Dr. Kellon's Study

Well, I finally took the plunge and applied for Dr. Kellon's study on DSLD and am hoping to start getting Orion supplements.  I know that this recent flare up is most definitely due in part to the mud and his hooves being too long at the moment, but I've been wanting to get him started on this for a long time now, so I just submitted the form.  Part of my issue was money, but the larger part was that I knew before that I couldn't get out there to give him the supplements every day like it needed to be and did not want to lay that onto whoever was boarding him.  It's not fair to them, and I prefer to be in charge of it just so that I know for sure what he is getting and how often and how that is effecting him, etc. etc.

So now if we get approved for the study and can start on the J-herb and AAKG, we will see what happens when that is paired with me keeping his hooves trimmed to where they should be and everything else that goes with his upkeep on my part.  I am anxious to find out how this goes.  I hate seeing him in pain and want to prevent that as much as I can.  This disease sucks, but we will fight it.

Read more about Dr. Kellon's study here: 

http://buyaakg.weebly.com/dr-kellons-de-study-info.html

Making It Happen

Well, fellow bloggers - and anyone else who feels up to reading my lengthy post - how is everything?

It's been a super busy, productive month so far.  I am currently in the process of moving back to my hometown of Elkins.  My best friend from high school and I might be getting an apartment there together, and I'm being considered for a position as a vet assistant and some other jobs up there at the moment.  *excited squeal*  I don't really know the status of any of those at the moment, but I am both nervous and confident and excited and impatient all at the same time.

I got my license and my own car, finally.  The freedom I'm experiencing at the moment is incredible, and I'm SO glad I finally have it and can go and do what I want, when I want.

Other than the past couple of days when the weather has been crappy, I've been out to see Orion every day, even if it's just to take a couple of horse cookies out to him and love on him for a few minutes.  When there's time and it's not threatening rain or about to get dark, I've been working little by little on getting his hooves trimmed myself.  It's a very slow process because I'm a newbie, made even slower by the fact that his DSLD was flared up for a few days last week, during which I didn't want to make him put any added strain on his legs, so I just fed and Buted him while cleaning him up and brushing him (I could seriously make a mini horse out of all the hair that came off this guy).  The third day, he finally allowed me to mess with his feet more and I got a little done, but I was on a time crunch, so only a bit got done.  Then I had to work over by a few hours a few nights ago when I had planned to go out and do more, so that visit was cut to just a ten minute visit with treats and games in the field (he followed me at a walk and/or trot as I walked and/or jogged, and he got a treat - if he was behaving like a gentleman and not a brat with pinned ears).  He caught on quickly and even threw in a little hop as he was trotting behind me at one point - scared the crap out of me for a second because I thought he was acting up but then realized he was just having fun and that was it.

So I'm getting him back to where he needs to be - albeit slowly.  He's been putting weight back on since the move, and he's doing pretty well with that.  Still not where I want him to be, but it's just a long process.  I'm impatient for him to be back to normal, and I know that's not realistic at this point.  But he is definitely showing improvement.  I'm withholding pictures at the moment, but I will post some here in another week or two.  I've been taking them every few times I go out to track the changes, so I can definitely say for sure that he is looking better and showing steady improvement.  These past couple of days I've been frustrated with the rain and haven't gone out just because I know I can't really do anything in that and could do other productive things in prep for the upcoming move.

Speaking of moves, I've also talked to the B.O. where I used to board Orion in Elkins, and she has told me I can bring him back, so as soon as I find someone to trailer him there, I will be taking him back home.  He'll be there before I am, but I know I will be there soon and will be able to drive up and visit/check on him in the meantime, so it will work out.

Big changes are happening all around, and I'm more excited than I can accurately express right now!

The Prognosis

I still feel like, to a certain degree, I’m still processing the news that I got yesterday.  I know what’s happening, what I have to do now, and what I will eventually have to do.  I knew that I would probably get the news that I did, but I was hoping and praying that I wouldn’t.  I expected it, but I didn’t want it.

