Lovin' the new vet

Yup, I love him. First, he was smart and made sure I was the last appointment of the day because he knew he'd be here awhile. He was here for three hours. Second, he didn't just rush through everyone. He took time with each horse and discussed different treatments with me and the reasons behind the treatments. He also talked about why he came up with the diagnosis that he did. It wasn't just a vet visit, it was Veterinary Medicine 101.

Third, and most importantly, he actually spent a little time petting the horses as he was talking to me about them. A lot of vets I have used before simply do their thing and walk away from the animal when they are done. The whole time he was holding up the saline IV for Classy, he was petting her, stroking her neck, or picking burrs out of her mane. When talking to me about Manny he was doing the same thing. Same with Dolly. He seemed amused instead of irritated when Junior took every opportunity to shove his nose at the doc and investigate all pockets for treats.

I'm tellin' ya, I'm in love. Completely in the platonic sense, of course.

We started with Classy first because she's in the worst shape. We think she found a hornet/wasp nest somewhere in the pasture (and we did find a HUGE hornet nest in a tree the other day) and was stung multiple times. All four legs were swollen and the next day her nose was also swollen. I put her on bute for the swelling and that helped a bit, but she proceeded to drop a lot of weight, act depressed and lethargic, and hasn't left the barn in days. His main concern was that the anaphylactic shock from the stings caused her immune system to go down the drain and now she's sick with something else. He didn't think a blood panel was necessary at this point, but gave her a saline IV, a shot of something (sorry, can't remember the name of it and it's up at the barn right now), and gave me some banamine paste for this weekend if she's not any better. He expressed some concern about EPM, but at this point it's a waiting game to see if she gets better or not. If she's not better by next week he'll come back out for more tests. The good news is that by the time he left, Classy was out in the pasture grazing with everyone else for the first time in days!

He actually seemed impressed with the way Dolly looked at her age. She's fairly sound with some minor arthritis, but other than that he said she looks pretty good. She's still thin, but after hearing her history he said to just be patient because it may take her as long as a year to get back to the weight she should be. He actually felt like I might be feeding her too much right now, but since she's gaining a little weight I should keep it the same for now. The lump that I felt on her neck the other day is a hardened and irritated lymph node. They are easy to find on very thin horses and he wasn't concerned. At this point he didn't see a need for blood work, but if she doesn't continue to gain weight or starts to lose weight he'll come back out and get some blood. As suspected, Dolly's teeth need to be floated, but he doesn't have all of the necessary equipment yet. He'll be coming back out at a later date to start getting everyone's teeth floated.

He's pretty sure that Manny's on again off again lameness is arthritis and I should keep up with the MSM/Chondroitin supplements. He's actually been fairly sound so far this week, probably due to the warm weather we've been having.

Because of the severity of Indy's laminitis it's questionable whether he will ever be sound enough for light riding. He may never even be comfortable and may always have ulcer issues. This is just a guesstimate on his part since he hasn't seen any x-rays yet. We gave Indy until next Summer to either get better or not. If he's still uncomfortable at that point then we will have to consider putting him down and out of his misery. But that's a long ways off, and with the changes I've seen in him recently I'm still hopeful for at least a partial recovery.

When I pointed out Meghan and said I wanted him to palpate her, his first words were "Soon. She's as big as a house." But during the palpitation he couldn't find any foal. In fact, he said she had recently ovulated. That big and not preggers??? What a relief!!! Darn air ferns. I wish they could all be easy keepers like that! So next week while I'm on vacation from work I'm going to doing a lot of Meghan riding to get her ready for the Christmas parade that Emilee wants to ride her in.

When I took him to look at Maverick, Quest became a raving lunatic. I had the halter on Mav when Quest decided that tearing around the pasture at a full gallop was the way to make us let Mav go. The whole time Quest was being an idiot Maverick stood perfectly still for the vet and let him get quite intimate with his danglies. Doc even commented on how atypical Mav was and how most stud colts weren't that gracious about the treatment. Mav made me so proud! When Doc was done feeling Maverick up Quest came galloping back and stopped right beside Mav and rested his head on Mav's back, all the while staring at the Doc. It was like he wanted to protect Mav from imagined ills, but was well-behaved enough not to eat the vet. I'm pretty sure Doc appreciated that. He did say that the second nut still hasn't dropped and at this age there's only a 5% chance that it will. So once Doc's new building is up Maverick will be taking a little field trip to be gelded. Doc also said that Mav probably would only grow a couple more inches, which makes me incredibly sad because I really wanted him to be big enough for me to ride. I guess this means that when the time comes he'll be headed over to Anastasia's for pony training. I'll miss the little guy!

All in all it was a pretty good day. Doc said that the horses seemed happy and healthy considering their history and was impressed that everyone got along so well in that large of a herd. Now maybe I can breathe a little easier and stop worrying so much!