Last Post - Excellent News!

I've been remiss about uploading a few progress shots of Fancy's feet, but when you look at these, you'll be amazed. What a treat to see this mare recovery to 100% of where she was before her horrific accident. How wonderful!

Lisa says: Here are the last photos - she is 100% sound and had been throughout most of the process. We have been riding her for over a month, 3 months ahead of projected time. No cracks, no seams.






You can see she has a bit more (old trim) toe flare that needs to be grown out and removed, but other than that! I'd be fine with asking Lisa trim my horses anytime! I hope she turns professional so she can help more horses.

Way to go Lisa! Way to go!

Only 2 months after the accident.

Hi Pat,

This is what Fancy's foot looked like as of May 28th. It is hard for me to
believe that she made this much progress since March 30th. 2 months from
bloody mess to totally sound. Only 2 months. Wow. There are no cracks in
the new growth, only one spot on the side that is from the accident but it
is less every week as I continually rasp off a little here and a little
there to simulate wear. After doing this last trim I turned her out to see
how she moves. She likes to move!

I think I am going to start ponying her out on the trails next week. I will
probably put an Epic Easy Boot on her for protection.
We are so close to riding again!
Lisa








Lisa and Fancy!












Hi Lisa,

In looking at Fancy's hoof pictures, her sole has the appearance of dead sole material, a hard plastic, waxy texture to it. So I would guess that the sole you are seeing now, is dead and will slough off as soon as her hoof as generated enough new sole to replace it and well connected wall to support it.

When you see the side vies of her hoof, at the top you see an angle that she is trying to grow out. It's about an inch long from what I can see in the picture. That is healthy well connected angle of growth. Below that is all flare and you need to grow that flare out and trim it off as you guide that well connected wall down which will virtually change her angle of growth and she will have healthy well connected wall all the way to the ground.

While that is happening she will slough that waxy sole and you may need to help her by trimming some of it out - when it appears ready to go, though, and not before.

If all her hooves are at the same angle as this one, then you'll need to change the angles on all four feet. Not change, but grow out the well connected wall to the ground.

So she still has nearly an entire new hoof capsule to grow out and replace that damaged one, but it sounds like she may not even end up with a scar from the accident, which is really unusual.

Even with small injuries where a horse barely scrapes his coronet stepping into the feed shed to get into the grain (that would be my gelding, Danny) and that little scrape left a small seam in his hoof that will spread open at the toe of his hoof if I let his trims go out past 4 or 5 weeks.

The Hoof is an amazing thing! A hoof knows what to do to help the horse its attached to survive. That is, as long as we humans don't get in its way. Which is something we typically do. We just can't help ourselves.

So, we'll see how it goes!

Thanks for the update!
Pat

Healing Fast!

div>Here are some pictures Lisa sent in last week. Fancy seems to really be healing fast. She doesn't have any lameness on this hoof!

Part 6

Here are some new pictures of Fancy's hooves. She is the horse involved in the horse trailer accident. (see earlier posts). Her hoof is coming along really well. Lisa is doing all the things that I would be doing to help Fancy's hoof heal. Yes, there will likely be a permanent blemish, but probably nothing that will keep her from being ridden. And at that point, may professionals will say, that horse will need shoes to keep the hoof together. Wrong! The hoof will do a nice job of taking care of itself if we don't add outside support.

What happens when you artificially support living tissue indefinitely? It loses it's ability to support itself.

Fancy's owner, Lisa:

These photos were taken on May 12th.

When I change the bandage I massage the coronet band with bag balm. The hoof is growing in nicely but there is going to be a real lump/crease in the hoof from the stress of the
injury. The red tissue is stained from the scarlet oil the vet used - it
leaves a nice line to measure growth!

I've been gently rasping off excess tissue on the side as things grow, I
swear it changes every day. You can see here where it looks like the cornet
band is growing back above the wound. I hope this isn't wishful thinking.

The sole is getting chalky and the frog is starting to loosen. It's to be expected since she isn't getting much exercise and it's part of the healing process.

I ripped apart one of my Old Mac boots that was falling apart. I am going
to make my own rehab boot because I just can't see spending that much money
on something when I already have materials to work with. Boot, neoprene,
Velcro and a brain... I will send some photos in when finished!
Lisa

Part 5

April 15, 2009

Lisa: Fancy and I spent the day at the vet. Her orginal cast is removed.

Two cuts were made diagonally from each other and then the cast was split and pulled off. It doesn't sound like it would be, but this was quite an interesting procedure to watch.


The foot is healing nicely. There is so much granulated tissue that the doc had to scrape some of it off. It had grown all the way through the crack in the hoof. But everything is pink and healthy!

No bare cartilage showing and even though the vet didn’t say so, I am hoping that the white band that seems to be extending inwards from the coronary band is actually band tissue and her hoof will heal better than their prognosis. [I'm sure it will! Pat]



Fancy gets a brand new cast and I think this one went on much better and will be more comfortable than the first one. It isn’t up as high on her leg, and has more padding around the top. Fancy will be in this cast for 3 weeks if everything goes well.