Orion has a tendon/suspensory problem.  He’s not too bothered by it, but it’s there.  It may be part of the reason why he reacted the way he did the day I tried to get on him at the new place.  From what I understand about DSLD, which wasn’t officially diagnosed but has a good possibility of being what he has, it’s always there, but there are good days and bad days.  That may have been a bad day, and because he’s such a chill horse most of the time, he just wasn’t letting on that anything was bothering him.  Heck, even yesterday when the vet was messing with his legs and really cranking down on his tendons in places, he couldn’t have cared less.  He just stood there, calm as could be, sometimes nuzzling Sara, me, and at times, the vet herself, loving on everyone and just being his usual loves the world self.

So he is okay for now.  There are a couple things that I am going to add to his regimen that weren’t there before, such as putting a bar shoe on both front feet to help take some of the strain off of his suspensories, and starting him on Biotin as a supplement.  Both were suggested by his vet.  Also suggested by her were things that we’ve already been doing in an effort to try to reverse what had been done (I know now that these things will never actually reverse it, but they will/are helping make him more comfortable), such as lowering his heels (his farrier has been doing this, and I had planned to start doing it myself in between farrier visits this summer), using SMB boots or polo wraps for added support when doing anything with him (I’ve done this from the beginning, first with polos and starting a couple years ago with SMBs), and keeping him at a healthy weight so that he doesn’t have any extra unneeded strain on his legs.  His weight hasn’t been an issue until recently.  He was at a pretty healthy normal weight until the last few months, at which point he’s started to turn into a regular chunkmeister. Until I can ride again and when my arm is strong enough to deal with it, he’s going to start walking with me everywhere.  If I can get a friend to come walk with me before my arm is strong enough, he can walk then too, with them leading him.

He can still be ridden at a walk as long as it doesn’t bother him and he doesn’t come up lame because of it.  We rarely went above a trot when riding anyway, and even that wasn’t often, so this isn’t a big concession.  I’ve always been super paranoid about what I do with him because of his previous tendon issues, so I guess in hindsight, that’s a very good thing.  And the fact that he can still be ridden is good, because that means I have another means of exercising him besides hand-walking and lungeing.

She also left me with a tube of bute and instructed me to give him a gram of it if he seemed to be in pain.  No more than four grams a day, but if it gets to the point that he needs more than even two grams, I’m to call her and let her know.  At that point, it might be time to re-evaluate.

In talking to Liz yesterday, we contemplated the possibility that he’s always had this condition.  She was looking at pictures from the first day she met him, before getting him, and said that even then, his fetlocks looked “wonky”, though nowhere near as severe as they are now.  It wasn’t enough that anyone really took notice until the last year or two, and it didn’t drastically become worse until the first half of this year.  Throughout it all, he hasn’t seemed bothered by it and has never come up lame because of it; for now, it just looks bad.  If he did have it before she got him though, it would definitely explain why he broke down as badly as he did while they were training. 

Following that same train of thought, it makes me wonder if the reason he is a “left-handed” horse is because of this as well.  He’s always preferred going in a counter-clockwise circle when we lunge and put up a huge fuss about going clockwise.  The same goes for turning when riding. He majorly prefers turning to his left over his right.  His right leg was the one that was ouchier during the vet visit yesterday, and if I’m remembering correctly, it took the right leg a little longer to fully heal when he had his tendon injuries.  I never put two and two together, but with this new bit of information, it really makes me wonder.

Later on we might do some ultrasounds to have something to refer to as it gets worse, but at this point, they would have shown the same thing no matter what actually is going on.  There would be disruptions and abnormalities in his tendons and suspensories because it’s already obvious something is going on.  On top of that, we didn’t have enough electricity to run an ultrasound yesterday, so next time I’m going to find somewhere that we can hook up the machine just for those shots of his legs.  Regardless of what the ultrasound showed, the treatment would have been the same, so there really wasn’t any vital information lost by not doing them.

