Vetting

And Lot of Tranquilizer

My vet came for the second round of vaccinations on Saturday.

I was going to ride before she came, but my neck was out so badly I needed a chiropractor visit again and then I dropped by the farmer's market for some veggies. I still had time when I got back home, but the phone rang and it was the vet. She was running over an hour early and wanted to know if it was OK to come then.

Soon we were out there wrestling horses--not really. Toby settled in quickly with the tranquilzer to do his teeth and he was done with that, a sheath cleaning, and the rest of his incoculations in pretty quick order.

Chance just got the rest of his shots, so he was fine.

Then came Tucker. OK, so Dr. Perez admitted it was her fault for forgetting that he needed a double dose of tranquilizer for his teeth. We wrestled a bit until she dosed him again. But then, as she worked she discovered he had two pretty big hooks on his very back molars and they needed to be ground down with the electric drill. Whoopie!! He wasn't being too sterling for the regular tools.

Out came another dose of tranq, the metal jaw thingies to keep his mouth open, and a halter rig with a rope to go over the rafter to hold his head up. Good thing. By the third dose, his legs were nearly buckling.

The tooth drill is actually a regular home type drill with a big long shank and an abrasive round disk at the end that spins to grind down the horse's teeth. Horses do not have nerves in their teeth the way we do, and the teeth grow continually. The tooth material does wear down as the horse eats and chews, but very few horses have perfect jaw alignment, so they need to have at least yearly, or 6 month tooth care to make sure there are no sharp edges causing discomfort or injury. In this case, because the hooks were so big, the drill was a much more efficient way of leveling those teeth instead of doing it with a hand rasp or nippers.

This time, Tucker hardly protested. He was a "LaLa Land." It took only about another 20 minutes to finish him up, and then it was just a matter of waiting until the drugs wore off.

I opted out of riding again, always a little cautious after a whole lot of vet work had been done and because I never am quite sure how long it takes for the tranquilzers to fully wear off.

That said, I went over to Bill's to collect my little trailer he'd been working on. It is great!! The new hitch rig is perfect, the wiring is all neatened up, the tailgate is fixed and the license plate is properly attached. All that, and he gave it to me as a birthday present! What a wonderful gift! So, once more, thank you, Bill! I really do appreciate this.

I may take the trailer to pick up some lime for the pasture today.

And, I DO intend to ride. But now, off to church.