When it rains, it pours: back in front shoes

So Tristan had chiropractic work on Friday, after much angsting on my part and carving room in the budget for it. He felt much more free through his neck on Sunday, so I was glad I did it.

Then on Monday afternoon, the barn manager called. The farrier was there, and wanted to talk through Tristan's right front foot.

Yes, that right front. The problem child. It's been over five years since it first started causing problems. If you're new to that saga, start reading the abscess tag. Here's the foot progression collage. Short version: he had a stress fracture of the coffin bone that separated, got infected, abscessed, and had surgery, and that foot has never been quite right since.

It's always grown slightly wonky, thanks to the scar tissue from the original injury and the abscess insult to the coronet band. Well, the farrier was telling me over the phone that over the last few months it's been resulting in a mechanical instability at the toe - not due to bad balance, but rather to the way the foot itself was growing. That had now resulted in some separation at the white line, a bacterial infection, and a growing crack.

I knew the crack was there, and had already planned on talking it through with him, but I also thought it could be dug out with a normal trim. Joke's on me, nothing about that foot is normal.

Verdict: he needed to get it totally dug out back to healthy foot, stuffed with artimud, and then...back in front shoes for stability and protection.

Whooosh goes the money out the window. See, my budget is pretty tight, and it's built around him being barefoot, which, 95% of the time, has been a realistic projection!

Alas, not for the next few months.

So here's the foot all dug out.

It's tough to really tell, but that's a decently deep hole. The good news there is that the farrier really thought it was better than his worst fears.

Tris also got hot shod for the first time, this farrier's preference. New farrier from the last farrier who did shoes on him - anyone remember when Tristan had to get sedated for shoeing? Yeah. Good times. Thankfully, I distracted him with peppermints and he did not put a foot wrong the entire time. GOOD PONY.

Next step, artimud and dental putty.

Farrier said "if you want bragging rights, your horse's foot is so round that I have to use the draft horse pad."

Then, the shoe. Sigh.

GOOD PONY. So well-behaved.

I was grumpy but resigned (also freezing cold, it was 40 degrees and I am not yet acclimated to winter) but then I got on...and we had our best ride in WEEKS. He was forward, he was cooperative, he was loose.

Fine, pony. Fine. Have all the money.

Exciting news: Tristan is barefoot again!

I've been keeping a bit of a secret, horse blog world. Tristan's odyssey with his feet is no secret, and for the past 2.75 years or so he has been wearing front shoes to help support that RF as it continues to try and grow normally.

Every few months, I've asked the farrier if he thought maybe, this time, Tris could go barefoot? The farrier is not a shoes-at-all-cost guy. He is an excellent farrier whom I have seen praised entirely independently on the COTH forums, and, you know, that NEVER happens.

The last time I asked was this past fall, and when we pulled his shoes as part of that vet visit, the toe still wasn't right, which was discouraging. That was the same vet visit at which we pulled blood to test for Cushings, and that came back positive, and I started hoping that maybe the reason he (still!) wasn't healing 100% was because of the Cushings. I figured I'd ask again in the spring.

Well, two weeks ago, I asked, expecting to get a sigh and a shrug again.

Instead: the farrier pulled off his shoes and was thrilled. My horse had foot again! Proper foot! There was no reason he couldn't go barefoot. To say I was excited was the understatement of the century.

Behold: NAKED PONY FEET!

You can still see the abnormality at the toe, interfering with the white line, in the bottom of the foot, but it's entirely possible that will never go away. 

Are they perfect? Gosh, no. We've got some work to do on shoring up the heel and rehabbing the sole. In particular, I'm pained by the white line - but I saw the same thing when we pulled his hind shoes, and I know how to fix it. We've already spent quality time with Durasole, and a nice long White Lightning soak is in our near future.

The best part? I gave him a few days off, with some handwalking and long grooming sessions, and he did not look even slightly hesitant when I walked him back and forth, even on the harder aisle. The barn staff confirmed that he wasn't in the slightest bit tender on the pebbly, hard dirt road to get to turnout.