So that’s pretty much all there is to know for now.    I’m going to start cracking down on his diet, exercise, and these things with his feet (shoes will go in the few couple weeks).  But above all, I’m going to love the crap out of him even more than I normally do and make sure he has the best life he can possibly have for as long as he is happy and can be made comfortable.  I hope that this is a period of years, but no matter how long he’s still here for, I’m going to make the most of the time that I have with him.

Orion Goals, Part 1

With the upcoming move (2 days! Squeeee!!), I've been thinking a lot about what I want to accomplish with Orion. I think I mentioned before that a lot of the things I have always wanted to do with him require consistency, and until now, we haven't had that, so it's been pointless to try. Now that I know I will have the option of going to him pretty much anytime I want, the possibilities are spinning through my mind like mad. I know that I need to take things one step at a time though, so I'm prioritizing and selecting two that seem to me to be some of the most pressing at the moment. One is a long-term goal, and one is a short-term goal.

1. Healthier feet
2. Taking the damn BIT!

Orion's feet have never been stellar since I bought him. They have improved dramatically, but I would still like to see them get even better.  His frogs are still kind of puny, and his heels could stand to be a bit lower, which could beef his frogs up by giving them more contact with the ground and fix the problem entirely. I'm realistic, and I know that a lot of his problem is that it's been hard to keep him on a regular trim schedule. That will improve with him being closer. We're lucky that his normal farrier, who does some of the best work I've seen with Orion, is still going to be working with him. I'm SO thankful for that! He's offered to show me a thing or two as well the next time he's out, so that I can better help Orion with his feet between trims in the way of maintenance trimming.

I've been studying hoof anatomy, what a healthy hoof should look like, and some trimming techniques, and I'm planning on starting to teach myself to trim so that I can eventually take over Orion's trimming entirely on my own. I started to teach myself last summer, but I was also living and working in Philippi at that time, so again, without consistency, I gave up on it. Now I can really get the practice and experience that I need.

So that's a long-term goal. Getting his feet to where I want them and learning to totally care for them on my own is going to take a while.

Our short-term goal is going to once again be encouraging him to willingly take his bit. On Sunday, we went on our first ride in 6 months (and our last ride at Orion's home of the past 3 years), and he's once again decided that the bit is an unwelcome visitor to his mouth. It took 45 minutes to get him to take it. 45 minutes!!

This horse has never had a bad experience with his bit in the entire time that I have owned him. To my knowledge, he didn't have any bad experiences with them before I owned him either. He's had this problem before, and with a little time and help from Liz over at In Omnia Paratus, he got over it last summer. He went for months with almost no issue, and when he would start to backtrack, it didn't take much to fix it.

As I mentioned, it had been 6 months since we last rode. Now he's acting up with the bit again. I know that has a lot to do with it. He's used to lounging and playing around the pasture all day, and he knew that if he was bratty about his bit, he could delay the ride. He can be a brat, but he's smart. He knew exactly what he was doing. He persevered over every method that has ever worked in the past. Eventually the BO came down and helped out. She mixed a handful of grain with some sunflower oil, put the bit with it, and quickly slid the bit into his mouth while he was trying to lip the grain from her hand. He was too busy enjoying the grain to worry about it anymore.

Once he's settled in to the new place for a couple days, I'm going to spend a day or two just working on that bit problem. Usually once he's over it, he's good, and with the ability to ride more often, I don't think this problem will reoccur too much. I just need to take the time to get rid of it now so that we can explore his new home more in the coming weeks. Miles and miles of new trails. I can't wait. :)

Abscess, Anyone?

And here's a close up for you:

No freaking wonder he acted like he had a broken leg.  That thing was massive!!

Back to School, Join Up, and a Solo Ride!

I'm officially back on campus!

