Cob Jockey

It's been A Month around here. Specifically, it's been February, the worst month of the year. February has no redeeming qualities for me. Every year I tell myself that this will be the February I just say f*** it and take a long weekend to somewhere warm just to remind myself there are places in the world that are green, warm, bright, and not filled with seasonal depression. And so far that has never happened. But one day!

In the meantime, we've almost made it.

But not before one last surprise snowfall that took over a week to melt, because of course it did.

Disco jumped right on the "February sucks" train by needing to see not one, but two, equine veterinary medicine professionals with mystery ailments last week.

During a cold snap when I was feeding extra night hay last week, I found Disco shivering at a cold temp, but one he normally handles well without a blanket. He was also trying to roll, but in a weird "throw my body against the wall, slide down it and just lay there" kind of way. 

I thought maybe colic and gave him banamine and electrolytes, in addition to putting the heaviest blanket I have on him. Within 30 minutes, he was acting totally normal, bright eyed and eating. So I went to bed.

The next morning, though, he was back to again displaying a sad pain face, looking miserable, and trying to roll (but still passing manure just fine). This time I also temped him, and found a 105.6F temperature! I gave him more banamine and called the vet. By the time the vet arrived a couple hours later, the banamine had only brought it down to 104F. 

(By the way, he politely chose to get sick on President's Day, which I had off from work. So that was nice of him.)

The vet wasn't sure what was going on, but gave him a banamine shot, a shot of antibiotics, and tubed him "just to be safe even though I don't think it's colic." By 6 hours later, his fever was down to 101, and that was the last of it. He was totally normal from there on out. 

After the vet visit, Disco slept most of the afternoon and Connor just stood watch next to him all day. It was adorable.

A few days later, Disco saw my dentist. He had just been done in Canada 7 months earlier, but anytime I start riding one that's new to me, I want to KNOW that they're physically okay with what I'm asking of them. Plus at not quite four, he's at an age where teeth change often. And it was a good thing I did.

Her winter teeth doing outfit totally looks like scuba gear.

Poor baby Disco had a line of ulcers down the left side of his cheek. To me, it looked like someone had taken a green/blue pen and drawn a line and some squiggles all the way down the inside of his cheek. While they weren't actively bleeding, they certainly still looked painful.

Disco is a much less sloppy drunk than Connor, but this particular pose must run in the family.

Now, my dentist is a DVM that just does teeth and bodywork. She used to be full-service, but went the specialty route, I'm sure trying to maintain a better quality of life for herself (no emergencies). She's spent the last five years studying to get, and finally last month got, her International Association of Equine Dentistry certification, which is quite challenging to get from what I understand. 

All that is to say - she is very, very good when it comes to dentistry, and she was stumped as to what caused these. He didn't have them at his last dental in Canada, and while he had a few points here and there, there was nothing that would have obviously caused that much trauma.

This is only part of the documentation you receive every time you get a dental from her.

She asked about his hay, but sort of half-heartedly, because if it was the hay, she would have expected to see trauma on the other cheek also, or on any of the other horses she did at our farm that day, and she didn't. So in the end, we got the teeth to where we know they're good and not causing any problems, and scheduled another dental in six months.

Since then, he has clearly been feeling better. He's demonstrating just a tiny bit of attitude on the ground that he didn't have before, and under saddle he was much more willing to move forward and to give on the left side. I feel bad that I didn't do this sooner, but I'm grateful that I've ridden him as lightly as I have this winter while that was going on inside his mouth.

AND WITH THAT, can we PLEASE knock it off with the vet bills for a little while, Disco!