Fingers Crossed for Jackson and Flash

This morning as I was leading Winston to the mounting block to ride, I heard tires crunching on the gravel driveway.  Dr. Thacher had arrived early, due to a cancellation at her first stop.  With large animal vets, appointments are windows of time rather than precise.  You never know when there is going to be an emergency that requires the vet to hightail it out to an unscheduled barn to treat colic or a horse that ran through a fence.  Sometimes it works the other way as well (but not as often).  So Winston and I didn't get to ride today.  I'll be up early tomorrow to get a session in before work. 

Since Winston was already out, we decided to give him his vaccinations first.  We tried having Dr. Thacher give him some love and then the shots so he wouldn't hop all over in melt-down mode like the last time she was up.  He did great with the love part but as soon as she moved to his neck, he jumped sideways.  We decided to put him in the wash rack where he couldn't jump on us.  Dr. Thacher gave him his first shot and he jumped and wagged his neck a bit.  Then she gave him a handful of cookies.  For the second shot, he stood still and the minute she finished he whipped his head around for the rest of the cookies.  He's no fool.  And he loves cookies. 

I put him back in the pasture where he followed me around, crowding into the camera space.  I managed to get him to stay far enough away to take his picture, but he wasn't pleased about it.  He gives new meaning to the phrase "pocket pony."

Next to get shots was Jackson.  He was a good boy, standing still and thanking us politely for his cookie.  Dr. Thacher told me that she has been to a number of conferences lately where there has been discussion of insulin resistant horses.  Typically, these horses test negative for Cushings and insulin (like Jackson) are young (like Jackson) and have laminitis (like Jackson).  The horses are treated with the same medication used for Cushings and they respond well.  So, we are starting Jackson on the medication.  Hopefully, this will allow him to get through the wet winter without flareups and it may, just may, get him sound enough for light riding.  Wouldn't that be great??!  I am cautiously optimistic.  I'm ecstatically happy, trying to be cautiously optimistic.  (It's giving me a headache, this bouncing ball of happy in my heart).

The donkeys got their shots next.  They were good about it, even Tuffy who can be a stinker about vets and farriers.

Last up was Flash.  I lunged him so Dr. Thacher could see the problem in his hind.  He was visibly uncomfortable and the problem was clearly in his hocks -- the left primarily.  Lucky Flash; he had his hocks injected.  It was his turn to go into the wash rack after getting his horsey valium.  He napped through the whole procedure.

Tuffy watched the whole thing through the fence.  Nosey little bugger.

Dr. Thacher got her prep ready and went to work.  She injected both hocks and then wrapped him in bright green vet wrap to keep the injection site clean.  Brett's job was to keep Flash's long full tail out of the way.

Flash will be on bute (pain killers) for the next four days and handwalking.  If Flash is doing okay, Brett can try riding him in the show Saturday.  They are just doing one test and its a low key schooling show.  We'll watch Flash and see how quickly he recovers. 

Fingers crossed for Flash and Jackson.