My new roommate and I are getting along well and having fun. :)  Our room is coming together nicely.  I won't post pictures yet because it's not quite done.  I just got the last of my stuff from my uncle's house last night.  It's not quite unpacked yet.  I'll hopefully be finishing that tomorrow after I pick up some Command strips to hang my posters and hooks. Yay! lol

Seriously though, I'm loving being back on campus.  I've already had a couple of unsatisfactory experiences with the financial aid office, but it's being taken care of.  I swear, every year, it's always something!  But...*deep breaths*...it will be ok.  

Anyway...let's go back in time for a minute.  I promised you I would be writing about my adventures of the past week or so. :)

Last Thursday:

*If you click on the pictures, you can see the larger versions.* 

:)

I got done with work early because my brother had an orthodontist appointment, and both boys went with their dad to that.  They wouldn't be back until my mom was home from work, so I got a hold of a friend for a ride (you know who you are...thank you!!!) and headed out to the barn on my own around two.  She dropped me off and went on to her weekend destination - horseback riding at Spruce Knob.  Jealous!!!

But I got to spend the rest of the day with my horse by myself.  It. Was. Amazing. 

I spent the first 45 minutes or so just grooming him to perfection and spoiling the heck out of him.  Seriously.  He was shiny and bright and clean by the time I was done.  He got his mane and forelock braided.  The burrs are starting to get bad, and he seems determined to shove his entire head into every patch of them that he can find.  When I was out there the week before, I spent what seemed like forever separating them all out of his mane, and he'd looked like a unicorn with his forelock all burred up and sticking straight out from his forehead.  

Unicorn!

He wasn't quite that bad this time, but I braided him anyway as a precaution because I know it's only going to get worse.  The B.O. usually doesn't have time to get them out herself, and I'm not there enough in the fall to get them out every day.  It usually results in him getting the really bad tangles just cut off, and I'd rather that not happen this year.

After the grooming session, I lunged him for a bit without tack.  He was very good, and other than a little bit of head tossing in the very beginning, he listened really well.  Usually it's really difficult to get him to trot on command, but he started doing it today.  In the past, he's sped up for a few strides and dropped back to a walk soon after.  I always have to stay after him, and he gets ticked off about it.  Today though, he trotted when asked, and kept doing it until I asked him to stop.  *squeal!*

  And......drum roll please...

HE JOINED UP WITH ME!!!!

After lunging him for about ten minutes, he suddenly dropped his head low.  He'd been paying attention and had that inner ear fixed on me the whole time and had been licking and chewing for a while as well.  So when he dropped his head, it took me a second to register what that meant.  I wasn't trying to join up, just to get a good lunge session in.  But that was what he was telling me he wanted to do, so when he kept his head down for another circle, I turned sideways to him.  He stopped and immediately walked to me.  

For those who don't remember or know what join up is...refer back to this post from last year.

I was so excited and happy, that I just ended the lunging session there. Haha.  For the rest of the day, when he wasn't on his lead, he followed me around like a puppy.  When I led him back over to where he'd been tied, he followed me back with his chin on my shoulder.  It's so different for him, that I was on Cloud 9.  :D

I had planned on trying a solo ride since I had so much time that day.  But before I tried that, I wanted to lunge him with his tack to get out any issues he had with it.  I used Chelsea's western saddle instead of my bareback pad because it's a lot safer, and I was taking all precautions.  I packed a lead rope and water and a granola bar (in case of blood sugar emergency...it sometimes drops for seemingly no reason) in my saddle bag.  With all of this finally on him, I took him out and lunged him again.

Surprise!  When I asked him to go into a trot that was a little more brisk than he was currently at, he cantered!  He NEVER canters on the lunge for me.  I wasn't even going to ask him to until he had done the trot a few different days for me and made sure it wasn't just a fluke.  But he did it anyway.  And he didn't seem to mind it until I stopped him and sent him out again and asked for it.  Then he got kind of irritated and bucked a few times.  I reprimanded him, and he trotted away and to the other side of the paddock. -_-

I made myself stay calm and went to get him, collected the line as I went.  I brought him back over and asked him to trot again.  He was fine and eager to please again, but I didn't ask him to canter this time.  I wanted to end the session on a good note and didn't want him worked up before we rode, so I only asked for the trot.  He was fine, and after a few circles, I allowed him to stop.  

