Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Other stuff

I hurt my knee running in the race last weekend.  It's better enough now that it doesn't bother me to walk, stand, do agility and other regular stuff.  But it still hurts to run.  So I am impatiently waiting for it to get better.  I'm sure this figures into my irritation over the bad parts of the agility trial.  We all have a problem now! But hopefully in another week it will be ok.

Legend has continued to be seizure free and so I cut her dose of Phenobarb again on the first of the month.  She's now at 50% of her initial dose.  We'll see how that goes.

Lyric has had only limited amounts of soft stool lately.  I have kept her on i/d and try not to go too crazy with treats and so far it seems ok.  Only a few emergency baths.

I put Zodiac back on a low dose of Rimadyl.  He seemed really reluctant to do stairs and was limping a little.  So I added it to his Tramadol and j/d.  I'm not sure how much of a difference it makes but if he tolerates it we'll continue for now.  I've never been convinced he didn't get an ulcer from it previously but I didn't have proof either way.  But this dose is a little smaller so we'll see.

I had to break down and get the horse vet out here to give Squirt a joint injection.  His bad carpal joint had flared up again and he was noticeably lame at a walk.  The day he stopped twice to rest coming in from the field I figured I better do something.  He was a lot better by the next day but he's still limping some.  She said I could also try Previcox on him and apparently the horse dose is 1/4-1/2 of the large dog pill.  Do you know how hard it is to watch and make sure a horse actually consumes a small pill?  It's tricky.  But going better. I do think pill pockets for horses might be a good idea. Seems to be helping but I am also hoping he won't need it long term since horses are so sensitive to NSAIDs.  Hopefully after a few weeks the joint injection alone will be enough to hold him for awhile.

So that's how we are doing around here.

9 comments:

Sue said...

Maybe you'll all get better at the same time and life will be happier. Does it ever really happen that way?

Diana said...

Love pill pockets!! They should make them for horses, it's not like you can shove it down their throat like a dog. Maybe you need a "pill shooter" , not sure that's what it's really call, like what is used in cats. I guess it would have to be really big though. Lol

Sara said...

Oh man, hopefully everyone is feeling better soon!

I dont' know what I'd do without pill pockets. They really should make them for humans :)

K-Koira said...

I wonder if you could use something that horses love already- like bread- and just wrap the pill in it like you would with a dog pill in cheese? I'm not too experienced with horses, so I guess I don't know if they would pick out the pill and manage to spit it out (again, like a dog with a pill in cheese- that never worked for my dog!).

Nicki said...

I've been able to mix it in with a crumbled horse treat with pretty good success so far. The problem is the things horses usually eat are crunchy-carrots, horse cookies, etc.

Karissa said...

Am I reading that correctly that a horse actually gets a smaller dose than a dog? Weird.

At any rate, try pushing it into a piece of apple. Soft enough to push a pill into and the horses tend to eat it before they know what got them. Although really, I doubt they "taste" a pill that size anyhow so you shouldn't have any problem.

So glad that Legend remains seizure-free!

Nicki said...

Yes, the horse dose is smaller! Much smaller really. That's a good idea. My horses don't like apples much though. They don't even eat the ones that fall off our tree into the pasture.

Karissa said...

My other failsafe delivery method was to crush up meds, mix them with applesauce, put the mixture in an old dewormer tube and squirt it into the mouth. You can be evil and just mix it with water (did that many a time with bute, I'll admit), but they seem to appreciate a more flavorful mixture.

Nicki said...

That sounds like a lot of work! Hopefully the crushed cookie continues to work for me when I need it! I remember trying to get him to eat powdered meds mixed with grain and pancake syrup several years ago. Worked pretty good.