More news!

Did I tell everyone that I had found a vet!?!? I don't think I did.

So I found a vet in Ontario, she can't practice in Quebec (where I live), but she lives close enough for me to trailer my horse there. Anyways... I didn't have to trailer my horse at all. She gave me a medicine to clear Dandys lungs. It is a powerful expectorant made specially for horses. The only thing I had to do was to drive over to her place and get it on Saturday. Fortunately, she wasn't gone on any emergencies and gave me really good tips to help Dandy. So I put everything in practice this weekend. Starting with hay, I unrolled a complete round bale on the ground, in the fresh snow, this should help eliminate most of the dust found in it. The hay is not mouldy at all, it's still very green and smells terrific. It was baled during our only dry week of the summer and contains a bit of dust. Dandy has a habit of stuffing her face right in the middle of the bale, therefore gets a good amount of dust.

According to my vet, I did the right thing by giving Dandy penicilin (back when I did), because she did have an infection. It was clear to me that she did, since her nasal discharge was thick and white, her eyes were very cloudy and she had fever! After 5 days of antibiotic every 12 hours, Dandy seemed much better, but the cough remained. According to the vet, her lungs never completely cleared from mucus. I don't think the Cough Free helped, I think it only prevented her from coughing and releasing the mucus, but like the vet said, the mucus is really stuck there! So I give her her medication twice a day. Yesterday night was her fourth time getting the medicine and she blew her nose quite hard right on me (thanks!). There was about 1/2 tea spoon of mucus that came out. This morning, I was giving her medicine and grain and she coughed right in her bucket... there was about 2 tea spoons of mucus there... so good news... it works!

I am pretty excited about this... yes, I am excited about mucus coming out of my horse's lungs... but you have to understand, that after countless attemps to cure Dandy, then to look for a vet (quite unsuccessfully, my vet still hasn't called me back!), I was THRILLED to find someone that was willing to actually help me! I am officially changing my vet to her, she was nice and didn't make me trailer my horse for nothing! Plus it only cost me 80$ and my horse could be cured! If she is not, I will trailer her over, but it's even nicer if I don't have to! I officially called EVERY vet within a 2 hour radius from my house, most don't treat horses and the ones that do don't take new patients, and my vet is probably on vacation (it would've been nice to advise his clients and provide an alternative in case of emergency... but I guess he is affraid to lose business since his services are very expensive). So you see, in case of emergency, I might as well forget all hopes of ever saving them. This is why I had to learn to give shots, treat illnesses, abcesses, trim hooves (our farrier supply exceeds by little our vet supply) and monitor my horses health. Fortunately, they are easy keepers and in realtively good health, nothing I can't handle.

So asides from that, we've put Peg and Pearl in the same enclosure as Nabisco. We first walked them in with their halters to see how everyone would react... nothing... So I took Pearls halter off and she trotted towards the cow, the cow moved. Same for Peg, but Peg is hateful (I know, she is so sweet with humans, but so hateful to everything else). She saw the cow, took off running passed it with her ears back, nearly trampeled a cat, kicked towards the cat, thankfully missing it! Then looked over the fence at the large pasture. I think they thought they could go off running in the large pasture... surprise! Nobody is going out in the large pasture before the snow melts and the grass starts to grow. Plus the cow will calve in March-April, so we will keep her inside so that the calf doesn't get cold. Nabisco is getting very friendly and actually comes up to smell us, she eats grain from a bowl even if you are holding it and will follow us around given we are holding her grain bucket! LOL! We have never had to chase her, if we want her to move, we make her follow us with grain wherever we need her.

I have not yet uploaded my pics, but I will tonight. One of my great uncles passed this weekend and I haven't had time to play around computers (just like any other weekend!). I didn't take any new pictures this weekend since everyone was pretty sadened by the news. I will be attending another funeral within 6 months... the last one was of a friend that died from cancer back in September. I hope we will be done with funerals for a while. I don't like funerals, but I doubt anyone does... I have to go because it was my dad's uncle and they were very close. Also, I want to pay respect to him and the family. He helped us quite a bit this year, he sold us all of his hay at a very respectable price. It gave us a good boost! he was 81 years old and was active up until a few weeks ago. He plowed snow with his tractor just last Wednesday, but he was out of breath and weak. He checked in the hospital that Wednesday night and passed Sunday morning (yeaterday). I think he knew that he was going to go. He was so weak and insisted to plow snow and do at least one lenght of his farm's laneway. It was his last. He was a beef farmer only until a few years ago and always had chicken. He baled hay every year. He actually had very good quality of hay. Our family lost a good part by losing him, but he is in a better place now.

So keep your fingers crossed that everything will fall back in place for the family and the horses. I am tired, exhausted even, from all the comotion that's been going on lately.

Update

I would like to thank Jayke for her words of encouragement regarding my last post.

I think I will have a vet over as soon as I can anyways, Dandy could use a physical exam and I'm affraid of possible damage to her lungs from the cough (or virus) being present for so long. It has now been over a month, maybe two since the cough started and I'm not going to take much more of it. I tried all I could to help her and it hasn't been working, I need to go to the next level. It has comforted me to see that she hasn't lost any weight and that she is still kicking and screaming, but it happens that she coughs when playing and working and I don't like that at all!

For my little dog, his eye seemed much better last night. I had cleaned it up the night before and it looked almost perfect yesterday night. I freak out when it comes to eyes. My parents didn't really make me feel better either. It was as if his eye looked like this because I must've been a bad mom. There was nothing I could do he woke up Sunday looking like that... I was as upset about it as they were but there was nothing I could do... if I could make it magically disapear, I would've long ago, but I can't. Rant over!

