What a month it's been so far...

Good heavens.  I said hello to 33 earlier this month, and as a present to me, Chance gave me the ride of his life on March 1.  I took him down to the local horse show and entered him into the Amateur Reining class not expecting much.  All Winter long we have just plain struggled.  The weather has been awful, high winds, snow, freezing rain, and oh gosh, the rain.  It just poured all Winter long making it nearly impossible to work on anything with a horse with slide plates on.  Needless to say, Chance's stops were horrible, his run downs were neurotic sprints to the end of the ring followed by a buck, lead change, and a bolt.  His cued lead changes were stressing him out to the point he was missing them altogether and crashing onto his forehand.  It got so bad, I just put the Reining off to the side and went back to working on the basics.  Bending, softening, and RELAXING, which is most definitely NOT in Chance's vocabulary.

So on show day, I was expecting to be embarrassed and felt like I didn't belong in a class where people would be watching and judging us. It all ended up working out great as we whistled along and had a pretty clean run.  He executed lead changes, his stops were solid, his rollbacks were clean, there was a difference in speed for his circles, and he backed straight. 

I was on cloud nine, gathering steam for progressing in our reining training when the first of two disasters struck.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

I rode Chance lightly the following Sunday in a plain snaffle bit.  I didn't work any Reining, just more softening and bending, more or less to stretch his muscles and get him some exercise.  We got through our short ride and I put him in his stall to eat his dinner.  I grabbed up another horse that I am working with and rode him for the next hour or so.  On the way to put the second horse up, Chance hollered at me like he was hungry.  I checked his stall to be sure he had been given his hay and grain, which he had, but wasn't eating.  Scratching my head, I started looking around for what the problem was.  I checked his face and neck for swelling and didn't find anything.  I went to put my hand on his mouth to move his front end away from me so I could check the other side of him when I felt the problem.  My hand came away bloody. 

I opened his lips to see if he had scratched himself somewhere and blood poured out of his mouth.  That is beyond my expertise, so it was time to call the vet.

My vet came out and opened up Chance's mouth.  The source of the bleeding was a tongue laceration caused by a barb on one of his teeth.  We floated his teeth and let him rest.  For the next two weeks, I only got to ride twice and did so both times in his rope halter to keep his tongue safe.

Blood on Chance's lips



Tuesday, March 18, 2014

I get a call from Dana.  The barn owner called him and told him Chance wasn't eating his grain again.  I had to work, so I left the house early to go and check on Chance.  My first thought was his tongue was bothering him, so when I got there, I tried to halter him so I could look him over.  Every time I tried to tighten the throat latch, Chance raised his head and his eyes bulged.  Ok, he is indicating pain.  I don't see anything strange so I started feeling around his head.  When I got to the bottom of his jaw, I felt a huge swelling beginning to emerge.  It was kind of like he had swallowed a baseball.  My first thought was, strangles.

I called my vet again.  He came out to look at him and he confirmed he also thought it was strangles. He was running a fever of 102.  My vet took a nasal culture and injected Chance with antibiotics.  He left me with banamine to give Chance some relief so he could eat.

Over the course of the next several days, the swelling became more and more localized, and much larger.  It got so big that Chance started losing his hair and the skin underneath became necrotic.  The smell, oh goodness, that smell was horrible.  My vet came back out twice more before he felt like he could lance it.  When he did, it was horrendous.  I have never, in my 29 years of dealing with horses, EVER seen or smelled anything like what was coming out of Chance.

The prescribed course of treatment is to cold water rinse the wound, followed by several flushes of hydrogen peroxide twice daily.  I then apply a thick, clean piece of gauze to the wound and put a full face flymask over the top of that to keep the dirt and insects out.

At this point, we are sure it isn't strangles, but maybe some kind of insect/snake bite or puncture wound.  I hopefully will know more this morning as my vet took a culture of what came out of the wound when he opened it.

Hole under Chance's jaw where the vet lanced the swelling.  You can see the loss of hair, the necrotic skin surrounding it, and the inflamed living tissue around that.

I am hoping this horrible month is now getting behind us and we can get Chance healthy and back to normal.  I am exhausted and I know Chance has to be as well.