I met the vet out at the farm amidst sprinkling rain and vigorous winds. Pluto was airing out his Arab side. In between Pluto's wild eyed lunges and uncooperative posturing, the vet got a look at his chinny chin chin. Her comment: "Huh!" It doesn't really look like an abscess, for all that it's bleeding and icky. It looks maybe fungal. Or something. Since we never have gotten anything definitive to grow on a culture, we are relying on guesswork and her years of experience here. Treatment is more straightforward. He is getting enough doxycycline to kill a goat (but not a horse, luckily). It's doxycycline mostly because it's a different antibiotic from what we've already tried, but she said it also has anti-inflammatory properties. Though I might have been mistaken on which thing was anti-inflammatory, because he is ALSO getting the Ointment of Doom. It's an antibiotic. It's an anti-fungal. It has steroids in it. And it's anti-itchy. You better believe I will be wearing gloves while applying it.
I am going to post pictures of his owie, but I will put them at the bottom for the faint of heart. Do not scroll down below my awesome tattoo if you don't want to see.
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| Today was my day to be snubbed. Here is Dori snubbing me. |
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| Here is Andy snubbing me and knocking everything off my desk. |
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| My awesome AT tattoo, since washed off. |
Okay, ready? Gore ensues. I warned you.
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| The dark area next to his halter (continuing beneath it) is his owie. He has blood smeared on the right side of his jaw. |
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| Oh gross. I can't decide if this is better or worse than last night, when there was pus and goo all in there. |
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| It's itchy, so in addition to a bloody head he has a bloody knee. I guess he couldn't get anything else up in there to scratch it. |
Horses. Never a dull moment.
Oh, and the doxycycline? Fifty pills, morning and evening. That's five zero. I tried two in a handful of grain before I left and he hoovered them up, so possibly it won't be too difficult to get them into him. I hope not, because my other option is daily shots and doesn't Pluto sound like he would be an exemplary patient for that?
When I had to dose Peggy (2000 lbs of draft horse) with 30+ pills of TMS antibiotics (and 1 bute) for a month, I dissolved them in water, then added pancake syrup and poured the slurry on some grain. She ate it up! Before I learned the pancake syrup trick (from the techs at UC Davis) she would refuse any grain laced with any medication and I had to use a syringe to get meds into her (like wormer paste). Pancake syrup makes it a LOT easier. I hope this helps with getting the meds into Pluto.
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