Feeling better?

2010. Do I even have new photos of the hony?! (Answer: no.)

After texts, comments on FB and on here, and some in person conversations, I'm feeling a bit more positive than I was yesterday and earlier in the week. I think I just needed to get the whining out of my system! The vet will be coming out on Monday. We're planning on checking out the hony, getting some flexion tests, probably pulling blood for Lyme, and most likely starting another course of Adequan. That always seems to help. I'm sure she'll come out and we'll figure out what else we should do.

In other vet related news, I am CRUSHED to find out that my vet practice said my new barn is too far away to regularly work with Digby!!! (Cue panic.) The vet is located pretty far away in all honesty, I can't fault them there, and the vet I typically use was super polite when telling me. She is mostly worried about emergencies. They are based out of the county next to mine so it is quite a drive to do shots for one horse, although they service large barns within 15 minutes of mine. In a dire emergency, they might not be able to get there in time and I totally get it. I appreciate being told that they won't just take my money and then not be able to get there when I really need them. She did say she'd come out on Monday but that I need to plan to use someone else for vaccinations and emergencies in the future.

That being said, what in the ever loving heck do I do now? The barn I'm at does not require any one vet so there are two vets (besides mine) that are used. One vet is, how can I put this, an idiot. I will not use him for anything. I suppose I'd be ok with him giving shots but that's where the buck ends. So he's out of the question, especially given Digby's opinionated nature and lameness issues. The other vet practice is much more reputable. I was planning on giving them a call today but life happened and now here we are, after normal business hours. I will call tomorrow just to feel them out and let them know I might be using them in the future. Ideally, someone in the barn will be having them out (not for an emergency, I hope!) so I can meet them before Digby has something else wrong. I thought about calling them out for this lameness but I love my current/soon to be old vet and she was the one who took the images of Digby's feet originally so she knows years of history.

Thanks again everyone for the lovely comments. I really appreciate them! I'm a bit more optimistic now that the vet is coming out. I figure it's either going to be ok or it's not and there's peace in knowing that.

Vet update!

The vet (finally) made it out today to look at Mr Dig My Size. Digby got a couple shots. The vet and I got to discuss lots of good topics. Overall, she's pretty pleased with how he looks. He's at a good weight and seems happy. I'm still supposed to give him off until May. We're going to reevaluate in May if she hasn't come out for spring shots yet.

When he goes back into work, we're going to carefully evaluate the following things:

• Weight
• Footing
• Shoeing
• Medication

Weight being that he typically gets plump during the spring, summer and fall. This is highly frowned upon this year. He needs to be a BCS of 5 if not slightly lower (think 4.75 haha). We need to carefully watch what types of footing he's on and watch what he does best on. We're going to hopefully leave him barefoot but if he doesn't come back into work well, we're going to shoe him like a navicular horse including shoes (perhaps a type of bar shoe that we didn't try) and wedges. I'm supposed to leave him on his hoof supplement and possibly research one for tendon/ligament injuries if I find the money to do so. As for medication, he's currently not on bute or Isox or anything. We can start playing with them if nothing else works. I don't want to keep my horse on bute every day but if it means riding vs no riding, I might have to.

So, overall, she was happy with how he's doing. Now... we wait.

No news is good news!

I've tentatively scheduled to see the vet this Thursday. I'm the first appointment so I should have time to get him ready and she shouldn't have to cancel or be late for any reason. I'm being flexible with her because I'm not a high paying client and honestly he doesn't NEED to see her. I just want to see her to discuss a few things and get a few shots. Not a big deal at all.

In other news, there is no real news. Digby's doing well. I've started clicker training him again by reviewing his old tricks (saying yes and no). I haven't been asking him to bow because the chrio/massage lady said it's really bad for his back. Understandable. Plus there's no good area to ask him to. I'm hoping to figure out the command for "stand still" this week. I've put in an e-mail to the school (that's where he learned to say yes and no in the first place) so hopefully they get back to me. He gets so overeager when working with the clicker that I need to convince him to stand still and don't move until I give the command for the next trick.

I also started working on his ground work. He's getting better as he realizes that omg, I HAVE SNACKSSS!! :) This makes him very eager. Unfortunately, I've tried this trick with trails and trailering and it doesn't work so we'll have to make progress with limited treating. I'm thinking maybe I can incorporate the clicker training, which he clearly understands and does well with, into our groundwork sessions.

Have a great week everyone! Look forward to a post about a fellow blogging pony and a vet update later in the week!

Digby, earlier this week.