Why Horses?

A few people have asked me this question since moving here and I have to say that it kinda threw me off guard. I mean, I've spent my entire life riding and showing and reading horse books and drawing horses and running around like a horse (on my hands and feet...it's how I got around the house until I was about 12), so it's a no brainer to me. The first response I could think of was "that's a weird question, why not?" But rather than be kinda rude and say that, I reminded myself that the majority didn't have the same privilege I did to grow up with something they love. I did respond once with "You'll have to go back in time and ask my 4-year-old self." I've always, for my nearly 23 years of existence, loved horses but I honestly never really thought much about the reasons why. My 4-year-old self would probably just be like "Horses are pretty and fun to ride and I just like them. Can I have a popsicle?" Not too elaborate.

I started writing an explanation now that I have a better vocabulary, but it was definitely sub-par. Maybe I'll try again later, but for now I'll cut to the chase. Basically horses helped make me who I am and have taught me many life lessons, like patience and hard work. I think if you have to ask then you'll never understand. It's just one of those things that I can't really explain, I just love everything about them! You see, I was bit by the horse bug at a very young age and I'm still affected by the disease. At this point I think it's safe to assume it's chronic. A really awesome article called "A Father's Explanation of Why He Had Horses for His Children" was sent to me a while ago if anyone's interested in reading that. It is very good, I promise! Much better than anything I had come up with. I think everyone needs something to be passionate about. Something to get you excited about life, something you can't learn enough about, something to be totally in love with. And for me, it happens to be horses.

Side note: because horses have a sort of big, fancy reputation, I think people may have wrongfully assumed that my family or I have money. This is the funniest-but-not-that-funny-because-it's-not-true statement I know. Horses are expensive. They may as well eat money. But I'm incredibly thankful that my parents put up with my obsession because my horse-filled childhood is worth more to me than any amount of money we may have had otherwise.

Although horses are big, strong, powerful, graceful, etc., they have their moments. All horses will get hurt at one point or another, and some have a special knack for it. That's where my job comes in! I've seen a lot of cases so far and I just have to share some of them. Most of the pictures aren't too bad, but I'm not sure how strong everyone's stomach is, so you've been warned. Most of them look worse than they really are anyway. I also won't give out names or anything because of client confidentiality. For the pictures that show the entire horse, I was given the owner's permission.

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The results of a stud fight. Boys will be boys!

 

His leg was scraped up pretty good and his jaw was also broken. I could wiggle the entire bottom right of his jaw, it was gross but cool! Not a great picture because he wasn't very cooperative, but I can't say that I blame him. Surprisingly, he could still eat just fine.

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This was a lacerated fetlock, luckily not into the joint. I think he was cut on a fence if I remember correctly.  The horse is under IV anesthesia, laying on its back.

Dr. Tull cutting off excess tissue.

A little gross, but pretty cool!

Cleaned up and placing a drain.

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Performing a joint flush on an infected hock - this is one that looks worse than it really is. A joint flush can be done while the horse is standing, but only depending on the severity or ease of the procedure. It's common for us to do and not very painful, but if the horse needs to be still then we lay them down so it's safer. We have one tube connected to fluids that are being pumped into the joint area and multiple needles around the joint so the fluids have somewhere to go and don't build up in the joint - the whole point of flushing it! Antibiotics are sometimes flushed through as well. This case had the most needles I've seen for this procedure so far (5, I think). It makes a big pool of a mess!

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This is a bone sequestrum removal on a fractured coffin joint - which means the doctor removes a piece of dead and/or infected bone, and this sequestrum happened to be in the hoof. This horse is also anesthetized and laying down.

Hard to tell but they dug a pretty deep hole to get all of the bone out.

X-ray of the hoof during the operation, you can see how big the hole is!

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Tie-forward surgery on a Standardbred; this treats dorsal displacement of the soft palate. I'm sure that means nothing for most of you reading this and hopefully made me sound smart. Basically it's similar to a person who snores, which obviously affects breathing, and that's especially important in racehorses. So the soft palate is "tied forward" so the airway is open and the horse can breathe efficiently at high speeds.

(Yes, that's a horse under there!)

At one point during surgery the head has to be held in a certain position
so Dr. Tull can suture it correctly.

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Okay, this one is bad. The horse kicked its leg through a trailer wall (not a very high-quality trailer...) and lacerated an artery. This picture is about a week after it happened and it was in a cast for the majority of its hospital stay.

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This horse had a tracheostomy performed, which is done for patients in respiratory distress. It's typically an emergency situation, however this one wasn't a true emergency. This horse was having trouble breathing after surgery in it's sinus cavity. This is also what happens when you get throat cancer from smoking, kids. Anyway, an incision is made into the trachea and the temporary trach is placed (the silver thing) so that air can bypass all of the structures in the head and into the lungs. It doesn't have as many complications as you'd think, as long as the horse doesn't go swimming it's actually very safe.

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And it's foal season! Foals are super cute but super high maintenance. They're so little and fragile and can turn in a matter of minutes. I haven't dealt with a really sick one yet, but I'm sure I will soon enough.

Becky and I scrubbing the neck for a catheter.

Placing the catheter. I can put one in by myself on an adult, but
foals need a special catheter and it's somewhat involved.

The beginning of its cast. This was put on to fix a limb deformity.
It's easier to shape the legs when they're growing so they have
normal legs as an adult!

All fixed and still sleepy! A sedated foal is a good foal.

This foal was rejected by it's mother so it had to be fed milk replacer.

 She was definitely feeling good, these pictures crack me up! She starts off looking like an angry devil child going after Becky, then just kidding, I actually like you.

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Ending on a cute note, we had a mini invasion one day. The trailer was "refurbished" by the owner, they all fit in there so frickin cute! Minis are known for being little shits but these ones weren't bad. Except mine almost flipped itself over for it's rabies vaccine, clearly not a fan of shots!