Snaggle-Muzzle

...and we're taking a week off for an injured nose.  It never fails to amaze me how every single month there is a vet bill for something.  I now have a permanent line item in my budget {$200} for VET.  April brought with it a lameness re-check as we returned to full work after the great casting of 2010. May was routine shots.  June ushers in a maimed muzzle.  Marissa, can I get an "amen"?

I didnt notice anything out of the ordinary at first blush on Monday afternoon.  My typical once-over as I approach my horse every day is focused primarily on checking all four extremeties for infirmaries like swelling, cuts, etc.  I didnt notice the muzzle injury until I had him out of his paddock.  He stood, completely refusing to move, after I took him through the paddock gate as if to say "WAIIIIT...look at me, something is wrong with me!".  As I urged him on I saw it, a thumb-tip sized flap of skin hanging precariously from his face.  I rushed over to look at it...ugh...gross...it had clearly happened hours ago.  There was no blood, just a dirt and various nastiness caked around it.

I marched him over to the wash rack to take a better look.  It didnt look infected, just painful.  I cold hosed it {and got a full body shower} to loosen the crust around it and in it then gave him 1cc of Ace because he was not about to let me clean it out.  I was able to get a little betadine in there, after rinsing it out I gave it a quick spray of Vetricin and called my vet.  We concluded it was likely not a life-threatening, let's do an after hours expensive visit to treat it.  So, she is coming out today to assess the wound.  I suspect she's going to need to cut off the flap that's hanging.  I feel terrible for Pongo, it's not going to feel good for a while.  It's in an odd place because it's just going to be impossible to keep clean.  He has his nose on the ground all day sniffing, eating...I have no idea how to really care for the injury other than to try to get it as clean as I can once, maybe twice a day.  Faces have many blood vessels so I'm sure it will heal very fast, my concern is I don't want him to have "snaggle-muzzle" with some gross flap of random, mangled skin for the rest of his life.  Especially since he has such a pretty face!

The next question is who did this to him?  Well...at the end of the day, I really don't know. He shares 3 fence lines with other random horses.  It could be one of many little pony friends. He did get a new roommate over the weekend and she's beat him up a little bit here and there, just a few scrapes and nicks, but I cant definitively say it was her either.  One of those mysteries we'll never solve probably.  I texted his roomie's owner since she is a friend of mine and she told me that she'd seen the injury earlier that morning.  While I was happy to have a timeline of how old the wound might be, I was bummed that after seeing my horse hurt she didnt alert me or the barn owner.  Hopefully things go down differently next time there's an injury in the barn yard.  In the interim Miss M and I plan to keep a close eye on Pongo and his new roommate to see if the current living situation is going to work out or not.  If I had to put my money down on what happened, my guess is that the horses were playing with fly masks and he got chomped.  Stuff happens, I'm not too concerned about the whole ordeal, just want to make sure everyone is in the right paddock for their personality and getting along.

Not to be overshadowed by a random injury I would also like to alert the presses that we went on a real trail ride and lived to tell the tale!   My lesson over the weekend consisted of Miss M and I tacking up and heading out back to conquer {part} of our barn's 800 acres of open space.  Funny thing is, there is nothing to really say about it other than he was calm and cool.  We walked and trotted around behind Miss M as she and her horse Nick led the way.  We spent some time practicing going up and down steep hills {at the walk}  which literally made my heart leap into my throat as we scooted calmly down some crazy declines.  The western saddle helped immensely as my trusty trail mount navigated the terrain.  We stayed out all of 45 minutes which was plenty of time in my book!  I can't wait to get out there again as soon as possible...hopefully we can book another trail lesson this weekend if the muzzle is healed up a bit.