So four days later, I longed him, and he was raring to go, bucking and farting and giving big sweeping trot strides. I longed him again the next day, and when he still looked 100% sound, I got on him. And rode him. And I've been riding him consistently, at the walk and trot and a bit of canter, without a single problem. 

On Friday afternoon, I took him out on the dirt roads around the barn, which afforded a great test; they were waterlogged and soft, but not yet gravelly. Harder than the indoor footing for sure, but nowhere near the rock-hard summer roads. He was terrific, and even jigged around a bit.

HOORAY FOR GENETICS!

Seriously, how did he wear shoes for 2.75 years, sustain a major injury + surgery, and then come out of that so beautifully sound? I have to go find some wood to knock on.

And so, the saga of Tristan's shoes ends: August 18, 2012 - March 25, 2015.

Winter Shoeing 2015

The farrier was out last week, and Tristan has his winter snow shoes on.

Two main changes to the shoes: first, the studs you can see at the heel, and second, the anti-ice rubber thingy. The idea is that the studs will help him grip on ice, and the rubber thingy will help prevent those awful ice snowballs from building up in his hooves.

I know people go back and forth on whether to do studs &/or borium for the winter. I can see both sides, but ultimately, I trust our farrier. I also tend to feel that non-studded shoes are the most slippery thing a horse can possibly wear - far worse than barefoot, booted, or studded shoes. If Tristan (still, sigh) can't go barefoot in the front, then I'd rather he have the studs in.

Does the rubber thing work? Yeah, it helps. It's not 100%. Sometimes snow still gets packed in, but it seems to do so much less often, and it's easier to dig out when it does.

Tristan and the Farrier

I am still catching up on blog-reading, and SprinklerBandit's post about Courage's problems with the farrier made me realize I hadn't done an update on Tristan and his farrier behavior in a little while.

Short version? Problems solved!

If you haven't been paying minute attention to every word, you may not realize that about two years ago, Tristan got shoes for the first time, four all around. My trainer and farrier at the time jointly convinced me that he would move much better and that he really needed it. I agreed to try it, after 7 years of barefoot going, as an experiment.

The day before he was to get his shoes for the first time, he blew his abscess. Farrier put four shoes on him anyway, assuming it would blow over quickly. That didn't happen. See the "abscess" and "surgery" label for that whole sordid tale.

Essentially, it looks like Tristan associated getting shoes hammered on with the pain from the infected piece of broken bone that was now erupting through his entire foot. He started acting up for the farrier, becoming nearly impossible to touch to the point of being violently dangerous. I worked with him for hours and hours on end. Eventually, we simply sedated him for farrier visits.

That reached its height with an absurd visit in which he blew through a double dose of tranquilizer and laid down in the middle of a farrier visit in a fit of...something cranky. The quick-witted assistant trainer/barn manager, M., sat on his head while he was down and the farrier finished trimming. Then they let him up and he was good as gold for the rest of that shoeing.

Things continued to go up and down, though they were never again as bad as that day. About nine months ago, the barn switched farriers - for a lot of reasons. It just so happened through a series of mixups, I did not get tranquilizer from the vet in time. I had emailed the new farrier (new-ish; he'd been doing other horses in the barn with great success, it's just that we added the whole barn to his list. It's kind of complicated) with a complete background on everything that had been happening. I wanted him to make a very informed decision about dealing with Tristan.

He wasn't worried, and you know what? Tristan behaved. Not perfectly, that first day; as the farrier explained, he had to take a lot of short breaks and read Tristan's body really, really well. He backed off when Tristan got nervous or fussy, and discovered that if he held the foot in a different way and used a slightly different technique in hammering the nails, Tristan was much happier.

Moral of the story: new farrier ROCKS.

That being said, it looks like we'll be doing shoes for a while yet. New farrier also thinks that it will be some time before Tristan's front feet can handle barefoot again comfortably, and I haven't yet been able to put together a coherent plan for the transition. Maybe once the nasty abscess hole (still!1!!1!) grows out, we will take a swing at it and see.

But in the meantime, so glad to have my well-behaved pony back!