I mounted and asked him to go through the gate that he had problems with at the beginning of the summer.  He walked through without a problem.  I took him out to the road and headed to a trail in the woods that was shown to me at the beginning of the summer.  It's the third time I've been on it, but I love it.  It's my favorite trail so far.  There are a lot of low-hanging branches, so there's never a dull moment.  You have to constantly be prepared to shove them out of the way.  

And Orion likes to try to clothesline me on all of said branches.  He only really tried it once that day.  I ended up spitting out leaves because he suddenly broke into a trot right before we reached it.  I ducked, but still ended up with the branch in my mouth and a mouthful of leaves when we emerged on the other side - where he promptly dropped back to a walk. 

Brat.

Once he got over being jumpy about the dogs the came with us ranging through the woods on either side, he relaxed and really seemed to enjoy himself.  I was kind of surprised that he seemed more confident and willing to move out than he ever has when there are other horses around.  He willingly trotted on our ride, just like he had while lunging.  He actually wanted to speed up on his own a couple of times, just for the heck of it.

Once we got back, I untacked him and went to get a bucket of water.  It was really hot, and he's out of shape.  He was pretty sweaty. Haha.  As soon as he couldn't see me anymore when I went for the water, he began whinnying.  After I had the bucket filling, I stepped out around the tree that was blocking him from me and looked across the yard at him.  He was on high alert watching me, but as soon as he could see me again, he calmed down and was quiet.  I stepped back over to turn the water off and collect the bucket, and he immediately began whinnying again.  Once more, as soon as I began crossing the yard with the bucket and he could see me, he was fine.  I felt special.

The farrier came out to trim him again.  Orion was perfect for him.  I'm definitely keeping this guy as his normal farrier.  He's the only one Orion has liked and behaved for consistently so far.  So three farriers later, I've finally found one!  And O's feet are slowly returning to a normal look.  At least on the bottom.  They still don't "pancake" out like most others I've seen, but I'm confident that in a few more months with regular trims, they will.  

So that sums up my day alone with Orion.  A lot happened, and it was so much fun and so rewarding!  I can't wait to do it again.

More stories next time!

:)

Hoof Nerds Unite!

Yeah, yeah, I know...odd title.  But I am slowly becoming what my friend would term a "hoof nerd".  So this and some posts in the future will be about what I am learning as I research and learn from peers about horses' feet.  For those non-horse people who read this, it's a lot more complex than you'd think.  

I mean think about it.  How big are horses?  Pretty damn big - and heavy.  (If you want to know how much without all the numbers involved, just have one accidentally step on you and put their full weight on your foot.  You'll quickly realize it.)  Now think about the feet that are supporting all that weight.  They have to be in good shape.  If their feet are in bad condition, it can affect a ton of other things in their health.

So, now that I know most of the basics of some of the other things I wanted to learn before I got Orion, I want to learn more about their feet.  Eventually I'd like to learn how to trim them myself, but for the time being, I'm going to concentrate on the anatomy of their hooves and how they should look when they're good.  

Every horse person that I know who has looked at Orion's agree that his feet are majorly weird, and not just because he'd needed a trim.  They're just odd.  It was pointed out to me the other day that his legs from the knee down are actually a bit odd.  It's what leads to him standing with his feet kind of splayed out all the time.  Put your heels together and point your toes away from each other - that's how he normally orients his front feet when he's not doing anything.

So, that's all for now, but you'll have more hoof care stuff to look forward to as I learn it!

Trimming Orion

Well, we did it!  Orion finally got his trim.  Thank God.  He's needed it for so long...

