Cob Jockey

"Hello, is this Jenifer?"

"Yes, it is."

"Hi Jenifer, this is Dr. Tanner. I have good news: Disco doesn't need surgery!"

Did you know horses can give themselves the equivalent of a root canal? I didn't either until Dr. Tanner called the morning after Disco's CT scan.

Thought I was dropping him off for an extended stay, but I would be back the next morning, who knew

Turns out, by the time we got Disco to Rood and Riddle (5 weeks after discovering the fracture), he had laid down enough new tertiary dentin to cover the pulp canals, which meant the fractured tooth didn't need to come out.

I was, in a word, relieved. Between closing on the farm (aka paying lawyers), getting under contract on the house (more lawyers), buying a Hay Hut (no lawyers here) and cancer treatment for one of the canine members of the family (just a vet, but damn this was pricey), October has been an expensive month even before you considered Disco's dental adventures. While I haven't received the final bill yet, it should be closer to $2k than $9k, which is a win. 

Fascinating

I also felt less bad about how long it took to get him in. I first called in mid-September, and between the surgeon's schedule and my schedule, the earliest we could get him in was mid-October. While I feel bad for the pain he must have been in for at least part of that, if we had gotten him in any earlier, he might not have had time to lay down that new tertiary dentin, and I assume (I didn't ask) we might have had to do the surgery.

It does leave me with some questions - does this always happen with fractured teeth? Should I always slow roll surgery on a fractured tooth if the horse isn't in immense pain? Did I just get lucky? - but overall, I'm just relieved to put this chapter behind us, even if it hasn't meant I've gotten back on him.

But more on Disco's winter plans later.

It's been A Month around here. Specifically, it's been February, the worst month of the year. February has no redeeming qualities for me. Every year I tell myself that this will be the February I just say f*** it and take a long weekend to somewhere warm just to remind myself there are places in the world that are green, warm, bright, and not filled with seasonal depression. And so far that has never happened. But one day!

In the meantime, we've almost made it.

But not before one last surprise snowfall that took over a week to melt, because of course it did.

Disco jumped right on the "February sucks" train by needing to see not one, but two, equine veterinary medicine professionals with mystery ailments last week.

 

During a cold snap when I was feeding extra night hay last week, I found Disco shivering at a cold temp, but one he normally handles well without a blanket. He was also trying to roll, but in a weird "throw my body against the wall, slide down it and just lay there" kind of way. 

I thought maybe colic and gave him banamine and electrolytes, in addition to putting the heaviest blanket I have on him. Within 30 minutes, he was acting totally normal, bright eyed and eating. So I went to bed.

 

The next morning, though, he was back to again displaying a sad pain face, looking miserable, and trying to roll (but still passing manure just fine). This time I also temped him, and found a 105.6F temperature! I gave him more banamine and called the vet. By the time the vet arrived a couple hours later, the banamine had only brought it down to 104F. 

(By the way, he politely chose to get sick on President's Day, which I had off from work. So that was nice of him.)

The vet wasn't sure what was going on, but gave him a banamine shot, a shot of antibiotics, and tubed him "just to be safe even though I don't think it's colic." By 6 hours later, his fever was down to 101, and that was the last of it. He was totally normal from there on out. 

After the vet visit, Disco slept most of the afternoon and Connor just stood watch next to him all day. It was adorable.

 

A few days later, Disco saw my dentist. He had just been done in Canada 7 months earlier, but anytime I start riding one that's new to me, I want to KNOW that they're physically okay with what I'm asking of them. Plus at not quite four, he's at an age where teeth change often. And it was a good thing I did.

Her winter teeth doing outfit totally looks like scuba gear.

Poor baby Disco had a line of ulcers down the left side of his cheek. To me, it looked like someone had taken a green/blue pen and drawn a line and some squiggles all the way down the inside of his cheek. While they weren't actively bleeding, they certainly still looked painful.

Disco is a much less sloppy drunk than Connor, but this particular pose must run in the family.

 

Now, my dentist is a DVM that just does teeth and bodywork. She used to be full-service, but went the specialty route, I'm sure trying to maintain a better quality of life for herself (no emergencies). She's spent the last five years studying to get, and finally last month got, her International Association of Equine Dentistry certification, which is quite challenging to get from what I understand. 

All that is to say - she is very, very good when it comes to dentistry, and she was stumped as to what caused these. He didn't have them at his last dental in Canada, and while he had a few points here and there, there was nothing that would have obviously caused that much trauma.