What the Vet Found

You may remember that about three weeks ago, my farrier raised some concerns about the way Tristan's RF was growing out and healing. Based on his experience, he felt very strongly that Tristan had a keratoma growing within his hoof.

Yesterday, I arranged for my vet to meet my farrier at the barn, and we did a full workup on Tristan. I also had a list of other concerns; I was worried that his topline wasn't building the way it should, and wanted to ask about supplementing with alfalfa cubes, and had a few other miscellaneous questions. (The most important answer: yes, you can add bute while a horse is on Pentosan.)

Waiting for the vet.

We started by longeing him, and I explained that I felt he was actually moving pretty well: lazy, but evenly and without obvious hitch. Slightly stiff, and tracking ever so slightly behind on the RH, but nothing that would even rise to the level of concern. We walked, trotted, and cantered, and then tested the trot/canter transitions. Then the vet took him in hand and spun his hind end to watch how he crossed over.

We did not flex. I can practically guarantee that Tristan would not flex clean, and to be strictly honest? I don't need him to. He is functionally sound and comfortable in the level of work he does. I'm still not sure if he'll jump again, and he certainly won't ever get to the level of dressage work that would require the carrying and thrust that would start to trouble him.

The vet agreed with me that he looked pretty darn good in his movement. Certainly he was just fine on that RF.

What's the catch? Well, when I asked about his topline, and we brought him out into the sunlight, the vet was immediately concerned. Keep in mind she saw him in March for spring shots, and before that in the fall, and then the previous summer and spring every 2-3 weeks for surgery follow up. She knows him pretty darn well, and she's a brilliant vet with an excellent diagnostic eye.

She didn't even hesitate. "I'm pulling blood right now, and we're going to test for Cushings. Even if he doesn't test positive, I'd like to start him on Pergolide. He looks terrible."

Keeping in mind that my vet is very blunt! Tris does not look like the picture of your typical Cushings horse, but he is 19 and he has a distinct lack of muscling on the topline. When we tossed the idea back and forth, other things fit with the picture. He's been urinating much more than usual over the last 6 months. He's been coughing more often in warmup over the last 2 months.

It's very early days yet, and Cushings is a very manageable condition. We should have results back next week. If his levels come back totally normal, the vet wants to pull more blood for general CBC panel and make sure everything else is adding up for him.

PSA moment: yesterday was a perfect example of why you should have a vet take a look at your horse once or even twice a year. I had a vague, pit-of-my-stomach feeling that things were not trending well with Tristan, but it took the vet who hadn't seen him in 4 months to immediately recognize the changes that had occurred in those 4 months. She had passed him with flying colors in March - even making a point of saying he looked terrific - and was able to clearly compare the horse in front of her with Tristan from March.

I admit, I was reeling a bit from her immediate diagnosis and all the research I was going to have to do to start managing him, and then we moved into part 2 of the day's fun and games.

The farrier and vet first conferred about why the farrier suspected a keratoma: the bulge in Tristan's hoof, and drainage holes at the toe. Farrier pulled the shoe, and we set down to work to take some x-rays.

Farrier had these super-nifty lifts rather than the vet's blocks!

We spent a good 20-30 minutes taking shots, looking at them closely, and then taking more shots from different angles. Vet needs to take a good long look at the x-rays at home, but on initial examination, everything looks clean.

Here's the neat thing: the farrier was 100% correct in what he detected. What he did not realize (or did not remember - since I had sent him the surgery x-rays before) was that Tristan's coffin bone was already compromised, that it had been carved up quite a bit during the surgery. The farrier was absolutely spot on in recognizing the subtle changes that came in Tristan's hoof once he was missing a piece of his coffin bone. I already knew I really liked the farrier, but I am HUGELY impressed.

What we'll have to do is compare the x-rays the vet took with the immediate post-surgery x-rays to make sure there is no additional bone resorption or remodeling. Vet and farrier both agreed, however, that if a keratoma really had formed at the coronet band and traveled down to the dark spot on the x-ray, Tristan would be very lame, and he's just not. 