Back at the barn Fancy is moving better but still depressed about being locked up.

On a happy note…I got a 3 horse slant! Yea! This particular accident will never again happen to us.
Lisa

Part 4

Here are shots of Fancy's cast. Lisa has been reading your comments and she wanted me to respond to Laughing Orca Ranch that Fancy should be rideable by October according to her vet.

And to note that Fancy walked right into her trailer without a single hesitation. That's pretty cool. Lisa is trailer shopping these days.


That is an interesting cast. I wondered how far up the leg it would go, It's good see it didn't go halfway up her leg as I would have expected.









I know we all have some horse trailer hauling stories to tell and I thought it would be a great learning experience to hear your stories. If you have a situation you can tell us all about (with pictures - even better) I'd love to post here. My email address is patslark@fairpoint.net.

I have several stories to tell, but here are a couple that I will try to “briefly” share.

When I first got back into horses about 15 years ago, I bought my quarter horse mare, Missy. It had been 10 years prior that I sold my horse to try to survive as a single mom. During my early horse years, I had no experience hauling horses. If I needed to move my horse, I usually called one of my sisters to haul for me.



So shortly after purchasing Missy, I basically knew nothing about hauling horses and one day, I learned one of the most important rules of hauling. Do not tie the head of the horse to the trailer without first shutting the divider. (And do not open the divider until the head is untied.)

I know. I know, I see people doing just the opposite all the time, Some stock trailers are divider-less, or because of the way a trailer is built, it’s easiest to tie the head first, but I personally believe that is an accident waiting to happen. Just like mine did.

One day, as we were loading Missy for a ride home, my sister and I were yakking as we were loading and not really paying as much attention to what the other was doing as we should have been.

Missy' head was tied and started to walk out to close the divider behind me. Missy thought she was going to walk right out with me and when she felt her head was trapped, she went straight into severe panic mode.

Now, this horse was a solid-minded horse and a trailering veteran, but when she realized she couldn’t back out of that trailer because her head was stuck, her feet started going about 90 miles an hour up and down, up and down, stomping like crazy, on the tops of my feet.

I couldn’t get away from her because every time she lifted a hoof off of one of my feet, she'd stomp down on the other. Over and over. I was stuck! Scared and feeling the stabbing pain on the tops of my feet over and over again.

But it was happening so fast and I was so scary. Finally, my sister reached up from the outside of the trailer un unbuckled her head. Missy managed to unload herself without blasting over the top of me, and without flipping over backwards (something else we hear about all too often.)

My perfectly tenderized feet were two solid bruises for weeks afterward and I thought I had broken a bone or two in one of them, but I healed pretty fast.

Interestingly, Missy never hesitated to back into a trailer after that either. Some horses are amazing. But I personally will never tie the head before slamming that divider shut again.

In another incident, just recently, we were hauling a mare to her new home and we didn’t get very far down the road, and the mare was making a lot of noise in the back. So I got out to check on her and found her sweaty and scared and almost laying sideways. She was leaning on the divider and trying to climb the wall with her feet. She was in the first stall of our slant load trailer.

Although she had hauled pretty well previously, she was going nuts on this ride. My sister (always rescuing me) suggested opening the divider so the mare could spread her legs, which we did and she hauled just fine for the next hour until we got her to her destination.

Now I hear that is pretty common for horses to do. And it sounds like that is what Fancy was doing as well. I often wonder if they might get vertigo in the trailer sometimes and think they should be on their side. Who knows, but some horses really need to get a good base under them and giving them lots of room is a good idea.

I'd love to see the backward facing trailers manufactered here in the US. That's the way horses like to ride. My minis always chose to ride facing backwards when I don't tie them in, so if I do tie their heads, they are facing backwards.

It just seems to be more natural for them to keep their balance in a moving vehicle and I believe it's easier on their joints when the trailer goes over bumps. Trailering is tough on the knee joints. If you've never ridden, standing up, in a trailer, you might try it (in a safe situation) just to see. You really feel the bumps in your joints.

And old trailers from the 60s, 70s and 80s, that people are STILL using - oh my gosh, there is no suspension!

Part Three

Today Morgan and I went to see the cast put on. Her foot is continuing to look better.
There are still some parts that are nasty though – like that white area by the remainder of the bulb…that is bare cartilage. Urk.

But everything else is fairly dry and pink so they wrapped it up.



I didn’t get any pictures of the cast process because Fancy has decided that the vets make good chairs and she leans (practically sits) on them at every chance while they are holding her foot up. I got to stand at her head today and try to talk her out of squishing the nice ladies.



Tomorrow she is supposed to go home, so today I put a new wall mat in the trailer.

There is a very good reason it costs so much to have those mats installed!

She had to remain for observation today to make sure the cast fit right and that she would walk on it.

Fingers crossed that we go back to the barn on a nice sunny day.

Lisa

Wow, that hoof is starting to look great! The vet is doing a wonderful job with it. I can't wait to see the casting job! Thank you for taking the time to share this story with us Lisa!

Pat