All the Recaps: Bacon Goes to the Vet

Mom NOOOOOOO WHY oh look dancing barn cats with sombreros. 

First in our in depth recap is our vet visits from back in late March. I knew it was time to get the mare ready for the season, so we had to check the basics off of the list: vaccines, teeth, coggins and health certificate. I also threw in a brief lameness evaluation in there because I had a feeling that Bacon would benefit from possible hock injections and a re-injection of that funky right front foot.

Chocolate covered Bacon?

At that point in time, Bacon had just gotten her fresh spring clip, albeit a bit late. It garnered some attention though, and the vet and his assistant loved it. The other vet that helped with Bacon's neck cellulitis back on New Years made sure to stop by and say hi to her again as well.

I did not do an even job on both sides. Whoops.

 We started with the lameness exam. It showed a little bit of ouchiness in that foot on the pavement, but that isn't too unusual for a sensitive girl. But we still thought she would benefit from another injection in the navicular bursa of the right front. We then moved onto the hocks. She definitely showed us some discomfort there, more so on the right hock, so we planned to come back a week later to do the three injections.

More dancing barn cats. One poked a fajita in foot. Fajita juice in my foot. Whoa drugs.

Next we moved onto teeth and vaccines. Her teeth weren't too bad, but there were a couple of sharp points and even an ulcer developing near the back of her mouth. That made me feel like a bad horse mom, but its not everyday you drug your horse up, throw a speculum in their mouth and shine a flashlight in there. While she was out, I mentioned her hairy little squirrel ears and the vet asked if I wanted to use the clippers to just trim the large hanging bits off. I evily giggled, grabbed an ear, turned on the clippers and Bacon magically was awake in 0.2 seconds. The vet and I wrestled the sedated giraffe for a good 10 minutes and we still didn't get all of that floofy ear hair sprouting out of her brain. Lots of ear bonnets for us, please.

They even put a purple wrap on it. It's like they know.

We came back a week later for our injections with that same vet, but being that it is a hospital and that two other vets have worked on Bacon, they saw us on the schedule and had to come say hi. Dr. Wahl would stand back and eye my horse up and down, give her a good scratch and just say "she is such a nice horse. I like her so much." Yep, that's right you do. He doesn't have to feed her or watch her weave, but she is very polite and seems happy to visit the hospital and the vets were always happy that she has manners. We stood next to the surgery room, but unfortunately no surgeries were going on. I am sure Bacon appreciated that. They got her sedated and scrubbed, more people came by to see her clip, she got poked, and put on a weeks of stall rest. And I cried a little at my bill.

There's no crying in baseball.

After her stall rest, she came out swinging. She had a lovely forward trot, was not nearly as heavy as she had been in my hand, and had this bigger canter that I couldn't really figure out how to ride. But, she was also starting to rub her face bald, flip her head like crazy, and then after a week of feeling lovely, she wasn't anymore. Was it her heat cycles starting up? Allergies? I had tried a different dressage saddle and thought maybe that was the cause, because she was showing some pain in her back after that. Was it ulcers? I started her back on omeprazole and ranitidine. Maybe I could figure it out. Or maybe not.

This saddle is incorrect. I do not approve. The outfit is ok though, it makes me look like a dark lord.