Small Sigh of Relief

Tucker and the Cribber

Tucker looked much better this morning. Either the Bute helped or his foot felt better. I soaked him again and put on the Icthammol poultice. When I went out later for evening feed, he was out in the pasture!! SOMEBODY had opened his door and let him out.

WHO, by Chance, could that be???

The good news is that Tuck didn't look any the worse for it and walked back in considerably sounder than he had been last night. I didn't see any evidence that an abscess had broken out anywhere, but the Ithammol is awfully messy. I will have a better look tomorrow and wash his foot throughly to see if I can find any discharge.

My other thought was that--something that happened years ago to Russell R.--somehow he may have given his foot a good whack and shifted a nail in his shoe into the quick of his foot. Taking the shoe off helped Russell, so it COULD help Tuck. We'll just have to wait and see.

I rode Chance for a nice schooling session. He was much improved, offering to go down to the bit more and more often. Again, it's not steady yet, but if he keeps up at this pace another week or so and he will be going really well. The big accomplishment was two really good canter tours on either lead. We went all the way round the arena and did several circles on each lead. The right was a bit quick--kind of like Caroline's early canters on George, though not quite as "motorbiking." The left lead was really nice aside from his head up position. Then, after a break, I tried the right lead again and it was much slower and far better balanced. Maybe I should start off on the left lead next time to see if the right lead is better after he has cantered some.

After the school, we went out for a nice hack in the woods.

I decided to just lunge Toby since I had a new cribbing collar to try on him afterwards.

This is a new shock collar that gives the horse a static shock when he tries to crib. I had an electric collar before but it didn't work. This one uses no battery and has and entirely different design.

Toby has colicked several times and I attribute it to his cribbing as the colics seem to have been caused by gas--swallowing air. I have tried just about every anti-cribbing device and treatment I could find, so if this works it will truly be a miracle. So far, after I adjusted the collar correctly, Toby cribbed a few times and I heard the collar "click" He quit the cribbing immediately. I will, though keep a close eye on him as not being able to crib might be traumatic. I just hope it doesn't cause some other bad habit to develop.

So far, I am pretty impressed with the collar after watching him for about a half hour. If it works, I will be one happy camper.