Over the past couple of months, Wart has really settled in his new home. He respects the fence, now thinks of his stall as his own, safe haven, and likes, and had bonded to his pasture buddies Elvenstar and Winterhawk (“Pony”). He has received his first set of vaccinations, had his feet trimmed, and we have worked out a feeding regimen that includes a 10% protein sweet feed (about a pound and a half a day) with a vitamin E/selenium supplement, and roughly 10 pounds of nice, second cut hay. He is growing like a weed, but we are keeping his weight in line. His ‘hay belly’ is gone, his coat is shiny, he is alert, calm, and very easy going. I had been regularly tying him, grooming him, picking up his feet, and leading him around the place.
I wanted to slowly start building up Wart’s stamina, so about 3 weeks ago, we began ponying him while I rode his buddy Elven. The first time we did this, Susan rode Pony and led the way, while I followed with Elven and led Wart from the right (away from traffic). The first couple of cars passing concerned him, but since Elven and Pony showed no concern, Wart soon thought nothing of passing vehicles too. We only walked about a mile down the dirt road, turned and returned home. Wart seemed to enjoy his little outing. We stopped and checked out all sorts of scary things like mailboxes and a parked schoolbus. It was warm that day, so Wart actually got a little sweaty! We cooled him down, gave him lots of praise, and turned them all out together. The second time we went out was about a week later, and Elven and I took Wart alone. We walked the exact same route with no issues. Wart took it all in stride.
On Valentines Day, Elven and I took Wart on the same route again, however this time was not uneventful. On our way back, Elven caught an eye on a flapping plastic garbage bag just as we were passing. He shied and wheeled, and right at the time I pulled up on his reins I inadvertently dropped Wart’s lead. Well, between Elven’s wheeling-shy, me grabbing everything up, and dropping the lead, Wart responded by wheeling and TAKING OFF at a dead gallop, going away from home. We were at the top of a hill, and I fully expected Wart to run to the bottom of the hill and stop. Nope, he kept going at a full gallop down the road. I knew that he had a good mile and a half of very quiet dirt road so I felt confident that he would stop soon because this would have been unfamiliar territory for him. So I follow at a quick pace with Elven (not a dead gallop though). Wart was soon out of sight.
As I keep going and follow Wart’s tracks on the dirt road, the farther along I go, the more worried I became. A mile further I see by his tracks that he is still running HARD. This is not a good sign, he should certainly have gotten his wits about him by then if he was going to. I then hear a siren and a chill runs down my spine. Did Wart make it to the main road? If so, did he meet a car? I hurry Elven along.
I make it to the end of the dirt road to Lake Road and I don’t know what to do. Lake Road is paved and Wart is nowhere to be seen. I don’t know whether he went left or right! Just then a white SUV comes down the road and stops. It is the Milton Animal Control Officer. He tells me that the Milton Ambulance saw a colt running down the road and called the police (that must have been the siren I heard). He was monitoring the scanner and headed towards were Wart was last seen. He told me where that was and said that he would head down there. I told him I would hurry as quick as I could.
About a mile further down the road I see the Animal Control Officer leading Wart out of a pasture with 4 horses and I heave a sigh of relief. Wart looks EXHAUSTED, as he well should be! He was covered in sweat, was panting and quivering. He tore down a section of the fence and the Officer holds Wart and Elven while I help a neighbor fix the fence as best we can. Then I begin the very slow process of leading Wart home. The Animal Control Officer follows us with his SUV until we get back to the dirt road.
It took us a VERY LONG time to walk the roughly 5 miles home. Wart got slower and slower, until I dismounted Elven and hand-walked them both the rest of the way. We got home and I put Wart in his stall and watch him. He doesn’t look very good, but he did poop and pee, and the pee looked normal (I was worried about him tying up!). I go to the house to get some bute. I know he is going to be one, hurting unit! When I come back out a few minutes later with a half-tablet of crushed bute, Wart is lying down and groaning. Shoot, NOT a good sign! So I run back to the house and call the vets. The technician tells me that all the vets are on calls and asks if it is an emergency. I tell her that yes, I really do think it is. She tells me that Dr. Jen can be here in 10 minutes.
True to their words, Dr. Jen comes quickly. She takes one look at Wart and knows that he doesn’t look good! I hook a lead on him and we force him to get up. She quickly gives him a couple of IV shots of banamine and bute to hopefully help ease his discomfort. Then she starts looking him over.
All of his joints and his feet are hot, he has a scrape down most of the length of the inside of his left, hind leg but thankfully that is just hide. However his right front leg appears to be the worst. His fetlock was swelling and he clearly didn’t want anyone to touch it. So we decide to xray that ankle. Dr. Jen takes several xrays of his ankle, and we wrap that leg with cotton and bandages. She leaves me with sulfamethoxazole (we were worried that his scrape could cause cellulitus), and pentoxifylline, which is a blood thinner that helps detoxify his blood and increases blood flow to his feet and hopefully prevent or reduce any road founder he may be experiencing, and promises to come back out later that evening to check on him. She advises that we may want to put a catheter in him and pump fluids into him tonight, depending upon how he looks.
I check on him several times that afternoon, and he spends most of his time lying down, but looks relatively comfortable. I go out to feed them that night, Wart gets up and I syringe his meds into him and give him a tiny amount of grain (just to get that awful taste out of his mouth), and a haynet of hay. He cleans up his handful of grain and goes to work on his haynet. Thankfully he is willing to eat!