VERY good pony getting his shoe back on.

The one remaining question mark is the drainage holes in Tristan's toe. They definitely shouldn't be there. They are tiny, but they are there. I offered to soak, and vet and farrier thought that wouldn't do much good. The farrier ended up packing the toe with Magic Cushion and putting the shoe back on. Vet said that if Tristan does come back positive for Cushings, that would explain why the drainage holes aren't closing - his immune system is compromised. 

So here's the takeaway:

• his foot is almost certainly fine, whew
• he almost certainly has Cushings, in the very early stages
• bloodwork will come back next week, and then we will start him on a low dose of pergolide
• I'll take an in-depth look at his diet and most likely switch his grain. Right now he's on Blue Seal Sentinel Senior, which I mostly like - but which according to some internet sources is fairly high in NSC, which he'll have to stay away from. Look for research posts about this in the future.

Foot Update

Tristan saw the farrier yesterday. Originally, our plan was for him to lose the front shoes back in April: from the front, it looks like the abscess hole was all the way grown out, and he's always been a barefoot horse before. I wasn't there for that farrier appointment, but the farrier put front shoes back on. I was confused but didn't have time and energy to follow up.

I asked the barn manager to check in with the farrier specifically yesterday and ask what was up, and chatted with her this morning.

The upshot: believe it or not, he's still growing out the abscess hole/hoof damage. Remember, this is the abscess that blew on August 16, 2012. Yes, that's right: this abscess hole has been growing out for 22 months now!

It's barely detectable, but it is still there, and there's bruising in the toe area leftover from the destabilized hoof. He was missing massive quantities of hoof wall for so long it's just taking a while to grow a completely healthy hoof, top to bottom. Because the abscess blew at the coronet band, there's still a lump in the hoof starting from that scarred area.

So he's still in front shoes. He probably will be in front shoes until the end of the summer at least. Farrier thinks he'll need some serious time to adjust to going barefoot in the front again, so I have to think about what would make sense as a timeframe for that, and what combination of toughening work & time off would help him out.

(I swear, I thought I was done with the abscess tag...)

Feet Update - 1 year post-surgery

I missed an important milestone last week: one year since Tristan's surgery. One year ago today, he was on stall rest in recovery, and now he is back in full work. I am amazed and indescribably grateful that everything worked out so well.

Here's a front foot comparison, for the record.

1 week post-surgery. The chip out of the front separated during surgery;
there were additional abscess holes at the top of it and the hoof wall
was just that weak.

Yesterday! The bit of white is the absolute last remaining sign of the surgery/abscess.
You can still see/feel a sliiiiiight bulge but it is continuing to fade, ie far less
noticeable at the coronet than at the toe.

 Also! Remember last summer how worried I was about white line in his hind feet? I could carve out chunks of his quarters and his white line with the hoof pick, it was that mushy. Check out his hind feet today. Gorgeous.

In late April, the shoes come off the front feet and we are back to all-barefoot, all the time. FINALLY.

BEST PONY IN ALL THE LAND.

Late Monday, the barn owner checked in with me to ask if I'd talked to the vet about dropping off more ace for Tristan's farrier appointment on Wednesday. CRAP. I hadn't. So I called the vet, and she was completely unable to come out in the next few days - was actually indisposed and not working.

(If you're new-ish to this saga: Tristan has been an utter shit for the farrier for the last 18 months, since the start of his foot drama, up to the point of flinging himself to the ground in the middle of a trim, and has been drugged for every single trim/shoeing since arriving in Vermont.)

Double crap. So I told the barn manager, with profuse apologies, and she said she'd make it work. They'd start on him first and go slowly if need be, and could always hold off for another week or two if necessary.

Yesterday, I sat on pins and needles all day waiting for a text; I didn't want to bother them, but I wanted desperately to know if it had all gone well. It was a new farrier, too, who wasn't used to Tristan's assholery. When I left work, I texted the barn manager to say that I was heading to the barn, and hoping no news was good news. She texted back to give her a call when I got to the barn. I spent the rest of the drive to the barn with a sick pit in my stomach; that couldn't be good, right?

