Four Month Update!

We are now 4 months into treating for neck inflammation and overall wellness, and after 3 treatments of chiro and acupuncture, things are still looking up!

Shorty had 2 appointments this last week. First, the vet came for his second check up since the end of July. He is still showing much improvement *happy dance!* She also commented at how great his coat is and how healthy he looks. His winter coat is like velvet! I don't remember him ever being SO soft. For this visit, most of his issue was in his lower back; he was actually very tight back there. Only one side of his neck at the base needed attention, and on the right side of his withers. She still suspects some soreness in his right hock, and possibly his left front. I am hoping the Pentosan will help manage and improve those spots, but so far he has done nothing but improve and is moving better than he has in a long time. He is unfortunately still looking a bit short at the trot, but his back was pretty out of whack and I think I already see improvement. My farrier says that once we feel good about trimming him differently and not so short that it will help him have a naturally longer stride. Especially if he keeps improving like he has.

We did have a day or two early on last week where he seemed a little off. He was just slightly bobbing at the trot when I rode. He seemed normal by Wednesday and Thursday. Gah, these horses! That was quite upsetting though.

His other appointment was with the farrier this past Friday and now he only has bar shoes with no wedge or pad at all. I can't believe we're finally back to this step! I've had this whole plan laid out working our way backwards to being somewhat normal and it's finally happening! If he passes the next 6 weeks with flying colors, I am thinking we'll be ready to try regular shoes and hopefully more of a dressage trim for his next visit. Our six week farrier visit will be right after Christmas. It will be such a great Christmas gift to me if Shorty is able to try normal shoes again!

I wasn't sure how well he took all the changes on Friday evening, but he looked really good working on the line Saturday evening, and even better tonight! He picked up the canter quickly when asked and looked really relaxed, rhythmic, and held it until I asked for the down transition. No bolting, rushing, and no laziness, but just right! He felt good undersaddle trotting as well. As of right now, we're still definitely on the right track :)

Sooo excited!

I have read that Pentosan probably won't show clinical improvement until after the 2nd/ 3rd dose. I just gave him the 2nd dose today - all by myself, too! I have been dreading having to give shots in fear of messing it up or doing it wrong, but I have had several people show me in person and I watched lots of videos so I could see several approaches. It went just fine and I feel like a million bucks! Whew!

Whether I am seeing clinical improvements from Pentosan yet or not, I am THRILLED about how he is doing. Shorty continues to be one happy and good looking boy. I saw him earlier this week on Wednesday just to brush him and see how he was doing. I thought he was moving around great, specifically turning exceptionally normal! :D

I thought today was the same, if not even better! When turning in a small circle, there is not a single limp to be seen and he is finally reaching and stepping under his center of gravity with that hind inside leg. No more shuffling or awkward movements. I thought he was lifting up his back legs higher today as well. I am just ecstatic and overjoyed!

It has been raining since Thursday night and the horses have had a lot of inside time lately, so when I went out late morning today after he finished his breakfast hay, he was happy to get out. He was especially happy to have his head scratched all over and was such a ham! After I cleaned him up and gave him his shot, I hand walked him around 20 minutes and let him eat some grass. When I led him down the barn isle to go walk in the back pasture, he was walking so briskly and confidently, clip-clopping rhythmically as we went - what a change from a couple months ago when he was almost limping down the isle! When we walked out the back door into the pasture, he began prancing like a racehorse ready to go! Once he realized I wasn't letting him go, he settled right back down and walked with me like a good boy, but man I am sure he would have had a nice bucking gallop! It's just too wet though and we're trying not to tear up the grass right now, especially with his shoes.

I am interested to see how he rides next time. Just in case he is feeling extra good, which I kind of expect he will, we will definitely be doing some lunging workouts before rides. That way I can also see if there is marked improvement with his movement.

I am just at a loss for words right now, knowing where we came from. I really hope our lowest low is well behind us!

Pentosan is here!

My Pentosan just arrived from my vet today! We will begin tomorrow morning and then he will receive one dose each week for the next 3 weeks. After that it is monthly or as needed. So far I am just grateful that everything has gone as planned. I wanted to begin the Pentosan earlier this month because the Previcox is almost gone. There are only a few days left of that now and I pray that Shorty will not decline without it. Fingers crossed!

The end of this month will be 2 months since we have seen our vet and so I will probably be scheduling that soon. I am anxiously looking forward to seeing how his check-up goes after the changes so far.