Later that evening Dr. Jen swings by and takes a look at him, and tells me that the xrays look clean. Wart really didn’t drink any water since he got back, so she advises that we put a catheter in him and give him fluids. So we rig up a hook in the middle of his stall, she inserts the catheter, gives him some more bute and banamine, and we put 10 liters of ringers down him. Dr. Jen shows me how to flush his catheter (which has to be done at least 2 times a day) and how to hook up the ringers saline, and how to disconnect it when it is empty.
Here is a picture of him from that night with his IV bag hooked up.
She also brought some empty IV bags and we cut them in half and put them on Wart’s feet like little booties and filled them with ice cubes and tape them closed. Wart does look a little better after that, and Dr. Jen leaves a little after midnight.
The next day, Wart spends most of his time lying down. He is clearly uncomfortable. Dr. Jen and Dr. Emilie stop by again and gives him another bute and banamine injection in his catheter, and we run another 8 liters of fluids into him. They are concerned about the heat and swelling in his joints so they wrapped a DMSO/Furacin sweat on his front legs. We also ice his feet down again. She promises to come back with more ringers saline (Wart used up her supply in her truck).
On Thursday, Wart was clearly going downhill, and I was near tears. I took off his leg sweats, washed his legs down and re-wrapped them and gave him his meds. I didn’t know what else we could do! I call the vets out three times, and they clearly were at their wits end too. He wouldn’t put any weight on his right, front leg. They had pumped as much pain killer as they could into him. We ran another 10 liters of fluid into him throughout the day. We ice his feet again. He was down, panting and quivering and in obvious pain. My friend Pat stops by and looks very worried by what she sees (she confides in me later that she didn’t think he would make it). We discussed moving him the couple of miles to the clinic but then we decided that even if he would be willing to move to the end of the barn (the closest I could get the horse trailer to him) that the short trailer ride may cause even more trauma and anxiety and they really didn’t think they could do any more than I was already doing. Plus they were so close anyway and could respond quickly if need be. That night I put the leg sweats back on him. At this point we had done all that we could do and now only time could help us.
Thankfully, when I went out to the barn on Friday morning, Wart looked a little better. He had cleaned up all his hay and was hanging his head over his stall door with his ears forward looking for breakfast. It appeared as if he had weathered his worst day. I gave him his last 5 liters of fluid (I had become a pro by this time!). Earlier I had taken his leg sweats off, washed his legs and re-wrapped them. His joint swelling was going down and his hooves were much cooler. Dr Jen stops by to check him and is encouraged, but warns me that we still have a long road to go before knowing how he will come out of this. Although he looks better we decide to leave his catheter in through the weekend just to be safe. I promise to provide weekend updates. I swing up to St. Albans Coop and get a couple of bales of straw to make his stall more ‘cushy’.
Wart shows slight improvement each day over the weekend. He doesn’t seem as muscle sore, although he is still clearly sore on his right front. I continue with his meds, re-wrap his legs daily, and flush his catheter twice a day. By now he is so used to the routine that I no longer have to halter and tie him to wrap his legs. He just calmly eats hay from his haynet and snuffles my head every once in a while as I work on him.
On Monday Dr. Jen stops again and overall is pleased with his progress, but is still worried about that right front leg. His ankle is still hot and swollen and she is worried about an infection starting in the joint itself. If that is the case, the sulfa-drugs I have been giving him wouldn’t help and we would need to aggressively treat it right away. We decide to tap the fluid and culture it. She gives him some happy juice, does the tap, injects antibiotics directly into the joint and looks at the fluid and is happy with what she sees (it is clear). We conclude that most likely it is just severe soft-tissue trauma and only time can cure that.
On Tuesday (a whole week after the fateful event!), Dr. Emilie stops by and removes Wart’s catheter. She looks him over and checks the right front leg. The swelling has gone down significantly in all of his joints but the inside of his right front knee is still hot and swollen. He now puts some weight on that leg, but is still very lame on it. We still think it is soft-tissue, but she says that if it doesn’t improve significantly by Friday we should xray the knee too. That night Dr. Jen calls and suggests that we have Dr. Phil look at Wart. Dr. Phil will be out on this Thursday and Friday (they are having their second child), so she suggests he come out on Wednesday and check Wart out.
On Wednesday Drs. Phil and Jen come out. He looks Wart over and is impressed with his progress. Dr. Jen had been keeping apprised of Wart’s accident and prognosis. They are worried about that knee though and we decide to go ahead and xray it. They also do a radiograph of his hoof to see if any rotation of the coffin bone occurred. Dr. Phil suggest that Wart is a good candidate for Surpass on his knee and pastern, a relatively new topical anti-inflammatory for treating osteoarthritis in the hock, knee, fetlock or pastern joints, that has less effect on his kidneys than bute does. Dr. Jen shows me how to apply the Surpass and tells me to use it daily. About an hour later, Dr. Jen calls and says that Wart’s hoof looks good (no rotation, hurray!), and there were no breaks in any of the long bones. However, the bad new is that he does have two chips in his knee. They were consulting with a specialist in Auburn University because they have never treated such a young horse with this condition. Usually they see this in two or three year old racing Thoroughbreds! Clearly the chips will need to be removed but the question is how and whether to put a cast on him afterwards. After that, depending upon what (if any) damage to his cartilage occurred (they will be able to assess that when they operate on him), he will be stall bound for somewhere between 3 weeks and 3 months.
So, we won’t know what to do until this coming Monday. Stall rest, continue with the small amount of bute, and Surpass and wrapping his legs. He is now eating and drinking well, and is alert and calm. I spend as much time with him throughout the day as I can so that it hopefully limits his boredom. I’ll keep everyone posted on what happens next!
