Wednesday, March 11, 2015

It could be a lot worse..........

Don't worry - nothing has gone wrong - in fact, it's quite the opposite.  Things are great!  Leave it to me to worry about the worst case scenario -  sometimes I just want to prepare myself for that possibility.  What am I talking about?   I'm talking about River's "umbilical hernia" that I  had the vet out for today.  As it turns out, it's not an umbilical hernia - we're not sure what it is - but there is no hole or interruption in the abdominal wall, just a lot of granulation tissue of unknown cause.  I was sure that we were going to have to do an expensive surgery to fix the possible hernia (I looked it up on google), but "Yeah!", we don't!

Let me back up a little - we knew when we picked River up at Safe Haven Horse Rescue that she had this open wound on her belly that we all assumed was a hernia.  Here's what it looks like (sorry, it's an icky picture).......




It has been there for a long time, but it needs to be taken care of.  Again, our River proved to be a star.  I had Dr. Mike McRae of Sierra Equine come out to see what we needed to do to address this problem.   When I called him recently to make the appointment, I was sure we'd have to figure out  how to give River some sedation so he (a stranger to her) could not only touch her sensitive  stomach, but palpate the sore itself to see the extend of the problem - to see if there was a hole in the abdominal wall..




Not only did we not need to sedate her, she almost seemed to like it, and she definitely liked Dr. McRae!  Mike and I were the only ones at the ranch when he came out, so I held her with one hand, and took pictures with the other (not easy to do with a big DSLR camera!) she was so relaxed.  Honest - no sedation!




We do need to do some  minor surgery to correct the issue, which will happen tomorrow.  We will take her out onto the grass, and Dr McRae will sedate her to lay her down.   He will cut out the tissue, stitch her up, and she should be good as new.  I want to get this all done before fly season sets in - and the wound as it is is too large to rely on topical medicines.  She should be able to get back to work really soon - I'm sure it will feel good to have that nasty, open wound gone forever!  I will be sure to photograph how it all goes tomorrow.

The rest of these images are from the other evening when I wanted to just let River play and relax.  For now, she is living in a stall, but the plan will be to put her out with other horses eventually - it's the way a horse should live.  For now she gets a lot of turn out time and plenty of attention - she doesn't seem to be complaining much about her life  here at Blue Fountain Farm!











The view from the arena to the front pasture.........
















River loves men - she and Dean are getting along really well. They both have a good sense of "play"!

























She even let him practice with her lunging...............










Then it was time for her reward - grazing time without anyone holding her, and Dory keeping an eye on her.  She doesn't wander at all when she gets to graze, but even if she did, where would she go?  She loves it here, and we love her!



















1 comment:

  1. I'm at the ranch a lot and get to see "behind the scenes". It really is amazing what a warm, caring environment can provide. I've seen many of these blog posts as they happen and River really is an amazing horse as are the people who are officially working with her. Lesley and Jessi do an amazing job of pacing River in her ability to learn without tipping over into "pushing". Dean loves animals and they seem to completely get that about him. River is an amazing horse but so are the people who have decided to take this journey with her.

    Victoria

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