apply one. Fortunately, Laura has a supply of diapers from the last time she got to go through this, so I'll be spared the first diaper-shopping experience of my life.

Cowboy is actually pretty happy about the arrangement, since he no longer has "the kid" following him around getting in his space, and he can hang out by the fence with Dexter without having to share Dexter.