Hoppy's verdicts and a blown out wall

First, the blown out wall.

I took these pictures yesterday, and Dawn trimmed them today.  She took pictures of her own to put on her site since it is so... um... impressive.  It will basically show how ugly things can happen to good feet and they aren't the end of the world.

Here is the state of Peanut's foot as of yesterday.  Please note that he is still 100% sound (at least as far as the foot is concerned).

Ew.

Ugh.

Here you can see our strategy: keep the wall of the separation lifted well above the ground.  He looks like he's levitating with the foot down.  This must be working, since he is still sound as can be. 

The biggest problem is that the separation fills with mud, grass, stones, sticks, etc, but Peanut doesn't seem to give a fig.  Dawn has said that she has seen wide separations like this grow in quite nicely, so no worries.

Dawn also took samples of the hay at the barn (with a corer attached to a drill) so that I can get the hay tested and work on supplementing them.  Since they are only on grass and hay now, I wonder if they might be manifesting signs of deficiencies.  At least when they got some grain I have to assume that they got some measure of added minerals.

Not only did Dawn see the boys today, but Hoppy did as well.  Two great forces of equine good converged at our little barn.  Knowing that Hoppy is not only a very experienced rider and instructor but also a horse wizard who knows their bodies inside and out, I posed the questions of his saddle and back leg to her.

Regarding his saddle, she pinpointed exactly the last rib attachment on him (I'm amazed she could make out a rib though the flab), and we played with my saddle for a while.  We have a plan to try to make my saddle work, and the most it will cost me is a premium saddle pad like Rick's (thick wool with pockets for shim inserts) and some dense foam.  When I get these together, sometime next month we will have a day where we (Hoppy and I) will make him a custom padding system that will make the Fhoenix work for both of us.  The suberpanel will no longer be needed, instead I'll just have a saddle pad to throw on.  This will be grand since I won't have to spend an eternity fiddling with a fiddly little suberpanel that fits under the saddle just so.

His back leg, it turns out, was having issues with his hock.  The stifle and ankle reactions were feeding off of the hock, and the stifle would lock because the whole leg locked, hock first.  While he doesn't have the grandest stifles in the world, they were smooth moving unlike that hock.  So, she freed up the joint and he should be so much better now.  :)

As usual, she told us in vet terms what was wrong in his hock.  When I looked like I had the comprehension abilities of driftwood, she told us that the inside of the hock, where he was having the problem, was like the screw holding the joint together.  I wish I could remember the scientific version.

And what do I need to do?  The usual - HILLS!  Now it just needs to stop raining.  That or laterals.  I hate laterals.

I told her that the vet said that he had fluid on his stifles, and Hoppy said no, he didn't.  That was his miniscus.  The hock issue (mainly decreased range of motion) was causing the stifle to compress the miniscus.  Hoppy felt up his stifles and said that she felt no fluid, just squished out miniscus which could be taken as such.  He should be much better now.

His diagonal front knee was not happy either, thanks to that hock.  Hoppy took care of that as well.

He was also off in his withers, which needed some serious pushing around.  His TMJ was also a bit off, but she fixed that.  At one point, while working around his collarbone, he started acting like she was rubbing a particularly sore spot and scratching an itchy spot at the same time.  It was weird.  When he stopped, her fingers were entirely under his collarbone.  She had us look (Dawn had stayed as she loves Hoppy and has taken the first level course in Equine Touch), and it was freaky looking.  She was impressed because Peanut had put her hand there, so she kept working.

Peanut was a complete doof at times while Hoppy worked on him, and both Dawn and I couldn't stop laughing at him.

She loved Gene - he's shown great improvement!  His legs have increased range of motion and less resistance to being manipulated.  That is very good to hear!  I get very discouraged with Gene - but probably because I have such a Gumby (or should that be Pokey) of a horse who can practically put his hind feet behind his ears.  Anything feels stiff compared to him.

Gene was particularly interesting once Hoppy was done.  He must have stood in one spot, motionless, for around 10 minutes looking stoned off his ass.