An extra plus was that he didn't try to run the farrier over every 5 seconds like he's done every other time he's been trimmed since I got him.  I can't decide if it's the work I've done with him myself, he just liked the guy better than the others, or a fluke.  Possibly it's a combination of the three.  

But happily, the majority of the problems he gave weren't too major, and most of the time when he tried to pull away, it was because of the damn flies.  I fly sprayed him about half an hour before the trim and messed around with his feet some to see if he was going to be cranky or nice about them today.  As he usually is nowadays, he was good.  That doesn't always mean he'll be good for someone else though, so I was a bit apprehensive about whether he'd behave for Aric.

Lo and behold, he stood calmly and didn't fight the trimming very much.  Aric was really good about giving him breaks every couple minutes so he could scare off the flies without unbalancing himself.  I think Orion appreciated that.  

In case I haven't said it before, at all of his other trims, Orion has been good for me....but then the farrier takes over, and suddenly he goes all gahhhhhh!-crazy-animal who won't stand still, tries to kick, skitters backwards, forwards, sideways....so you can see why I was a bit nervous.  

All in all, I think I may have found a farrier I'll be able to stick with.  He was good about getting back to me and coming out on fairly short notice.  Orion liked him and mostly behaved for him.  We talked it over and decided that he'd come out again in six weeks to trim him again.  We're going to FINALLY get him on a good schedule and get his feet in good shape!

(Alas, I forgot to take before and after pictures of his feet, but I'll take some next time to post here.)

Feet

I finally did it! I finally got him to stand still long enough to get some decent pictures of his feet.  Before you judge, yes I know, they need trimmed.  I've been trying to get someone to come out for over a month and after finding a crack in his front right (you can see part of it in his toe in the following picture), I gave up on that person, at least for this particular visit, and asked someone else to come and trim him.  Hopefully, it'll happen sometime next week.

Something I don't really have any "before" pictures of to show that I'm pretty disappointed about is how beefed up his frogs are now.  They were puny and tiny and in a couple of his feet looked almost nonexistent a few months ago.  I started him on his new Equistages feed at the beginning of the summer, for good, and am very pleased at the progress that I can see, at least with my untrained eye.  His feet are wonky no matter what; they grow funny.  But they appear to be getting stronger now, so I'm happy with that. :)

Feet Troubles

So I just talked to Liz, who went out to check Orion for me today after Saturday's disastrous lunging session.  (By the way, my hand still hurts - a lot.  Me being extremely accident prone has not been helping either.)  

It looks like his feet are going bad.  Decaying frogs, high heels.  Not much swelling in his legs anymore.  They weren't too bad on Saturday either.  I spent a while feeling them and comparing to see if there were differences since I'm not very good at finding little swellings.  When his fetlocks were big, that was different because you could actually see it.  Saturday was good though as far as his legs went.

Now, though, it looks like its his hooves I have to worry about.  I'm going to contact the farrier and talk to him about setting up some times to fix up his heels and cut back his toes a little more.  Can't have his feet screwing with his legs again.

As for his frogs...I'm going to have to look up some things to do for those because I've never heard of them decaying before.  If that makes me sound like a complete noob I apologize.  (Keep in mind he's my first horse.)  I know it's serious though.

Next time I'm out, I may start riding him at a walk for a little bit around the paddock and maybe one of the empty fields. :) Liz thinks he may be ready for just gentle short rides.

At any rate, his health and well being are what are most important to me, so getting his feet in shape are my priority now.  I've got to find a way to get up there more....

I will leave you with this picture, taken at the beginning of May when Chelsea and I were out at Linda's to work with Kit.....Chelsea caught Orion mid-graze.  He still had some of his winter coat.

This was before he belonged to me, but mainly I wanted to show you how drastically different his coat is this year......As soon as I get the new pics from this weekend from Chelsea, I'll post a couple so you can see him now....He's almost black!!  I legitimately almost didn't recognize him when I got there on Saturday - My first thought was literally "Did we get a new horse?"

Crazy...... lol