Tuesday, February 19, 2019

Practice makes Perfect...Wrapping edition


Nova wondering when it's going to stop raining every damn day


3 of our animals decided this month that they needed to pay a visit to the various vets' offices and 2 of them require me to dust off my wrapping skills and practice perfect tension and even spacing.

Lilo is a bit of a cinderblock- she just plops down wherever she wants regardless of who might of been there first!

It started off with Lilo having some gastric upset and upon further inspection/tests her gut was so screwed up (she was found on the side of the road) so she was on medicine to kill all the bad gut bacteria and then probiotics to replace the bad stuff with good gut bacteria. She's looking good and finally gaining weight!!

Bad dogs have to wear the cone of shame. Smart dogs figure out how to flip the cone over and still be able to chew wrap- bad smart dogs get a bigger cone of shame that can't be flipped. Don't be a bad smart dog.

Then Pepper somehow ripped off a chunk of her foot exposing the tendons in one of her toes (scroll to the bottom of this post if you want to see it!). Have no idea how she did it but Husband found her at the backdoor trying to tell us that she was hurt. We jumped into the car and drove the 7 minutes to the vets office and they cleaned it up and put a bandage over her paw. The really interesting thing though is they're using Manuka Honey to help it form granulated tissue and heal quicker. The 2 vets that she's seen have just gone on and on about how much success they've seen using the Manuka honey when it comes to healing injuries and growing skin back quickly (Pepper didn't even leave a flap of skin- it was all gone...never found the missing chunk of skin...) Now that we're in charge of wrapping Pepper's foot for the next 14 days (instead of paying the vet $30  to do it every 3 days- if we made it to day 3 before she chewed it off...grrrrr!!!) I've had to practice my skills on a dog's paw and it is a good bit different than a horse's leg! Thankfully Pepper is a very good patient and just lays there while I do my best to get honey on gauze,  grab the casting wrap stuff, wrap some other thing around all of that, then cover it in vet wrap followed by elasticon all while hoping it's not to tight or loose. I should be a pro by the end of this! Or so I hope!!

Is she a mule or a horse? Some may wonder...

And the final (I hope- especially b/c we've reached the "3") Marley got kicked in the leg and it swelled up and looked like it might be on the way to being infected (plus she blows up like a balloon at the drop of a hat) Of course the cut was on her forearm so I've had to do some elaborate wrapping making it look like her injury was way worse than it really was. The vet gave her some antibiotics and bute and decided not to stitch the cut so it would easily drain. She's been such a trooper and honestly whoever taught her to have such good manners thank you! She doesn't like me squirting the medicine in her mouth but she just stands there and swallows quickly. Gah she's such a good horse and I'm just sad her riding career was cut short before it ever really got going. (that's a story in and of itself but basically she injured her back and struggles to carry the weight of a rider, even a very tiny light one)


First prints in a freshly drug than rained on ring- oh and of course Chimi sprung his shoe so this was all at the walk and now that his shoe is fixed we're getting MORE rain

Riding continues to be hit or miss b/c of the weather and suddenly I realized it's almost the end of February which doesn't leave us much time to prepare for the spring season!!! In 2 weeks FENCE is having a XC schooling day (weather permitting) and I'd really like to take Chimi out and hop over some of the basics to refresh both our brains. But this next week we have rain in the forecast for 6 days straight and neither of us have jumped since the hoof crack. I'm hoping to haul to an indoor and I need to organize my time better so I can squeeze it in between work, barn/house chores, and all this bandaging I have to do! I know I can do it I just have to be better about using my time wisely (which I'm TERRIBLE at)

Did spring sneak up on any of you guys? Or have you been good about keeping the riding going despite shit weather?

(Scroll down if you want to see Pepper's toe when we got to the vet's office)




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10 comments:

  1. That's pretty yucky. And it looks way tougher to wrap than a horse leg! Hope the honey works wonders and it heals quickly!

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    1. For sure! Less space to wrap but definitely is a bit more awkward- or at least to me since I've been wrapping horses' legs for 15+ years!!! ;)

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  2. This rain is awful :( It is sleeting right now!! Every time things begin to firm up we get dumped on some more.Sorry for all the animal bad luck lately. I'm glad they are all good patients though! I'm sure some warm, dry days will help everyone stay healthier and more sane.

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    1. The sleet is sticking to the ground!!!! GAH!!!! And for real- I keep dreaming of warm perfect amount of rain to sunshiny days ;)

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  3. aw those poor animals! interesting about the honey tho!

    and yessssss that's so exciting about the upcoming schooling day! i want to school so badly but right now our ground is still just too wet, so the only option is an arena xc field that's kinda far-ish. still tho, it's worth it! hopefully everything works out!

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    1. Our ground is also pretty wet and with 6 days of rain in the forecast...gah.... I think as long as it stays dry the week leading up to the schooling it should be ok? Fingers crossed!!!! And at least you guys have the option of Arena XC- thats better than nothing and looks like a lot of fun!

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  4. Oh man! That old saying when it rains it pours... in this case, it's literal and figurative. So sorry for all of that! Interesting about the honey, my vet just prescribed that for a friend's horse that has been trouble healing a wound. Must be a new wonderful thing. Hey, whatever works!
    Hope you get some riding in and your spring plans can happen accordingly!

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    1. Hs very true! And very interesting about your friend's horse, I hope it works! The vets have been very happy with how Pepper's foot is healing so I guess it's doing it's job!

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    1. It didn't slow her down! She's been bouncing around on 3 legs and now starting to put weight on it so I don't think it's bothering her to much anymore! Just need the skin to heal quickly...

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