I will look up more info on horse cough. Dandy puts her nose close to the ground when she coughs, she always coughs three times (I don't think this is significant info...) and it's like something is stuck in her throat... it's like she's coughing enough to gag, only horses don't have that reflex. I will look up Strangles and Choke info, hopefully I will be enlightened.

Update!

Ok, so I've gotten some supplement for Dandy, it's called Cough Free. I've read good reviews about it and it's all natural! It is a powder that is to be added to the feed.

I've bought a custom feed that I had mixed at our feed store, it is cracked oats and soy bean meal, I've had no molases added, I don't want too sweet of a mix and Dandy is already crazy over the stuff! On the other hand, the little colt is not so fond of it. I guess it is a taste to develop, I remember the first time I gave Dandy a treat, she spit it right out! Until I kept putting it back in her mouth. Once she got to taste it, she never spit one out again!

I've trimmed Dandy's hooves this weekend. I have to be careful because my back is really sensitive to everything! So I did the fronts on Saturday and the back on Sunday. Her back feet weren't bad, but the front was a bit longer than I like to leave them get. Plus her fronts get unbalanced if I leave them get too long... conformation probably, or a lack of hoof care during critical young years where she was growing. Unfortunately, Dandy never received proper hoof care during the first two years of her life (she didn't get any hoof care for that matter). This caused her hooves to self-trim and become very unbalanced, they still tend to pull to one side, althought I did get them in much better shape than they were.

Her walls are so hard that my regular pair of nippers that I usually use with ease on every horse at my barn can hardly do the trick on Dandy. I swear, I would've had my sister take a video, but she was busy helping me close the nippers to trim the hooves... needless to say that I had to rasp a good part because the nippers just wouldn't cut through her tough hooves. Thank goodness the other horses don't have such hard hooves (although it does have disadvantages).

As a result of her hard hooves, Dandy can walk over any surface and can go long distances on pavement without having her hooves wear down to the point of damaging the sole. Whereas with Peg and Pearl, I really have to be carefull if I take them out on pavement. Those race horses prefer to walk on hard surfaces (or they were just trained that way), so their hooves wear down quickly since the quality isn't so good. However, I am pleased to say that their hooves have improved about 75% since I have taken them under my wing. Considering that Peg is base-narrow in her fronts and that her hooves wear in most unlikely places, the new growth coming from the coronet seems thicker and much healthier since I have allowed the blood to flow in her hooves. Pearl has one club foot but it doesn't seem to bother her at all, I just have to keep an eye and lower the heels when need be. I am also carefull not to trim too short on the Standards since their hooves wear fast... I have to consider wether or not we will ride them, how much and how can this much riding affect their hooves. It worked out pretty well after I had figured it out, but they did become a little sore at first, but we didn't use them when we noticed they were a bit off.

I won't have pictures posted today, because I haven't had a chance to upload them to my computer yet, I've taken before and after pictures of every hoof, I will probably post them tommorow. I had my sister take the pics. Dandy is always super patient with any handling and can stand tied for hours without getting really impatient.

After I trimmed her fronts on Saturday, I decided to hop on Dandy bareback to see if her cough had went down or worsened. I just went around the house and back and about mid-way, she coughed twice, but I am thrilled because they were tiny little coughs almost like she was faking it (but she wasn't, she's not a faker and loves to go for rides). It wasn't a cough where her sides flare up and she didn't seem in any discomfort from coughing. She went on to blow her nose twice after that and was fine, she even proceeded to trot back to the colt (she thinks it's her foal, silly mare). I am surprised that I could handle the trot so well bareback, but she trotted super slow, like a little jog and it was very comfortable... she knows I would've never survived the usual trot so she was really careful.

That made me realize that I really need to work on my bareback skills! I was so unbalanced and I hate it! On the other hand, Dandy was great, she stood there patiently for me to mount and I had only tied the lead rope to her halter. She went great! I was proud of her because we don't often ride bareback, but I do it much more often in winter and will probably try her out again next weekend to see if she still coughs. There is nothing like riding bareback.

The reason that I didn't ride bareback so much is because one of my friends (I helped her train her horses) told me that horses needed routine and structure and that riding bareback didn't prepare the horse for a ride... I thought that was a little far fetched and I remember thinking that I wanted my horse to be able to handle anything without me having to announce it. I just want to be able to jump on my horse and ride whenever I want. I'm not up to the bridleless yet, but I would like to work up to it. I would also like to work on my balance and doing bareback work could help... maybe that is why my friend is so unbalanced in the saddle.

I was giving lessons to my mom when Dandy started to cough really bad... so our lessons are on hold until my girl is back to normal... I have made an agreement that we would have a review course on Dandy before we continue. My mom is a first time rider and was quite nervous around horses. She did ride Dandy before but I want to prepare her and build her confidence up to where she can canter on a horse or take a spook without panicking. She was coming along so good! We were up to trotting, so we will have to take a few lessons to walk and work on the posture again... oh well... I am in no rush to teach and my mom is in no rush either, but she was pretty excited about her lessons! I'm thinking that we will be able to start again in a few weeks. I want to give Dandy a chance to fully recover before we do anything else. Her nose is no longer running as much as it was and her eyes and alertness are back to normal!

I will post tommorow with the pictures... I have before and after of each hoof, so do you want a detailed evaluation of each one or just a general evaluation... a detailed evaluation would give you a better ability to spot little defects in your horse's hooves (or mine! Feel free!).

*********** Picture above: Dandy (right) and Jenny (left). Jenny was a horse we boarded for the summer. She was untrained and a real nightmare to be around.... unfortunately, Dandy and Jenny became the best of friends. We did teach some manners to Jenny while she was staying at our barn... she was the kind to attack anything or anyone.*************