89. VIDEO: Pain and pleasure

The soppy, gloppy springtime is always risky for Gus’s hooves.  Last spring he picked up a touch of thrush — a fungal infection of the frog, the soft V-shaped lump on the underside of the hoof — which cleared up easily with medication.  This spring he’s been a tiny bit sore on and off, and since it seemed to resolve once he got warmed up and moving, I figured it was just arthritis.  But today he’s almost head-bobbing lame when each front foot hits the ground.  I find iodine and a dropper outside his stall, and Sandy explains that he has white-line disease — it’s fungal and bacterial, and it can cause the outer hoof wall to crack and pull away from the core of the hoof.  Ick! and owww!   It needs to be stopped pronto.

I figure some games and treats will help distract Gus from his ouchiness, so we try some slow, easy interactions.  When I offer him the baby carriage, he perks right up — the joy of pushing it clearly trumps the pain of walking.  But I don’t want him stressing his hooves too much; to save him from himself, I put the carriage away early.  Now he indulges in his favorite self-soothing activity: rolling in the dirt.  Weight is off his feet, the dust and wood shavings provide a nice back scratch, and he luxuriates in the whole procedure:

I give him a nice rubdown, and Sandy adds an anti-inflammatory to his dinner.  I squirt iodine onto his hooves, aiming for where the white-line crack might be developing.  Now he’s frankly limping on his way out to the paddock, and Sandy contemplates soaking or packing his feet, to keep more iodine on them longer.  We’ll see how he does tomorrow.  Ever the hedonist and never the stoic, he’ll show us clearly just how he feels.