Fighting the good fight

In spite of his best efforts to just not, Yoshi got his hocks done on Friday. Before his vet got there, I turned him out with the herd. He harassed two of the horses while they were rolling. Seriously has no social graces. But he did succeed in getting everyone to play with him and was so happy about it. He looked SOUND and fancy while he was out there rearing and prancing around.

Once his vet got there, we watched him go on the lunge. He looked notably less sound than he had on the dirt 20 minutes prior. He couldn't decide which front leg he was lame on, but he was much better in the ring than on the fairly hard grass, so probably feet, a hold over from the 3 weeks without pads. We decided to go ahead with the hock injection, thinking a problem there may have also made his feet feel worse. 

We got him scrubbed up no problem, then sedated him. He then decided he was MAD about the tail wrap and set to trying to fling it out. Between that and my warning about injections anywhere caudal to his withers, he then got more drugs. And a twitch. We went for the uppers in his right side first. Got that done okay. Went to inject the lower and he said no thank you! Ms. GY held up his front leg on that side and we got that done. 

Moved to the left side. Started with leg held up on the front left and he managed to take aim at the vet without falling down. Props for your balance sir, but really?? More drugs and we got the upper and lower injected on the left. In 40-50% of horses the lower two joints of the hock communicate. Hopefully he's in that percentage. Even if not, we at least got the uppers done, specifically that right side. 

I got directions to work him on Monday. This vet has been privy to my "he feels terrible, even though they told me to work him, I don't want to". She asked if I thought I could manage working him. I told her I would. Fingers crossed.

Bad behavior during injections aside, he's been really well behaved on stall rest again. The in hand work has made him really pleasant walking trails even. I'm avoiding the lime rock areas like the plague, but we've walked the sandy ones and he politely stays on his side and waits to graze until I've told him okay.  

In the mean time, lease horse is just a joy. So far we've been building some baseline fitness and getting to know each other. He goes to get some medical things done on Thursday and then we'll get to work with a bit more focus after that. We took a lovely long walk trail ride a few days ago and he just took it all in. He's got a Yoshi attitude minus the defensiveness on the ground. Also, his ears are much longer than Yoshi's. Their faces are almost identical in size (yay for sharing bridles, cob sized heads on 16.2 hand horses), but every time I'm looking through his ears I just giggle because they look a bit like mule ears compared to Yoshi's dainty ones. 

Some day I'll get a flattering picture of him, but look at that adorable long ear!