Update 4 of 5: Taran's mid-life crises (all of them)

While this year ended on an amazing high, we almost didn't get there - several times. See, Taran has been plagued by one thing or another, and as a result I ate a lot of omeprazole and drank a lot of wine.

After our second-level debut in April, I noticed that he was a bit foot sore. It's been an on-off problem since fall of 2016, as he has flat feet and his right front toe has a tendency to run forward. I had tried glue-on shoes a few times, which he did great in, but he didn't seem to be able to keep them on for more than two weeks. I had my vet out to consult and take radiographs, and we were shocked to find that he had only 4.5 mm of sole depth. I opted to have the hospital farrier out (he made Brego's ginormous shoes) and we put a set of plain shoes on his front feet, with rim pads.

The first week in shoes was terrifying. Normally Taran never slips or trips, but in steel shoes he did both constantly. It was like he didn't know where his feet were. It was nice not to have to boot him to go for trail rides, but other than that, I lived in constant fear that he'd slip and rip a tendon himself, or get his shoe stuck in a haynet, or rip his shoe off and half his foot with it. Those of you have shod horses probably have nightmares about your horse losing a shoe... apparently I have nightmares when my horse is wearing shoes!

But Taran managed not to kill himself, and he was definitely more comfortable in shoes, so I felt like we'd made the right decision.  I put him on Reithoof, a hoof supplement with tons of biotin in it, to hopefully help him grow out some sole (it did). Things were back to normal, so I signed us up for another show in Houston over Memorial Day weekend. And then the week before the show, T started being ever so slightly off on the RF - and it got worse as the days went by. In a panic, I cancelled the show and called my vet for advice.

Shod RF, slightly swollen in the heel and pastern. Pass the omeprazole plz.

Long-time blog readers will remember that Taran stepped on a nail back in 2011, and it went through the navicular bursae and the coffin joint. During rehab, we struggled to keep his toe on that foot short enough so that it didn't put any stress on the damaged joints, and ended up having to reset the hospital plate that covered the surgical site every 4 weeks. My vet looked back at her records, and I looked back at the blog, and T was at exactly 4 weeks when the RF started giving him trouble this time. Bingo. We pulled the shoe, trimmed his toe WAY back, and presto - he was comfortable again.

Unfortunately, T doesn't grow enough foot to have steel shoes reset every 4 weeks, so we simply couldn't keep doing that. We decided to try glue-ons again, this time with a new glue, a couple of wraps of hoof cast over it for extra staying power, and bell boots 24/7. And that seemed to do the trick.

By now, we were into the heat of summer, and the spring show season was over. We focused on strength and fitness, and making him a really solid 2nd level horse. T even went to stay with my trainer while I was gone for 2 weeks, and came back very judgmental of my riding skills. The only thing was, for a horse working at the level he was, he didn't seem to have very much muscle or topline. He also seemed to struggle with the heat more than usual, and his overall fitness level seemed to be decreasing rather than increasing. I also noticed that he was chewing a bit oddly, so on a hunch I had the vet back out to look in his mouth. And guess what - broken tooth. It was so broken the vet literally just reached in an plucked out the broken chunk. Poor Taran! After a week of care he seemed to be eating better, so I figured we had averted another crisis.

Broken molar is in the foreground...

... and here's the piece the vet pulled out.

But despite having his tooth fixed, he never really wanted to eat his Senior feed. I started giving him alfalfa to supplement, which he seemed to prefer. We did a month-long course of omeprazole since we were concerned that the stress of traveling so much might have resulted in ulcers, but it didn't change his attitude or eating habits. T also seemed to be more and more lethargic. I compared his conformation pics from last year with now, and noticed that he was definitely losing muscle.

Then one morning I came out to feed after a short rainstorm, to find him wet and shivering in the barn - only it was 80 degrees.  I threw a fleece and a blanket on him, then jokingly texted his mum a pic with "You know he's a Texas boy when...".

Literally 80 when I took this picture. Not normal.

Still, it was odd. And then he had two very mild colics within 10 days of each other. Once again, I called my vet.

"So I have this long list of weird unrelated things going on with Taran..." I listed them out for her. I'd even sent them in an email since I didn't want to forget anything.

"Ulcers? Hind gut acidosis? Lyme?" I asked. The Internet is a dangerous place if you're an armchair vet looking for a diagnosis.

"Let's test him for PPID," she said.

I laughed. "He's only 15, and he's never had a problem shedding out. There's no way this horse has Cushings!"

A week later, she called me an hour before my first ride at Regionals with the test results. My vet is super optimistic, and I swear you can never tell what kind of news you're going to get from the tone of her voice.

"We got the test results back. The high end of normal is 110... and Taran is 987."

