Since we’re practically bursting at the seams with our animal population, we had to move Lady from her stall to the patio to make some extra room for the new kids. The result of the move was a seriously injured Lady.
What it looks like happened is she lay down in the night to sleep. When she stretched, her hoof went under the fence, which wasn’t a problem while she was on the ground. However, when she got up, it got stuck on one of the bars of the fence. She panicked and pulled up, and the bar went through the top of her foot and embedded itself about 2 inches into her nail.
We heard her thrashing about around 6 am. I don’t think she had been stuck too long, maybe 15 minutes or so. When we came out to investigate, we were shocked she hadn’t screamed, because it looked pretty bad. My husband was feeling woozy just looking at it.
I held Lady’s head, stroked her flank and talked to her throughout the whole ordeal while my husband cut the wires on the fence. That wasn’t enough to get the hoof out, so he had to use a saw and cut the bar several inches above where it entered her foot. Once that was cut, she could stand but still had this 6 inch metal bar in her foot.
My husband tied a rope around one end and had my son pull straight up on it while he held down the hoof. In a few minutes, the bar was out and the wound was bleeding profusely. My son pulled so hard that when it came loose he gave himself a black eye. My husband also cut his arm on the wire in the process. Personal injuries aside, we distracted Lady with some alfalfa as my husband sprayed some “azul” antiseptic on the wound. Infection is something we definitely want to avoid.
The Puppers wanted to help their big doggy friend (or at least that’s what we think they think the horses are) and tried to lick the wound. Since it already had some antiseptic on it, we didn’t want that. So Terry had to head to his doggy day care up the road (the backyard of my sister-in-law’s house) so the Puppers could be in our backyard since George and Terry still aren’t friends.
Terry wasn’t thrilled to be alone in the dark up there, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
The next day, my husband brought home a tetanus shot for lady. After reading the directions and understanding that we had to wait 21 days after the application para sacraficio (sacrifice), we headed out to administer the shot. As my husband is afraid of needles, he told me he’d cover Lady’s face and I would give the shot. Fine. I attached the needle and was all ready, but my husband didn’t think it was tight enough. He took the syringe from my hand and pressed the two sides together–ejecting all the medicine in the process. So much for the tetnus shot.
She’s sad and depressed, but still up to her old mischief. She managed to unhook the latch on her restraint by pressing it against her food dish. Then casually wandered over to the barrel full of corn and popped the lid, helping herself to a cob or two. I watched her do this from the front porch. When I called my son to latch her restraint again, she lifted her hoof to him showing him her injury. She got two more cobs of sympathy corn from him.
Still, she’s been off her feed lately and is looking positively scrawny. Fortunately, the wound in her foot hasn’t been infected and is starting to scab over. Poor Lady.
Surviving Mexico 