We had a nice relaxing walk ride in the dark last night. It is getting dark so quickly now :( There is some lighting enough to get on and get around. I personally think it is such a weird and kind of scary feeling cantering around in the dark, so nice and easy walk ride yesterday with some shoulder-in and leg yielding thrown in.

Fall is here!!

The weather is great! Not too cool and not too hot. I will enjoy it while it lasts, but soon it will be way too cold for my taste, brr! I'm definitely a summer girl.

Shorty has been great! He spent a few days without his left shoe because it came off during a ride last week. He trotted a bit off because of having one wedge and shoe on and one off, but otherwise it didn't bother him at all! He walked briskly and normally around and down the barn isle. That makes me so glad because I had feared him not being able to ever be barefoot again after all of this due to pain or discomfort. Losing the shoe sucked, but I was glad to find out he is not tender footed, yay!

Luckily, the farrier was scheduled to come out at the end of the week and he said he has REALLY good looking feet. The left hoof used to be wider from bearing more weight, and now his feet look more identical. This means he has been bearing equal weight for a while now and it shows!

We only did a 1 degree wedge this time. The pad doesn't even go all the way around - it's just on the back of his hoof. If he stays well, we will go to only bar shoes without the wedge, and then the next step is to try regular shoes!! I am crossing my fingers. A bit of normalcy would be so nice.

I will get some Pentosan joint supplement (injected into muscle) from my vet soon to replace the Previcox. Previcox is an NSAID so it is like taking aspirin every single day. I really want him to be able to get a way from that. Pentosan has a lot of super reviews and would be an alternative to purchasing a feed through joint supplement, which, we all know the controversy on that for how much horses actually benefit from eating glucosamine, chondroitin, and HA. Pentosan will help with any inflammation and is known to actually prevent and improve arthritis.

I've added Omega Horseshine (flaxseed) to his grain and I think he is happy to have his flax back! He thinks it is very tasty. He is still getting 8,000 IU of vitamin E per day and since it is just a super good value I will probably continue that until someone tells me to stop ha ha. He looks soooo good right now so I must be doing something right!

I am so glad that I have my riding horse back, but now we are having those normal issues with being one-sided and not wanting to jump into the canter correctly to the right - left is good! He is majorly falling into the circle during trot-canter transitions and trot work, especially where there is not a fence to guide off of. He can be quite rushy at the trot still, but he takes half halts well, so as long as I keep communicating with him he is still very responsive even though he obviously feels really good. It feels like we are on our way to working those types of things out, though (again!!). Right now it is walk, canter, and some circles of trot each ride. Not too much collection or anything now, but I have started asking for shoulder-fore quite often at the walk the last few rides to kind of get back into things. As soon as we go up to trot/canter, he kind of falls apart! We have a lot of conditioning work ahead, but I am looking forward to it :)

No News is Not Great News

I haven't updated lately because 1) I have been really busy, but also 2) we seemed to be having issues :( Don't worry though, this posts ends on a good note!

Since Shorty had those several days where I wasn't sure what was going on...whether he was trying to buck or crow hop because of excess energy, discomfort, or whatnot, I had found out that he went much better in a different saddle pad with my western saddle. The pad I was using was missing a couple layers in one spot because the squirrels got to it this past winter. They did not manage to eat through it, and I didn't think it was enough for it to make a big deal, especially since I was using a Navajo pad over it.

Anyway, I asked a friend if I could try her saddle pad and that night we had a FANTASTIC ride. He had also been going into a fast trot instead of going into a canter and usually when he does that I think he is having a bad day. That was Sept. 2nd.

There was a tack sale at a local arena last weekend where a LOT of used tack was going for some really decent prices. I got a Pro Choice 20X pad (used of course) for $20. It looks great on him and he seems to ride well in it.

Then, even more recently, he began bolting away from me when I lunged him on the line in the arena. He did this only at a canter and only going to the right it seemed. He has always done this occasionally since I have owned him, which is why I have never trusted cantering him in an open space with other people riding unfortunately. We found out that he would only really pull away if the line was long enough, and so keeping him on a smaller circle when asking for the canter kept him from even trying. He looked fine, and especially with draw reins, doing it this way has made our latest lunging sessions go just fine. I think he just got my number here, and did it because he knew he could get away. He would even start out going really nicely and all of a sudden just rip away from me and go galloping to the opposite side of the arena, snort/blow towards the other horses, and then start walking back. There was one time where he kept galloping down the long side back a forth several times before I convinced him to come to me.