Arrived at the barn, practically ran down the aisle, threw open the stall door, brought Tristan out...and all four feet were trimmed, with new shoes on the front! So the farrier had managed to get them on, at least. I called the barn manager who reported that he was PERFECT. Not a foot wrong! The barn manager didn't even have to stand with him, he chilled out in cross ties. The farrier advised one more cycle of shoes and then barefoot again in the spring.

BEST PONY OF ALL TIME EVER. I hugged him and kissed him and very nearly started crying right there in the aisle. WHEW.

I groomed him and did his topline stretches and then we did about 35 minutes of longeing, wtc, setting up a circle of death and elevating them with blocks. He did beautifully at the trot, adjusting his stride to nail them perfectly and stretching out and down, lifting his back. He sort of started to get it at the canter, but never had a really successful circle with them. He did have a couple of nice poles that he took in a lifted stride, though.

Here's some comparison photos.

Taken 12/16/13 for comparison.

Post-trim, taken 12/18/13. SO AWESOME.

State of the foot

As I mentioned, Tris is finally wearing normal shoes! Here's pictorial evidence:

For comparison, here's what that same foot looked like just about a year ago:

Winter is coming

First things first: I've often said that my barn, which is at a higher elevation than most of the other places in my life, has its own weather patterns. Last night that proved true: I left work and drove up and up and up...and at a certain point, the cold rain solidified and turned white, and I stared in disbelief for a few minutes before swearing.

Luckily, none of it stuck. But winter is well and truly on its way: all the trees are naked, it's below freezing every night even in the valley, and this weekend we're putting in storm windows and sealing everything off under plastic.

Tris is going well. We had a good intense ride on Wednesday, and when I got off he was sweaty through his fuzzy winter coat. Whoops. So, 45 minutes of cooling out and drying (walking, swapping coolers) for 35 minutes of riding. It's been a very long time since he's been sweaty like that through his winter coat. Hopefully he'll go back to his usual self soon, because I really do not want to play the clipping and blanketing game.

His most exciting news now is that also on Wednesday the farrier did his feet - and he's back in normal steel shoes! Hooray! The notch in his toe is small enough that it looks like a bad chip, and the farrier left the epoxy out entirely. By the end of the winter the foot will look practically normal - it'll still have some of the bulge from growing out but that will only be visible on close inspection.

Next week, he'll get his flu/rhino booster, and they're vaccinating the whole barn for botulism - which I did not know you could do! It's precautionary, since they're going to put a lot of the horses on round bales in pasture this winter, and apparently it has a million boosters but round 1 is next week. He'll get his Legend shot at the same time and we'll see where we are.

Last but not least, he's starting to add weight again. He dropped a fair bit in the summer to fall changeover, and he was looking downright ribby for a little while, so we upped his hay, switched him to senior grain, and upped his grain in general, all in slow stages. The idea was not to just fling calories at him but to do it in small increments and find a leveling off, since he's usually such an easy keeper. It was worrying quite a lot for a while but we are definitely on the right track now.

Whew.

Can't catch a break...

So, updates, finally.

Last Saturday night I left work and got to the barn, saw that the farrier had not trimmed Tristan's back feet to even out the chips, and decided to take matters into my own hands. I gave them a really truly good cleaning out with hoof pick, hose, hoof pick again, you name it. As I kept cleaning I started getting a sick feeling and when I finished I confirmed it: white line disease in both back feet, hence the chipping and crumbling of the hoof wall. It was pretty bad. So I did a full-on White Lightning soak on both back feet and picked out his stall to the nines so he could go back to a clean dry place for the night. I then proceeded to drive to New Hampshire feeling about two inches tall and like the worst horse owner in the whole world. The next morning I texted both the farrier and the barn owner to let them know what was going on. As of today I still haven't heard from the farrier. Sigh.

I returned from vacation on Tuesday night, pulled Tris out of his stall...to discover that his left front was hot and blown up to the knee. Let's review: surgery  on the right front for a broken/infected coffin bone, white line disease in both hinds, and now his last remaining good leg was definitely not good.

