Cautiously Optomistic

We woke to dark grey this morning.  Grey skies, grey fog, grey sparrow tapping on the window.  The fog dissipated by mid morning only to be replaced with light, intermittent rain.  Not the most cheerful start to the day.  This weather is supposed to continue through the weekend.  They keep putting snow on the forecast for Friday and then taking it off.  Then putting it back on again.   

After breakfast, Brett went down to the barn to ride Flash.  Grrrrr.  Not fair.  I'm dying to ride.  I haven't written much about Jackson lately.  It's been a long slow slog with his hoof.  Two and a half weeks since I've been on his back.  Pretty depressing.   I decided to head down to the barn as well and wash Jackson's tail and hind legs.  We got a new load of hay in and Jackson, who has a sensitive tummy, got manure all over himself the first day he was fed the stuff.  On the way down to the barn, I noticed a few new flowers.

After washing Jackson's tail, I went into the tack room to get a clean tail bag.  I got halfway back out the door and guess who was watching me:

Jackson: You've got a cookie for me, right?

Yes! Yessss!  There is a cookie in her hand!

I took Jackson up to the orchard to hand graze while his tail dried.  He was walking fine, forward, energetic with no gimp.  As I stood next to him watching him wolf down dandelion greens, clover and grass I thought about this mystery lameness.  Yesterday, he was walking fine in a straight line but off when he turned.  This morning at breakfast time, he was only gimpy when he pivoted on that foot.  Now, he seemed sound.  Hmmmm.  I took him into the arena and longed him a bit.  Sound.  All gaits.  At the beginning he had one or two gimpy steps at trot but then he was fine.  And he wanted to go go go.

So, I'm happy and worried all at once.  I don't think it was an abscess after all.  The pain never built to a head, followed by a burst, and relief.  Instead, he just gradually improved.  Which is good.  But it's also how things started with Strider when he had laminitis.  The first sign was an inability to turn at trot.  I put a call into the vet.  Next time she is up in our community, I want her to take some xrays of that foot.  We did baseline shots about a year ago so there will be something to compare it to.  I'll see what she advises anyway.  Maybe I'm just jumping to stupid conclusions.

I've got my fingers crossed that this was just a bruise or something else straight forward.  And, once the weather improves I plan to be back on his back.  Yes!