He has also been eating from a slow feed hay net at night. He has to kind of poke at it repetitively to get the hay, and even though his hay lasts longer, I decided to put his hay back on the ground for him to eat just in case it was not good for his neck for him to be eating it that way every night.

Tonight, we got to ride down into the big pasture because the night horses hadn't been turned out yet. There's a new subdivision of houses going up on the other side of the fence, people walking, and cars driving by. He did well and he always enjoys getting out and looking around at new sights.

In the arena we did some 20m canter circles and he popped right into the canter from a walk. We did some trotting at the end of our ride and he was quite rushy so we worked on finding a good tempo and keeping it. He actually broke into a canter a couple of times like my last horse used to do. We would be trotting along and then he'd just break into the nicest canter. I know there are issues when he doesn't want to canter or when he is lazy. He was neither of those tonight and was nice and forward in both directions - yipee!

He got a carrot and nice cool rinse down after the hot day. He is such a good boy and he makes me so happy!!

Re-check

The vet came out again yesterday to check on Shorty's progress. Fantastic news!! He's not perfect, but he has improved VERY WELL for just one month! He turns in small circles like a normal horse now without looking lame or ouchy. She said any neuro signs he has are SO slight that it would be very hard for someone else to pick up on. He is also gaining muscle tone everywhere really nicely.

Her exam revealed that he had stiffness in his neck still and on the right shoulder. The acupuncture exam detected some front feet soreness and hock soreness. She advised not to be too worried about this right now because it is common for horses to have some minor soreness in these areas after just being put back to work. We are good to try some trotting at the end of our work sessions now as well, but I will be sure to only ask for what he can handle. I am still of course wary of any navicular type issues but Shorty seems to be very happy and willing so I will continue asking of him what he is willing to do.

Since I am no longer feeling like I have to rush this along, I am going to try my best to only change one thing at a time. In six weeks when the farrier comes again, we're going to try to ease down the wedge from a 2 degree to 1.5 or 1 degree. She has concerns about keeping him in a wedge for too long, which I have always been concerned about. My farrier is thinking that he might even be okay to try a more conservative approach with regular shoes, wedge, and a more dressage-like trim, but I am going to keep the bar shoes for a while longer until we find if we are better with or without the wedge. The bar shoe could still be offering him needed support, and I would hate to change the wedge height, trim, and the shoe to find that he doesn't do well and then we won't really know which one did it! If he keeps doing so well and improves with no wedge (maybe just keep a flat rim pad), then I would looove to see if he can get a more dressage-like trim and regular shoes! Getting him to function correctly without the wedge seems like the priority right now. He might always benefit from a nice rim pad though, just like some people really need their therapeutic inserts!

Meanwhile, my dog Luke is doing fantastic and our first class is next Monday! When throwing the frisbee last night, he caught 7 out of 10 throws in the air, and one of them he didn't catch because I didn't throw it very well! I have never had a dog that could fetch so well so it makes me happy. I am very much looking forward to taking him to classes.

As my farrier said, between the dog and the horse, "one of you is going to do something!" haha

Week Four!

This has been a good week! The temps here have gone from high 90's and 100's to 80's and even as low as mid 70's for the just the last couple of days. Yesterday was also the windiest day we have had since Spring. It was interesting because I tacked up western to ride and had planned to go ahead and ride walk and canter without lunging first. Walking was just fine. The first canter I thought actually felt really nice and round without me even really asking. Then the second time I asked he did this balking thing where he would almost immediately try to stop after the canter depart and hunch his back up. It almost felt like he was tripping. I put him on the lunge to watch and he would lurch forward and start crow hopping. He seemed to trot sound. I was so worried!!!

I untacked him and was really curious what he would do if I just let him in the arena to run. Maybe the cool and windy weather just had him wound up. I let him go and asked him to move away and he took off! He got some good bucks in and then galloped FULL out down the long side with beautiful big and elevated strides. He came back to me after one round and I patted on him. I wanted to see if he would do the same thing and get it on video so I asked him one more time and he took off cantering sideways down the rail towards the horses in the pasture who were also running around a bit. He got to the end and turned around to trot back to me. He looked perfectly normal to me and sound!