Click to embiggen. My fav part is the "test interpretation" - technical vet speak when what it really should say is GET YOUR HOSS ON PRASCEND STAT.

I sat down hard.

"I've seen numbers that high before... once." She laughed a little.

Mad props to her for figuring that out.  Not in a million years would I have guessed!

So. Wonderpony is now on daily Prascend, and looking better every day. His topline is coming back and so is his fitness and muscling. He acts like a normal horse, although I could do with a little less fire-breathing dragon. We've changed his diet (alfalfa pellets, fat supplement, Platinum Performance, and no more hard feed ever) and most days he's happy to slurp down his "soup". He does get cold REALLY easily (refer to his 400g fill blankie from nationals), so I check the weather forecast like 10 times a day and Taran now has a wardrobe that probably surpasses Valegro's.

My biggest takeaway from the whole PPID experience is to pay close attention to anything weird about your horse. Taran's PPID symptoms were not typical, and he's fairly young. I'm super lucky to have an awesome vet, and I'm glad I have this blog to refer to for past health issues. But I'm hoping that we've figured out the RF and the PPID and can keep him comfortably, sound, and happy. After all, we've got flying changes to work on and third level waiting for us!

Your chance to be an armchair vet: What's wrong with Paddy?

Let me preface this all by saying that the vet has already been called and will be out Wednesday, so please don't worry that I'm using the Internet to diagnose my beloved Paddykins (also, Aimee would murder me in my sleep). So we'll get to the bottom of this with actual technology an' stuff. But in the meantime, it's fun to play armchair vet in this week's edition of "What's wrong with my horse?"

Here's the timeline:

• Sept 15 - Paddy moves to Trainer's barn to prep for Championships. He goes from 24/7 turnout with his beloved Brego to 12 hour turnout by himself.
• Oct 1 - Legend + Pentosan
• Oct 7-11, Region 9 Championships. Paddy felt awesome even if he was a brat in the arena.
• Oct 13 - Changed to Paddy's "winter" feed, Triple Crown Senior. Normally he gets TC Lite.
• Oct 14-15 ish - I notice Paddy feels kind of stiff all over, but he works out of it.
• Oct 16th or so - Trainer ride, she mentions that he feels a little stiff on his right shoulder.
• Oct 17-24 - I don't ride as much but when I do, Paddy feels stiffer and I have to push him. Normally he goes mach one-Haffie. He also seems a little less interactive than normal.
• Oct 25 - Paddy comes home for some R&R and to get his feet done.
• Oct 27 - Trimmer notices that Paddy seems stiff and doesn't want to hold up any of his feet. He's also not constantly messing with the trimmer (usually he licks his hair and other helpful things). Trimmer says he doesn't seem himself.
• Oct 28 - Great ride out on the trails - big trot, good canter work. Everything seems mostly normal except that after 20 minutes, he's exhausted.
• Oct 29-Nov 1 - Stuck riding or hand-walking on the road due to weather. Such fun. Many yays. He seems to not be landing toe first on the RF, and short-striding a little at the walk, but looks and feels fine at the trot. 
• Nov 2 - Bodyworker comes out and mentions that his topline is not great, something I had also been noticing. He's extremely tight in his neck, especially on the right. He also usually spends the entire session messing with anything he can wrap his little lips around, including the Bodyworker's hair, belt, the grooming box, etc. This time he just sort of stands listlessly, although near the end he starts throwing brushes and he looks much perkier after she's done . We discuss what might be wrong with him, and I call the vet.

 

Hard-working Haffies require massages.



Here's a few things that keep coming to mind:

• He seems to be stiff and unwilling to go forward - normally he's a very strong, forward ride.
• He doesn't seem to be himself - normally he's into everything, and now he's just not.
• I thought he might be sort of depressed because he didn't have his Brego while at Trainer's, but his attitude hasn't really changed since he's been home.
• I also thought he might be tired of working in an arena day in and day out at Trainer's. However, trail rides and road work are equally as unexciting.
• I've had two people who don't see him every day (trimmer and bodyworker) comment that he didn't seem like himself.

And also:

• I'm doing a Panecur Powerpac, just in case he picked up something at Regionals or Trainer's barn
• The trimmer could find no abscesses, heat, or anything to indicate something wrong with his foot. We are, however, treating a deep crack in his RF heel (no thrush apparent, but still treating), which might be the cause of the toe-first landing. I will have the vet look at this limb in particular.
• Bodyworker found no soreness in his back.
• Some horses are sensitive to changes in sugars, and his winter feed is about 5% higher in NSCs than his summer feed. However, he's had that feed before and did not show any signs of it affecting him.

Soo, what does the Internet Armchair Vet Symposium think? Have you ever had anything like this in a horse of yours?