I jogged him out and to my eye and to the trainer's eye he looked only sliiiiightly off at the trot. I was pretty sure I could feel a knot of tougher tissue on the inside of the leg, just above the fetlock, so the working theory was he knocked it in turnout. I clipped around the knot area just to make sure it wasn't a puncture wound, then cold hosed for 10 minutes, then rubbed in Sore No More, then walked him for 15 minutes under saddle, then cold hosed for another 10 minutes, then rubbed more Sore No More, and then the barn manager did standing wraps on his front legs because, shameful admission time, I have never learned how to do a standing wrap. Then I added a gram of bute to his evening grain and his morning grain for the next day.

The next morning his leg was, per BM, tight again, but when he came in after turnout and stood in his stall it went up again, though not nearly to the previous night. Repeat previous night's routine save the wrapping - I hadn't paid close enough attention the night before and was terrified of bowing a tendon. The next morning he was still up and it didn't go down with turnout, so I worked on it Thursday night, same routine, and the barn manager taught me to do my own freaking wraps, so I wrapped him. Down again overnight, up again in the afternoon, just a touch better Friday night. Lather, rinse, repeat. I added just a touch of trotting in last night and he moved out well, felt sound to me and looked sound to the assistant trainer. Plus he has zero compunctions about pawing like an idiot on that LF constantly, so it can't hurt that much.

I checked in with the vet on Thursday and if the leg was still up on Friday I said I'd have her out on Monday, so hip hooray for another vet bill! Hoping it goes down over the weekend and this is a formality, but at this point - I would've thought 48 hours and out for a good knock and I'm terrified that he may have strained or torn something.

Working Hard / Hardly Working

Things:

Yesterday, I left work two hours early to head to the barn to help out with a work day. I had intended to leave much earlier, but that didn't work out. I still put in about four hours of work straightening fenceposts, tamping down new gravel around fenceposts, restringing fence line, and generally hauling heavy stuff where and when asked. We had dinner at the trainer's house afterwards. It was good hard work and a nice way to meet more people at the barn. I am often the last person riding in the evening and have really only met a small fraction of the other boarders and riders.

Said work took us right up until dark, and then we went for dinner, so I did not ride. Ugh. Tonight I'm meant to go to New Hampshire after work but I am putting my foot down and riding first. (Words cannot express my deep desire to simply stay home and ride my horse and maybe possibly relax for a few minutes, but the boyfriend's family expects me in New Hampshire, so off I go.)

Tristan's back feet have been chewed up quite a bit more, and I can't figure out what's going on. I talked for a while with one of the barn workers who raised the specter of white line problems. Greeeeeat. He is not sore, off, tender, you name it, but his feet don't look good. Talked to farrier last night, who was going to take a look today, and stocked up on vinegar with which to apply White Lightning regularly for a while - can't hurt. (And here I'd been kicking myself for buying that bottle back when his front feet were recovering from being in the boots - seems I was just stocking up for the inevitable.)

Best Laid Plans

After a weekend out of state visiting family, I had a routine medical procedure Monday morning. It was supposed to take 5 minutes and leave me in mild discomfort; it took 35, was excruciatingly painful, and my body crashed pretty hard afterwards to the point that my doctor drove me home herself on her lunch break. (<3 Vermont)

So I did not ride on Monday. I did not move from the couch until late Monday night. I woke up Tuesday morning feeling waaaaay better, though I slowed down through the day, and planned on a road hack. I got to the barn to find out Tristan had attempted vivisection of his left hind hoof, as seen below.

Luckily the farrier was there and finishing up with another horse and said he'd look at Tris next. Score. While waiting, I watched a lesson and seeing another rider sit the trot made me queasy - no riding for me after all. Farrier cleaned up the foot and declared it ugly but not worrisome. He's mixing up gunk for me to apply until it grows out just to be careful but it already looks way better.

Today I am feeling well enough to for sure go for a hack...and it is pouring. We'll see if it keeps up until I get off from work, but seriously, universe, I would like to ride my horse.