I hope I will never have to sell this horse. He follows me like a shadow, trots with me, halts, and most times will even lunge with me all at liberty. I lunged him in an open pasture today and he even lead with me at liberty walk/trot/halt in an open field, with grass, and another horse around grazing and others riding in the arena next to us. He is awesome! Instead of eventing maybe we'll do dressage and then liberty for fun! His walk, turns, and canter all looked great today. I am so pleased at how well he cantered today and how soft he was on the line. I have had many times where he would bolt and pull so hard that he would get away - I think I am learning that if he does that, it means that he hurts. While he has gotten quick, he has not bolted like that during this whole month and has been very easy to manage on the line at the canter.

Another sign that he is a happy horse right now is that he will ALWAYS come to me in the pasture every single time. There have been many periods of time, even 3 years ago, where he would start turning away or even playing the chase game when I approached him in the pasture. When he bolts and runs away I am of course thinking (hoping) that he is just fine because he is running! Afterall, hey, there are a lot of horses that do that. But, he is a very good horse who normally doesn't. He is not crippled and is still able to RUN...that doesn't mean that he feels great to exercise purposefully with a rider. I feel I am becoming one of those people who will always consider pain the FIRST option when a horse begins misbehaving, hard to catch, etc, even if most people wouldn't expect that to be the cause. Unfortunately sometimes it takes a long time to figure out why they do not feel 100%. People who try to assess pain first and who know horses don't try to be pests or jerks are very wise.

He has his re-check with the chiro vet this coming Monday. I hope she has good things to report and I am sure he will benefit from another session of acupuncture. I will be interested to see if she detects any foot pain, and if his neck is feeling much better. My guess is it sure is!

My regular vet has agreed that it can't hurt to try Pentosan. The loading dose period is a bit pricey, but I think I am going to give that a shot in the next couple of months.

Week Three

This week was busy for me because of my career, but this was the week where we went back down to 1/4 pill of Previcox. Honestly, when I went out to see him and walk him this week, I forgot! So it did not make any difference at all from what I could tell. I just saw him tonight and he seemed very happy and walking and turning pretty well. I haven't asked him to canter since our decline last week, but I plan to begin testing it out more this weekend.

My next thought is trying him on Pentosan for the inflammation in his neck and anywhere else he may have inflammation ever. This would be instead of Previcox, MSM, or feed through joint supplements. The interesting thing about this stuff is that is works to actually make the arthritis BETTER, as opposed to the Previcox which just masks symptoms. Adequan and Legacy are similar, but Pentosan seems to be in its own and better ballpark of options.

Tomorrow, I plan on lunging at the walk and canter. I will most definitely hop on for a walk ride, but it just depends how the canter on the lunge goes whether I do a couple more rounds under saddle. We shall see!

Bad day, Better day, New day

Friday evening it seemed that Shorty had declined quite a bit. He seemed more neuro in his turns than I have seen in a long time. He was acting lazy which he is normally not, so I am usually very alerted when this happens - something is not right. All we did was walk that day and took video to send to the vet. My thought is that I had created more inflammation in his neck by asking him to flex his nose around each side several times the day before. We're going to stop doing that for now!

Saturday evening he seemed to feel much better! Complete 180 from the day before. I took videos of turns, walk, and canter since he seemed to be doing just fine (and very energetic), and sent all the videos from both days to the vet. The report is that he has improved neurologically, but now is showing soreness in his feet, specifically the heel, so we have to consider what is going on there again. He still has 2 degree wedge pads with bar shoes, and the extra work could have increased inflammation in his feet, but there is no sign of heat in his feet. Actually, he has never seemed to have heat or digital pulse in his feet this whole time.

Of course I am discouraged, but I still cannot fathom just getting "rid" of Shorty. I think I have found a situation that might make me very happy. I have a super athletic and talented 2 y/o pup who I have always wanted to try agility sports with. I think this is the time to try. I believe that in owning horses, the horse either does what you want it to do and you get what you want out of it, or you find it a new home where it will. I think Shorty is worth it to me to change my riding goals. I enjoy riding him for pleasure as he is just so nice to ride, safe, dependable, and if he has an off day, no big deal. I have never really been a casual horse owner, but I am going to try it. In exchange, I will use the money (probably less money actually) for obedience and agility courses, that I was intending to spend on lessons and showing horses. The best thing is, NO BOARD FOR DOGS! :)

I get to keep my horse and casually (vs. obsessively) work on improving and maintaining Shorty, and make new goals with my super athletic dog who is good to go!

