Xrays and Teeth and Shots, Oh My!

Friday I buzzed out to the barn after work to meet up with another vet who was scheduled to do Axel's x-rays since the regular vet doesn't have a portable setup. S and a friend were getting Stitch and Cody ready to go riding but other than that it was pretty quiet on the western front. We went through a whole series of x-rays before the vet's computer decided to lock up and not save any of the pictures we had just taken. Luckily for my checkbook we then only retook a few of the different pictures since we knew what we were looking at. Axel stood pretty well but was getting fairly impatient by the end of the whole ordeal. He kept lifting up his back left foot when we'd barely touch it to put the x-ray sensor close to it.

Cody had gotten himself into something and took a big chunk out of his leg. The best we could figure was he maybe clocked it on the automatic waterer.

So the inital reading from the vet doing the x-rays were that his left knee is worse than his right and his right knee swelling/soreness isn't neccessarily from the arthritis but perhaps soft tissue. We'll see if that clears up with a bit of work and the Adequan. The hind left with ringbone is looking pretty nasty these days. One side is nearly bridged while the other side has a ways to go yet. She thought the joint itself was getting pretty narrow indicating that it was starting to fuse. Apparently as the joint fuses he might turn up lame more often/worse than usual. Once the joint fuses then he should feel pretty good.

So then Saturday the regular vet came out to do teeth and sheaths. Cody went first because we thought he'd be the toughest, might as well get that out of the way right? Cody was awesome. He scooted back a little trying to get away from the filing but hardly acted up at all and took the injection well. He got a little extra bump so the vet could clean his sheath. He had a pretty decent sized bean, maybe a bit bigger than a jelly bean, and a ton of plain ole' junk up in there. So much junk in fact he had an abrasion on his bits from it. So now he's all squeaky clean and I can't wait to see if he's a happier guy on Wednesday. Nothing major in the teeth department, only points this time. The vet had me stick my hand up in his mouth to feel some of the sharp points. I'll admit I didn't feel any points but I was a bit distracted that I had my arm up Cody's mouth and how slimy it was in there, ew. ;)

Axel did fine in the teeth department as well. He just had points as well, one in a not usual spot but nothing scary and both horse's ulcers in their cheeks from last time had heeled up fine. Axel didn't get his sheath cleaned since he's so accommodating anyway, but the vet pointed out where to look for a bean and said Axel didn't have one right then.

Both horses chilled out in the arena for a while to sober up. Walking Cody into the arena was pretty entertaining, he was swerving all over like he was drunk. It didn't take long for both of them to "come to" and get to go back outside. I missed the initial turn out of the new Clyde that J picked up at the sale and Cody and Axel didn't seem to even notice that he was on the other side of the fence. Oh well.

On Sunday we got back from the farm around 8 and ran out to give Axel his first shot of Adequan. He was very good about it and didn't even flinch when I put in the needle, though I wasn't surprised. I'm still a little paranoid, like maybe I didn't pull back enough to really see if the syringe was in a vein by accident, or other ridiculous notions. I'm sure by the time this month is over I'll be a lot less paranoid about giving injections. Once a year doesn't quite have the same effect as once every 4 days.