More Life Lessons - an Arabian Filly Injured Part 5

Part one
The veterinarian came out for another dressing change. by then I had the sheet on Echo instead of the blanket because the weather had warmed up. While the sheet was on the big side, it was saving the horse from rub marks from the reins that were holding up the shin guard.

We had to put a twitch on Echo to be able to work on her leg at all. The poor horse has really had enough and I can't say that I blame her. Seems like every time two people come into her stall, she ends up hurting.

Once we had given the twitch time to take effect, I untied the shin guard and removed the sheet so we could even see the wound. I took off the guard and Jack looked it over as I began cutting off the old dressing.

When the dressing was off, Jack looked closely at the wound. He removed a couple of stitches that were pulling loose and trimmed off some pieces of dead flesh. There was more deterioration to the wound but that was to be expected. It had been less than 24 hours since the shin guard had been installed to protect the wound.

Jack struggled with the new dressing, just like I had struggled. It make me feel better to know that the problem was not my expertise but the location of the wound. If the vet couldn't get it to stay in place, I could give myself a break about not being able to do it.

Once Jack had finished with the dressing, I put the shin guard back on. Doing that caused the dressing to slip even more. We're still trying to come up with a way to help keep the dressing up where it belongs. But at least when it slips, Echo can no longer get to the wound. Although the top of the guard can get pushed into the top part of that bare flesh.

Jack was impressed with the way the shin guard functioned. I explained the problem about rubs and needing to come up with something cooler to protect the horse on hot days. He suggested using a cinch to go in between the horse and the reins.

From there it developed into two fleece cinches, one over her back and one under her belly that were tied on with the reins. When Echo managed to pull the contraption over her head, I added a saddle crupper to keep the whole thing in place behind her withers. While this amusing concoction did help to get her through a very hot day in a reasonably comfortable manner, by the end of the day the horse had figured out how to take the entire thing off. The only thing that remained was the shin guard over the wound. At least that was a plus.

To be continued.....

Part 6


Arabian horse arabian horses horses horse Horse Accident