Onward

My lip is way less swollen today, though it is just painful enough to be putting me in a low-grade bad mood all day, which I really didn't need.

I've been a bit quieter otherwise because I went through a very frustrating few days with Tristan. I arrived at the barn last Thursday to see that he had new shoes, and that we went back to glue-ons. Hooray for new shoes, uh-oh for glue-ons. I texted the farrier to check in and ask if Tris had behaved or if they'd had to tranq him again. Farrier said yes, tranq, and he hadn't really behaved and that he'd go over it with me in detail when he was back from his trip.

I checked in the next day and chatted with the barn manager who had been there for the whole escapade. Tris started acting up right away, so they gave him a bit of sedative, and he got through the RF that way, which was by far the more complicated and tricky one to do - farrier had to clean out the abscess cavity and then refill it with epoxy/glue.

When they did the LF Tris got progressively worse, and they added a bit more tranq. The tough thing about glue-ons is that at a certain point in the process the horse can NOT put his foot down or it will not dry properly. So Tris started breaking through the tranq at that exact wrong moment in the process and the farrier held on.

Tris responded by laying down. Yes, you read that right. He laid down on his shoulder in the crossties, and when the farrier let the foot go and stepped back, he laid down in the back too. And didn't get back up. He laid there glaring at the barn manager and the farrier - as a friend described later, "like a toddler throwing himself to the floor and holding his breath."

So the barn manager held his head and the farrier took off the not-set-right LF shoe and trimmed it back a bit. Tris tried to get up a bit while he was doing this, but the barn manager was firm and kept him down, and after the minute or two it took they let him back up and backed his butt into a corner.

And then he was good as gold for every second of the entire rest of the trim. Like it had finally filtered through his brain. I've semi-affectionately called him my 2x4 horse in the past, but this might take the cake.

Farrier and barn manager are consummate pros, and they both went out of their way to assure me that their read on him was never fear, aggression, or anything dangerous - simply stubbornness and a massive case of the don't wannas - which he is certainly more than capable of! He has not shown the slightest inkling of reaction to the whole thing in the days since: still good as gold to handle, and I have turned his feet every which way looking at his new shoeing job. If anything, he seems happy to have new shoes, as he is landing a bit better since his feet had grown out quite a bit.

I apologized profusely to them and they told me there was no need, they still thought he was great, and they  have every confidence that he has finally gotten the message. I took him outside and walked and trotted up and down many hills until he was puffing as a productive way to vent some of my frustration, and then I went home and cried and cried. I hope that he really is progressing now, but I don't know what to do anymore.

Whew

On the one hand: I helped out with chores again today, and there were only two of us, and it was a completely packed and busy six hours. I was too tired to ride and came home and have been mostly flopped on the couch re-reading Pride and Prejudice.

On the other hand:

- all those calories burned!

- I have my first 30 minute lesson on Tuesday! I am incredibly excited to get back on track. It will be almost 11 months to the day since my last lesson on Tris.

- last night, we cantered all the way around the ring, once on each lead. I could've kept going forever.

In state of the foot news, farrier will trim him in the next few days, cutting off the plastic shoes with clippers, dremeling out the epoxy, and then we'll see what's left. He could go back in another round of glue-ons, back to regular shoes, or back to barefoot. It depends on how much foot is left after the trim and what quality it is. Here are pictures from this morning.

The State of the Foot

I'm not saying I won't be checking back in with pictures of Tristan's foot as the last of the awfulness grows out, but these are the last for a little whole. Here's what his right front currently looks like, after the farrier worked his magic.

HOW AWESOME IS THAT?

We had our fourth ride tonight, circles and one or two lateral steps in the ring then a walk up the hill and around the dressage ring, back down the hill and a few more minutes in the ring. He will get tomorrow night off, as he was a bit tired tonight, and on Saturday we bump up to 30 minutes.

Here's my view these days.

YES

I RODE MY HORSE LAST NIGHT.

For the first time since August 14, when I finished my weekly lesson with a feeling of disquiet and thus started our endless diagnosis/treatment cycle, last night I saddled my horse, put his bridle on, and sat on him.

