Tucker Update

Not Cellulitis After All

After a full week plus of treating Tucker for cellulits in his left hind/hock and getting really nowhere. I call the vet out again.

This time, after a thorough hands-on evaluation, the vet decided to take some x-rays.

Aha! One of the hock bones, on the inside of the joint was inflamed. Apparently, somehow, Tuck had either kicked or hit or somehow traumatized the inside of his joint.

So, protocol changed completely, from sweats to icing and poulticing.

Talk about messy. And, the hock is not an easy joint to work with as far as traditional bandaging it concerned. I have the Back on Track hock boot, which I used, but that helps generate heat.

Worse, using soaked brown paper on top of the poultice, is another mess.

Getting the old poultice off before treating with the anti-inflammatory ointment is another mess.

Icing the hock with ice packs is another bit of a mess.

Well, it's all a mess, but a manageable one. I did find a really good deal on an icing hock boot on eBay and I'm waiting for it to come. In the meantime, I've rigged up methods to keep the ice packs in place while I putter about cleaning stalls and filling water buckets.

I also discovered that those reusable paper towels work better than soaked brown paper and that the super long standing bandages I bought work really well to figure eight wrap the hock joint.  (Learned proper hock wrapping technique years ago but it used to need two bandages. Now it's just one super long one---and of course, one on the lower part of the leg for support.)

Then there is the bute, applesauce, syringe, and not too happy Tucker mouth I have to put it in. A seventeen hand horse can be really tall when he puts his head way up trying to avoid the medication.

Anyhow, as we all know, dealing with these challenges of horse care is just a part of owning a horse.

Just think of what the rest of the world is missing.