I cannot stomach going through anything like this with ANY horse anytime soon. A new, exciting, unfamiliar, unknown horse, who might be perfectly fine upon purchase, could go break a leg or tear something in a blink of an eye during the first months of owning. While I am only able to have ONE horse to depend on right now, it makes me sick just thinking about dealing with this (or a slew of all kinds of other problems horses can possibly have) all over again and all the vet bills, ugh.

This has been a huge part of my welfare and my happiness for years - it has been my driving motivation and if Shorty is not right, I am not right. It has NOT been fun because I wanted it so badly. But I am honestly very excited to try this different direction with the dogs. I hear the agility world is filled with fellow horse people and teachers! How cool is that!? It could be a break for a while, a long time, or forever. Who knows. But who ever knows? I guess we'll have to see.

Week 2!

I am so happy about how well Shorty has been doing. We have done walk and increasing canter work everyday since last Tuesday. Right now it is mostly walk and 3 rounds of canter both directions on the lunge, and an additional round of canter each direction under saddle. If I just hop on to ride, we'll do 2-3 rounds of canter each direction but it's on a larger circle, probably 30-40 meters, or around the perimeter of the arena once or twice each way. The rest of the time we walk!

His attitude seems super and he is relaxed and supple. There have been some noises from the neighbors on the other side of the arena fence that I think he might have made a bigger deal about before, maybe even a little spooky at. He is quiet natured anyway, but so far he seems to be even more so happy and content with pretty much everything that goes on.

I started him on Vitamin E today from SantaCruz Animal Health which I highly recommend! The product was delivered about 12 hours after I ordered and it is a better value than I found on Smartpak. It has a much higher amount of natural vitamin E per serving for a LOT less money. It is a powder instead of pellets, but he eats most anything and just couldn't beat the price and shipping.

Here he is in his western attire!

Treatment and 1st Week of Therapy!

...continued from the first post below

Treatment

Therapy includes exercise! LOTS of it so that he is fit with those neck muscles. Neck horses tend to thrive in work, but he will mostly benefit from correct work. The vet suggested that he lunge in vienna reins (I use draw reins until I get vienna reins), and ride on light contact. I can't ask for too much collection right now, but all of this low level dressage that he knows will no doubt benefit him to build correct muscles and top line. To begin - ONLY walk and canter. Trot is too jarring on the neck. We increased his anti-inflammatory pill (previcox) for the first couple weeks to help him begin. Her exam also showed some ulcer sensitivities so I started him on Neigh Lox and he gets 5 Tums before work (or trailering) unless he just ate to get the Neigh Lox. Yummy yummy! He likes the fruity Tums!

First Week

The first week so far has seemed to be a success! We lunge in long draw reins that allow him to stretch forward/down/out at a nice forward walk and then canter. I rode him yesterday (Thursday) for the first time at a canter since June 2nd and he was wonderful! I am pretty sure I was grinning ear to ear. He leaped right into the canter from the walk while staying round and on my light contact. Before, like this entire last year, I was having trouble even getting him into the canter (stupid fast trot, ugh) and he would brace his head upwards in the transition. This time, he felt amazing. I have been riding him western because I wasn't sure how these walk-canter transitions would go and I still feel that my western seat in my comfy barrel saddle can still ride circles around my english seat! I will probably go more english as soon as we're doing more than just a couple rounds of canter.

I gave him an easier day today because apparently Shorty spent the better part of his morning chasing around the barn donkey that wonders the property. I hear he was pretty crazy, so we did our walking and couple rounds of canter (both directions) on the lunge and then we just walked under saddle today. 

I am anxious and excited about how he is going to respond to this. We try to skip trot but he always trots before coming down to walk. I can't help but notice his trot looks better and not as short. It surely is NOT lazy! I hope for it to only improve from here. I will definitely have the vet/chiro out again in 2-3 weeks. I hope he gets a good report!

This is from the second day of lunging (no riding yet)

The most perfect horse, the most endless struggle

The Beginning....

I am still not quite sure why I have been wanting to blog about my gelding, Shorty. Maybe it's because I feel like it would be good to keep track of his progress more thoroughly, maybe to share experience and hope to others who struggle with long term/hard to pin point lameness in their horses, maybe it's because I think something like this will help me do him justice if I should ever decide to sell him, or maybe I just need an outlet to talk about the most perfect horse and the most endless struggle. There are a lot of details for this first post since it was in January 2012 when I bought Shorty as my eventing prospect horse.

