So... Dan looked quite short and icky in the pasture the other day. Like... lame at the walk icky. Ugh... No.. daniel no!! Sigh... So I checked him out at dinner and.. the magic stick was screaming right stifle. But... I don't know. We had already had a vet visit with Keelin scheduled for Thursday so I just... let him be all week. No riding. No lunging. And honestly, it was too damn hot to bother with pillar walking. I was cranky and tired of being hot and sweaty. So... he got to just chill Sunday and Tuesday. Well, we did his bemer therapy.
So Thursday morning I lunged Lyric and the grabbed Dan and Funny. Kelli and Marvin were supposed to come with us but she had covid and felt awful, so I went without her. Since I had the open trailer spot, I tossed Funny on too. They were happy campers and hopped on. We got to Aiken and evaluated Funny first. (See her post). Then it was Dan's turn.
I explained where we were and all that had happened since we saw her last and then we watched him go. We flexed his left hind, full limb and he was incredibly lame. Like... she cussed he was so lame. So then we did the right hind and he was super fussy and wouldn't stand very long. He jogged off lame for that too but not nearly as bad, but he also didn't hold it as long. So then we went back inside and she palpated him. He really felt pretty good in his left stifle and not so great in his right, but his right stifle always feels not so great. She checked his suspensories and he was UNHAPPY! Bilaterally. So she said that based on all the things... physical exam, flexion, palpation, ap scan, history... she thought it was his suspensories again. We also x-rayed his big fat knee and luckily that was clean. He had a tiny bit of arthritic changes on the lower joint but given that it is low motion, she said to ignore it. We didn't ultrasound his suspensories... I'm not sure if it's because she was like "this girl is crazy and let's not keep pouring money down the drain for her when he's toast", or... didn't feel like it was necessary... or figured it wouldn't change anything anyways... or he wasn't lame enough to justify it... or what, but we didn't ultrasound. The plan is to shockwave him, walk only rides for 6 weeks or so, and to change his hind shoes to the denoix shoes. And continue with all the other things. I did ask "WHYYYYYYY?????". And she said "all the compensating from all the things???". I guess. Sigh...
Oh, and... she agreed that his shouder was definitely sweeney but he had very little lateral instability so she told me to keep at it.. maybe try shockwave (did that already) but mentioned that she gave up on her personal horse with sweeney after a year of getting no where. Sigh. I remember that now. UGH.....
So yeah... We headed home and I shockwaved him and then went ahead and did electro on his shoulder. Poor Dan had to stay in overnight to keep Funny company. I told him I know I had promised him no more stall rest but it was only one night and I gave him the patio and the grass area and told him he owed Sissy for staying with him those many weeks. And he obliged happily enough. Except he woke me up at 6:30 the next morning banging on his stall. I got out of bed and let them both out and then went back and laid down til 7 am. Then when I got out there to feed he was lame again. Dude!! Oh... how on earth he is managing this but he half ripped off his left hind shoe again. Seriously dude?! I pulled it out and texted Patrick, telling him that the vet wanted the denoix's anyways, so Dan was just helping out. I swear though... I'm not sure why he can't keep his hind shoes from twisting lately.
So... yeah. Guess we'll be doing lots of walk work and water treadmill at the walk work. Sigh... at least we can do that and hit the trails. And at least Keelin didn't really see a front end lameness.
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