This is only part of the documentation you receive every time you get a dental from her.

She asked about his hay, but sort of half-heartedly, because if it was the hay, she would have expected to see trauma on the other cheek also, or on any of the other horses she did at our farm that day, and she didn't. So in the end, we got the teeth to where we know they're good and not causing any problems, and scheduled another dental in six months.

 

Since then, he has clearly been feeling better. He's demonstrating just a tiny bit of attitude on the ground that he didn't have before, and under saddle he was much more willing to move forward and to give on the left side. I feel bad that I didn't do this sooner, but I'm grateful that I've ridden him as lightly as I have this winter while that was going on inside his mouth.

AND WITH THAT, can we PLEASE knock it off with the vet bills for a little while, Disco!

Earlier this week, I offhandedly asked a barnmate to let me know the next time her sporthorse vet came out, that I'd like her to do Connor and Disco's teeth. I've been without a sporthorse vet since mine moved to Ocala two years ago (sob), and while my shots-and-Coggins-and-emergencies vet COULD do their teeth, I'd rather leave him with, well, shots and Coggins and emergencies.

I did not anticipate that she'd have her come out this week and on less than 24 hours' notice, but hey, I had no meetings Thursday afternoon so it all worked out to where baby Disco could get his very first teeth float:

There was nothing remarkable going on. Wolf teeth are just starting to come in (we discussed it and decided to pull them a year from now when he's 2.5), and he's "ahead of schedule" on molar eruption. She didn't need to do much with him, and I told her that was fine. At 20 months old, I really just wanted professional eyes to make sure nothing weird was going on and for him to have the experience of having it done. Got to get as many experiences under his belt as possible while he's still young and impressionable.

Zzzzzz

He was a perfect gentleman for it, too. Stood quietly for the brief exam before she started, didn't flinch when he got the shot. He's had his moments, generally, but overall, I could not be happier with his behavior, especially since we are well into the "has testosterone" part of the baby stallion timeline.

Disco fit her horse-sized stand perfectly, while Connor was too short for it and really needed the pony/mini stand. NOBODY TELL ME HE'S GOING TO GO OVER PONY, OKAY.

Connor was slightly more interesting, but not by much. Some waviness, some hooks, and something preventing him from moving his jaw side to side smoothly. Most entertainingly, he was once again a total lightweight in his old age, "possibly TOO sedated...", and the vet asked me to lean on him to keep him propped upright.

Propping my 900lb dog up

And we got to play "Drunk Connor Physics" again. Seriously, how DOES he manage this?

All in all, I was happy with her work, and with the price ($150/horse), so we'll be seeing her again. 

Night night, baby D.

I usually break up a long recap into two posts, but this year I'm going to do a quick recap all at once.  Partially because I procrastinated and it's now the 31st, and partially because I'm in a lake house with my college friends and need to get this done pronto so I can go luging!

Luging!

What Ramone thought of me on his back

Connor got his teeth done on last week.  I wasn't able to be there, but that's okay.  I was there the last time this guy did his teeth, and was over the moon thrilled with him.  Here's my post from that encounter where I talk in detail about the guy and his process.

I've written before that one of my favorite things about this guy is that he sends you a dental chart via email a few days after the float.  It lists what he did to the teeth, contains a diagram of what Connor's mouth looked like pre-float, and notes the amount of anesthetic the horse took.  Here's Connor's from last week, click to enlarge:

I'm so happy he's not listed as a Haflinger for once, I don't even care that my nine year old gelding is listed as a five year old mare!

The chart serves a few  purposes.  One, the owner knows what work was done and what the problem areas were.  Two, the dentist keeps them and refers back to them in later years to remind himself of the amount of anesthetic that that horse needed and any other quirks he noticed.  Three, we can both refer back to them and note any regularly reoccurring hooks/points/etc.  For fun, here's Connor's chart from the last time he had his teeth done:

You can see that this year he started him out with the same anesthetic dose that he used on him last time. (and then had to up it, apparently).

The official word was "Nothing crazy, just normal points and a couple of small hooks."

I'm normally exceptionally vigilant about protecting identities on this blog, but I wanted to plug his business in case any Indiana residents are looking for an excellent equine dentist, I left his contact information visible on the report.  He's constantly booked solid so it's hard to get an appointment with him, but he's worth the wait!