"Wow, I feel like I could take him to a show next weekend!" That is what I thought after my first test ride on Shorty. This is in spite of him not really doing much for months which was impressive. Well trained, responsive, easy, and uncomplicated to ride. He  approached all jumps with ears pricked forward, yet so calm and happy to walk with his head stretched down. Not hot, not lazy, but just right! I hadn't even sold my mare yet, but I knew that once I had, he was probably the horse I would return to buy if he was still available. He had some experience jumping, fox hunting, and had been cross country schooling, but never shown yet. I thought he was great.

That was my first impression of Shorty. He was a gentleman and sweet as can be to be around. Luckily for me, the little red horse at 14.2 1/2 hands high, was still available a couple of weeks later after I sold my mare. Boarding in the city does not allow me to have more than one trusty steed, and so my adventures ended with my barrel racing mare, and began with this 7 y/o chunky red boy because I had a dream of trying eventing!

Shorty in Jan. 2012 - 7 yrs old 14.2 1/2 hh

"Holy cresty neck!" exclaimed someone on my horse forums. The plan was to get to work straight away, but then we hit a snag. The barn PIG! A huge, full grown, black potbellied pig wondered the boarding stable we were at, and it did not take long to find out that Shorty's opinion of  it was NOT good. Shorty and I spent the better part of January through the beginning of March just getting used to eachother. I found out that even when nervous, he was a safe boy. He might freeze to look, but no turn, bolt, or buck and the most spook I have ever gotten was a few steps to the side or forward and then done. At first, we rode in the bottom arena where the pig never went, did tons of ground work to establish our relationship, and then finally in March we were ready for our first eventing lesson! At this point we could ride in the main ring and he was spending more time around the pig. Never felt like I could get him 100% focused with the pig in sight, but he proved to be safe.

March 2012 - LAME!

When we began trotting in our first lesson, Shorty was obviously lame! So this is where it all began. All the struggles. He ended up being diagnosed via ultrasound with a front left check ligament tear. It was never an obvious injury - no heat nor swelling. I had even waited a week or so before calling out the vet to see if it resolved - maybe an abscess or something. It was diagnosed with moderate improvement by blocking. Treated with sweating, box rest, hand walking, and even shockwave therapy. After the initial couple months of nothing but rest, I hand walked him religiously and since he was so calm I was cleared to ride him at a walk. Over a span of about 6 months we were back to very light walk, trot, canter work and all seemed well for quite some time!

Late 2012 

He presented with the same type lameness as before, again only seen at the trot. I had him re-checked by ultrasound by another vet (different barn at this point) and she had said it was all clear. But we began rehab again to see if he could come back slowly and stay sound this time.

At this point, I had fallen in love with Shorty. We had spent countless hours of bonding time with all the rehab we had done and I was absolutely religious about it. I knew him inside out, and Shorty knew my car and would whinny at me in greeting almost everyday. He proved to be very dependable and a SUPER trail horse. I am not the bravest rider in the world, and he was good for me. I knew he was special, and so I just kept going with him, hoping that we would somehow get through this and continue on our way to the lower levels of eventing! Nine months of rehab later...

Fall of 2013 

We were back doing light walk, trot, and canter, but it was weird because he wouldn't hold the canter. A chiropractor was recommended to me to try, and so we did a couple sessions with her and it really seemed to help.

Summer 2014

No complaints really until June of 2014. He was going very nicely in dressage at this point, and we had done some small cross rails here and there as well. It was fun! But that summer I began to realize how slowly but surely he had become lazier, wouldn't stay round in canter transitions, and was hard to get into a real working trot. He was not showing lameness per say, but now I know he was tending to land more on his toes in front, jabbing at the trot, which really is a type of lameness. We had our first dressage show in Nov. 2014 that really showed his pokeyness, and although he did well, I was concerned. We checked saddle fit (went from a wide to medium tree!!!) and we did a couple more chiro adjustments (with a different person) that I thought helped. 

Winter 2014

Did not ride as much during the winter months (did not have an indoor arena anymore), but we tried and he would have strange bouts of lameness show up 10-15 minutes into a ride, and that would disappear just as quickly after a walk break. I thought it looked like the right front leg though (last time it was the left), so while it was easy to think his old injury might be coming back to haunt us, I was beginning to think that there was something else causing all of this that was missed even the very first time! We also experienced issues with holding canter again. I had the chiro out, and at this point I was also suspecting arthritis and so I had started him on a joint supplement. We had improvement! Until...

