A Very Windy Vet Day!

Weds was vet day and the wind was crazy! We could hardly see because of all of the dust that was flying. There is not too much worse than working at a ranch in a desert wind storm, but it was vet day and we had to get it all done...

Look at the dust!

But, the weather didn't stop a young visitor from meeting Aztec and Fiesta!

Dr. Schur also loved Aztec. She checked him to see if he was ready for castration. She said he is and that he will need to go into the vet clinic for the procedure. So, we will figure out when he can go and make his appointment.
We started off with x-rays on Lobo. He has a bit of a deformed foot and we wanted to know just what is going on with it...

You can see the dishiness of his one foot, Dr. Schur thought he had an injury at some point in his young life and it was never addressed. Now that we can see the position of his coffin bone, our Farrier can use the x-ray as a guide to round off his toe and take his heel down.

See how his bones tilt a bit to the right side (probably from an old soft tissue injury). Hopefully good trimming will help relieve some of this. The two lower bones should naturally fuse which will give him more stability. If they do fuse, he should be able to go on to a nice pleasure riding home with no problem.

Then it was Brain Surgery time! Lobo was laid out...

And the games began!

Luckily, he slept through the whole thing...

We had a lameness exam done on Stitch. He arrived with a hind end lameness, but it has improved over time. He does have a small Curb (a thickening of the Plantar ligament below the point of a hock). This coupled with his large old Bowed tendon will stop him from being a jumping or heavy competition horse, but he will really make someone a super nice pleasure riding horse.

City Slicker's hind limb lameness was also looked at. He does have some arthritis in his hind end (he raced in his younger days) and seems a bit foot sore behind. So, we are going to try shoes on his hinds (right now he is wearing fronts only) and see how he goes from there. He was also given a Legend shot to help him.

Next up, Sanctuary Horse, Cisco. He has an old deformed foot.

His x-ray is very interesting! His pastern is obviously luxated, most likely due to an old soft tissue injury long before he came to us. He has massive bone remodeling and actually feels little pain, everything is basically fused. Again, our Farrier can use the x-ray to trim his foot to keep him as comfortable as possible. Cisco will be trimmed and head back out into the pasture with his pals where he will continue to live a good horse life.
Tioga was next in line...

We had his skin cancer re-checked. He came to Shiloh will a horrible case of photo sensitivity with cancer over the hairless patches. We have had it removed and biopsied many times over the years, but this one area is very aggressive and it's getting worse now. It was decided to send him into the clinic where he can be laid out and as much removed as possible with a scalpel and by freezing it. If we don't do anything, the vet estimates the cancer will become invasive this year.Tioga headed back out to the Mare Motel to await his trip to the clinic...

We also had Ketchum's rectal cancer rechecked. It has just gotten so bad now and no matter what we do to it, it returns, more aggressive each time. It is starting to affect his being able to pass manure normally and we just cannot remove anymore of the tissue. The decision has been made to spoil and love Ketchum for the next while and when we feel his quality of life has been affected, to have him euthanised. This poor guy has so much spirit and is so cute, but we have to do what is right for him. We encourage everyone to spend some time with him over the next month or so. He will be moved to the Gummies where we can keep a very close eye on him...

Over in the Mare Motel, we had Lovely's rotten tooth rechecked. Because of her horribly advanced neurological problem, we just cannot sedate her enough to get the tooth removed. With just a tiny bit of sedation, she sways dangerously and laying her out is just not an option- we don't think she would be able to get back up. So, Dr. Schur decided to flush her infected sinus out. Here she taps a needle through her bone into the sinus cavity.

The needle is in and pus began to flow out. She had to be right next to her friend, Blahnik...

She squeezed a flushing agent through the needle, the pus came out of her nostril. The pressure was relived and Lovely felt so much better. We are all hoping that her tooth will eventually fall out on it's own. Meanwhile, we will have to have her flushed out a few times.

Vet days are ALWAYS interesting!