He was good as gold. Even though I'd closed every door to the indoor and alerted the barn manager, he stood at the mounting block and walked off sensibly. I don't know why I expected him to forget everything he's ever learned in the past 9 (!!!) months, but he responded willingly when I asked him to stretch down, to have a teensy bit of bend in the corners, to go on a 20 meter circle.

We walked for 20 minutes in the indoor. I didn't ask for anything complicated, just to stretch down a bit into my hands, bend a little bit, access the inside hind on a circle. He was quite short behind but even up front - I couldn't feel a hint of a problem in that RF. At the end of 20 minutes I could feel him getting the smallest bit muscle-tired, but he was definitely better in the hind end.

I could have ridden forever, and got a little teary at one point. He is the absolute best, and I am so glad to be riding him again.

The plan is to stay at 20 minute walks in the indoor through the next week at least, then start hacking outside for 30 minutes, whether fields or road work. I am a teensy bit nervous about how his soles will hold up on the dirt roads, with all their rocks, so I want to work on getting them tougher before we do that - lots of Durasole.

Tonight, I'll take pictures of his new glue-on shoes, which are kind of funky looking. The farrier also used epoxy to clean the whole RF up, so it looks practically normal save for the scar tissue lump that's slowly working its way down the hoof.

In conclusion, \o/

Patience, patience, patience...

The formalin/iodine mixture wasn't doing the trick on Tristan's scar tissue, so last night the farrier cut the tissue out and then cauterized the wound. He also took away a bit of Tristan's hoof wall to make sure the final bits of abscess hole are oxygenated, and that we have access to the last bit of healing tissue to clean it out regularly. I have to say, even with a little crescent cut out of the front of his hoof, this is the best it has looked in months - almost a year, in fact. I forgot to take a picture from the front, but here it is from the bottom.

The best part? Tris behaved for the farrier to do all of that without drugs, and without me even there! He texted me that he was going to go ahead and cauterize (which was something we'd already discussed as a possibility on Monday) and then when I got there he had just finished and said Tris was fine. This from the horse who back in November tried to kill the farrier when he tried to trim and shoe him. WHOO!

He should be getting his shoe on this morning. I made the extremely poor life decision of going to a midnight showing of Star Trek last night and registering for a 5K walk tonight, so even if I have enough energy after that walk my lack of sleep will still force me straight to bed.

Tomorrow, I pack breeches. \o/

One shoe down...

This morning, after much waiting and gnashing of teeth, I met the farrier to glue on Tristan's fancy new shoes.

I tranq'd him, and it took forever for it to kick in, because we moved him to a different barn and he was very snorty and fussy.

Then the farrier pulled of the duct tape booties and showed me the trim he did over the weekend. Tris stood great for the trim and for a CleanTrax treatment over the weekend, and his foot looks WAY better.

The farrier used a dremel to really, thoroughly clean out Tris's foot, getting the last of the dead sole carved out.

He also did some regular clean up trimming.

Then he started to glue on Tristan's left front shoe.

It took a long time set because it was so cold outside it was actually snowing, and even through the tranq he started fussing because he was so sick of holding his leg up - his shoulder was trembling for the last minute.

Then when we looked at his right front we saw that the small bleeding that had started in his scar tissue was still going. The vet who was there looking at other horses took a look, and we jointly decided to hold off puttin the right shoe on for a few days to heal and toughen up the scar tissue. So he will get a formalin/iodine mixture painted on the tissue for three days, twice a day, and hopefully by Wednesday it will be ok to take the shoe.

So I just have to be patient for a few more days...

Tris was still drunk when I left, leaning against his wall and napping pathetically.

Patience is a virtue, right?

Auuuuugh how is it that Tristan's new shoes were overnighted in Monday and they're STILL not here?

I'm going to try to take Friday afternoon off to meet the farrier. They'd better be there by then. The suspense is killing me.

Trying to stay productive by tack cleaning. The bridle I did last night soaked up a really obscene amount of oil. Oops...I guess letting it sit since August was a bit too much.