Spring Break

 We actually went on a family vacation this year!!!  Then when we came back we did our yearly whole body check up for the boys.  We changed vets to another clinic.  Their equine vet was someone who has seen Dutch before (he handled emergencies for our old clinic).  Dutch needed his teeth attended which he handled well, but it didn't fix our current eating issues (more to follow on that later).  Uno needs his teeth done as well, but more importantly we looked into some of the very weird body work issues we were seeing with him.  

My favorite men in the world.

Even if he doesn't like grain anymore - those dapples show that he is clearly healthy.

Our findings were good and bad.  The good - all his issues are easily treatable and some may resolve themselves.  The bad - 2 look to be things that are going to require continued maintenance. The best part about all this was that although he flexed positive in pretty much every leg (his right front is the only good one) he was still sound and tracking up well on the lunge.  

When you have started actually jumping things it is important that the body feels good.

So, actual findings - his left front fetlock hurt.  A lot. This is the same leg that he has all the impalement scar tissue at his chest and elbow.  He has never been 100% even in his extension of this limb in more forward gaits, which we attributed to his uneven chest.  It could have actually been this arthritis.  So we injected his front fetlocks.

The boys have been doing a LOT of this.

Then we played find the source... Uno has a history of one again off again back issues.  His back was sore again but it was all muscle issues.  We decided on a round of robaxin to see how the other changes we made settled in.  When we flexed him he was slightly positive on both hocks with no reactions in his stifles.  We decided to inject the hocks.  Both exterior injections went in well, however, the interior were very difficult.  Our vet said this means that his hocks are fusing from interior to exterior.  We could x-ray to see how far they were, but that we could just add flexions to his 6 month appointments and keep an eye on them.

BOOP

That plus spring shots for all 4 boys added up to a pretty penny, so we are in savings mode at the moment.

At least it is beyond pretty right now, so I can enjoy watching them graze.