Sore Pony

Now Voyager is hurt.

Imagine your cat or dog with an ouchy paw. They kind of hop around and look sad.

Now multiply that times 100 and you’ll have an idea what I’m dealing with.

It’s hard for a horse to hop on three legs so mostly he pushes through the pain and just reflexively yanks his head up when bearing weight on his left front hoof.

Diagnosing horse injuries is really hard. They typically mask pain really well, especially when you’re actively looking for the hot spot. And because of the complexity of their movement you can think “ah, left front leg” and really what you’re dealing with is a sore right hind hip.

I’m kind of hoping this is an abscess. He had one last summer and while the treatment includes unusual use of baby diapers and a lot of time consuming soaking of the sore hoof in a pail of epsom salt-laced water at least it’s not a major injury.

It just breaks my heart to see Now Voyager limping around. It bums him out too. He becomes kind of depressed and cranky. How does a depressed, cranky horse act? Well, he gets uncharacteristically quiet when I’m grooming him. And he’s more likely to take a little nip in my general direction. Not really with ill-will, more just grouchy. Of course if you know how big horse teeth are, any sized nip is too big.

Thank goodness for my barn friends/support group of Anke, Paula and Denise! They keep an eye on him, fix his bandages when they get too tattered and call me with updates.

And yet I fret. My pony is unhappy and that makes me unhappy. Sigh.

Fingers crossed that he heals soon.