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Half horse half human:



All these vet visits are blurring into one now, but he came again yesterday. Eye is progressing well but still oozing, so more Baytril. Toffee is sound on two Danilons a day, so we are cutting down to one per day and he will assess her again a week on Friday. The weather has been so mild that Fraser was out last night without a rug! Corbett has grown an enormous amount of lagging already, and Toffee has been clipped so had a lightweight rug on. We are very much enjoying the dry weather, which is in total contrast to last year's underwater autumn.

Welcome back Mr Vet!

The vet came again on Monday, and prescribed Baytril for Toff's eye, which is swollen underneath. He picked the scab off the wound on the outer eyelid, and the next day a large amount of pus came out. Nina also asked him to look at her back legs, as she has trouble picking up her nearside hind (can't seem to put weight on the offside one). He trotted her up, did a flexion test on the dodgy leg, and said she was 1-2/10 lame before flexion, 2-3/10 after. He gave her Danilon for her eye, and said he would look at her legs again when he came back on Friday.

Today is Friday, so the vet came again. He sedated Toffee so he could flush her eye out, so trotting up was out of the question. He will do that on Wednesday, when he comes back to see her eye. Again. He flushed it out with several syringes of diluted Hibiscrub, and she is currently swaying and snoring as the sedation wears off.

We also asked him to look at Fraser. Fraser was bought as a sofa/hack, but if Toffee is going to be on long-term sick leave we thought it was worth finding out what he was capable of. The answer is: what he was bought for; hacking and a little bit of jumping. Nina feels he is a bit on the large side for her anyway (although he is certainly no more than 16.3hh, possibly a shade under)but he feels quite gangly to ride!

Poorly Toff!

Toffee has been fine with having eye drops put in her eye three times a day, so it was a shock this morning to find her eye was much more swollen and she wouldn't let anyone near it. Vet coming out again later.

Update: Vet has been; cornea has healed perfectly but she now has a nasty infection in her conjunctiva. Vet took a swab, gave her a massive antiobiotic injection and has left us with two bottles of Baytril. *gulp* Coming back on Monday. Toffee confined to barracks bar two hours a day. Double gulp!

Random photos

This is how they quite often stand now, having a siesta :)

Toffee heart emergency vet

Of course it was a bad move planning a trip to the Chinese buffet yesterday evening... Nina brought Toffee in from the field and noticed her right eye was bleeding quite significantly, as well as pouring with tears. Her knee was bright red where she had obviously rubbed her eye on it, and she was waving her head around. Nina rang the emergency vet (hurrah!), who agreed to come out. Having seen the damage she had done to herself (how remains a total mystery), he said it was just as well Nina had insisted he came out, as if it had been left until this morning it would have been a lot more serious. As it is, we are waiting for the vet to come again this morning, and Toffee may have to be admitted to have a contact lens fitted to allow the eyball to heal underneath it. As well as a fairly deep laceration to the lower lid, she has scratched the cornea in two places and cut her conjunctiva. Toffee responds amazingly well to being twitched, so the vet was able to treat her eye and inject her with no other form of sedation. She seems fine in herself, but her eye looks like nothing on earth...

Update: Monday morning; same vet (senior partner) came out, said eye is healing better than he had anticipated. Toffee has to have two sachets of anti-inflammatory every morning (not Bute, something else) and eye drops three times a day. He is coming back in 48 hours to check again. Vet thinks the cat may be the culprit...

Eventful weekend

Saturday was a glorious day, so Nina and Mac took the horses for another quite long hack. Sunday was a shorter hack, as we were expecting a visit from one of Fraser's former owners, Alison. She and her husband Roger arrived and made a fuss of Fraser, saying he looked well and was lucky to have ended up with us. Which was nice, as I know Alison was particularly fond of him. She brought some photos, videos and background info, which was interesting. One of the photos shows Fraser holding a rope in his mouth, so some things never change!

A Horse in a Million!

Quote from Nina yesterday: “Fraser is worth his weight in platinum”.

Yesterday, Mac and Nina took the horses for a long hack – the longest Mac and Fraser have ever been on together. Fraser proved himself to be a bit of a star, because the first obstacle they came across was a large, very loud field irrigator, which they had to walk round three sides of to get past. Fraser snorted and glared, but Mac encouraged him past it and Toffee reluctantly followed. There is no way Nina would have got Toffee past it without Fraser’s lead! It is the noise as much as anything. Next obstacle was a bridge over a ditch with a twelve inch drop down on to it, with a hedge opposite with a small hole in it. Once again, more snorting but Fraser trusted Mac enough to go ahead. Fraser did spook at something at one point, leaping in the air so Mac slipped sideways and lost a stirrup, but Fraser never takes advantage, and stood stock still so Mac could sort himself out. All in all, a total star! Nina also said that Mac is really riding Fraser now. They do seem to be forming a pretty good partnership, and I think Mac is rather fond of the big lump…

Corbett had his first tetanus vaccination on Friday, and Clare the vet said to hold him still as in her experience, Shetlands usually go up when you put the needle in. And guess what? He went up! Unimpressed pony. She confirmed that he is totally wrongly built to ever do ridden work, as are most miniatures. She also confirmed that he is a tad on the portly side, and has to wear his grazing muzzle, and could do with more exercise. So, twice this weekend Mac and I have taken him for a drag – sorry, walk – which he clearly dislikes intensely. Well yes, Corbett, we would all prefer to be curled up on the sofa with a nice mug of tea and an episode of Come Dine With Me, but life isn’t like that.

Toffee had her fur clipped yesterday, and looks very smart. I hate it though because then she has to be rugged, which she takes almost as dim a view of as Corbett does of being walked! And of course it means it will now rain. Still, at least we got the wood preservative on the field shelter (and all over most of me, but that is inevitable).