March 2015....here we go again

At the very end of March he comes up head bobbing lame after I witness him running around playing in the pasture (10 minutes straight playing, seriously!). The vet was able to do a lameness exam the next day while he was still pretty lame. With blocking it was suspected he had a bilateral lameness that looked a lot like caudal heel pain. So those daunting thoughts of navicular syndrome were seeping into the mix.... his x-rays were pretty clean which was fantastic to hear, but everyone knows that navicular can be tricky. Could it be soft tissue? Well I thought he went better on softer footing than hard, which points to joint/arthritis. Now that I think about it, he seemed to move great in soft, muddy, soupy footing after rain (I was desperate to ride lol)). We put on a set of bar shoes in front which he responded to GREAT at first. Then when that did not keep him 100% comfortable beyond a couple weeks, we even tried injecting his coffin joints. All this seemed to be pretty well until June 2nd 2015 when we had another lazy and short strided ride. The up and down and up and down was wearing on me.

Second Opinion - giving up

Another vet was recommended to me for a second opinion. This vet admitted that he was a bit stumped. He actually suspected EPM due to some slight neurological signs he saw. Seven long days I awaited test results, where luckily he was negative. But what about him being neuro? Another dead end?

My beautiful horse - what to do? I was getting very restless. I wanted to jump. I wanted to ride. I began taking lessons on other horses and while it wasn't the same, I loved that they could do more than I have been able to do in a long time. It made me happy. So maybe it was time to consider getting him a new home that would only want to use him as a trail horse, and getting me a new horse that could do what I wanted. He had always been fine walking, is a super trail buddy, and would be fine doing some trot and canter here and there. But it was too much work for what I wanted to do, and I could only keep one horse :-/ 

There was one more thing my vet and farrier wanted to try. We put him in two degree wedge pads with the bar shoes in July. I thought this immediately made him feel better, and I just let him hang out for the rest of the month, hopping on him bareback or saddling up to practice my 2-point at the walk once in a while. The plan was for him to go live with my parents where my mom would try him out on the trails. He is SO wonderful on the trails. I knew she would enjoy him and he would definitely enjoy it!!

Third Opinion

Two days before moving him, I had a vet out who specializes in chiro/acupuncture and has a lot of knowledge in bodywork and biomechanics. I just wanted to make sure I had done everything I could so that he would do great for a leisurely life with my mom. I didn't know what to expect, but since he does improve with keeping adjusted I thought it would be a good idea. I had actually found her website several weeks ago wanting her to come out, but I wasn't sure where to put my money at the time and unfortunately I had to be conservative.

Could it Be?

I had a great experience with the vet when she came. All of my vets and farriers have been wonderful but I think she may have found that "thing" that I suspected has been persisting so long in the shadows. She diagnosed him with neck inflammation/arthritis. I had actually had many people ask about his neck, back, etc., but nobody so far that saw him focused on this type of diagnosis. He did, afterall, present with classic navicular type symptoms! I'm not saying that it couldn't still be part of the issue, but I pray that it is not. I cringe at the thought that he WOULD be navicular for sure if I couldn't help him move more correctly (not toe first). This vet thought that his neck soreness could have been caused by trauma such as falling, slipping, pulling back (which he has set back several times in the past), etc. Sometimes you just never know and many times nobody witnesses these things. The vet immediately saw the same neuro signs that the second vet did and did a more thorough exam. Neck issues like this can absolutely cause neuro signs. But the good thing is, she gave him a very good prognosis, especially since we haven't focused on this type of treatment yet! She has seen horses worse than him turn around. She adjusted his back and pelvis which were not hard fixes, and then ended with acupuncture. Interestingly enough, her exam did not detect any pain in the feet. He has always had great feet! So we either fixed his feet, or his feet issues were completely secondary. She did say that neck horses will generally benefit from having front shoes, and maybe the pad that we added helps support even more, similar to how shoe inserts work for us. I am thinking maybe keep a simple rim pad on him instead of a wedge if we find it is not needed afterall.

Shorty is a wonderful wonderful and special horse. He is so quiet and personality plus! I still do not know if I will get to try low level eventing with him, but it is very possible that he could depending on how he responds to managing his neck issues. Maybe even resolving them! Right now, my focus is just to get him BETTER and see what he can do :)

In my next post I will share his treatment plan and tell about how his first week went!