Leg funk

With Stampede it’s a constant battle with scabby nastiness on his hind legs below the ankles. Some of the scabby spots have been there for years. I’ve tried tons of topical treatments, I even had the scabs tested earlier this year. They came back as infection, which we treated with 3 months of doxycycline to no avail. Of course I had to hide the powder in Nickerdoodles, 7 of them twice a day! It was exhausting and expensive! They shrunk a bit, but never fully went away.

Doxycycline laced treats

Since the Doxy treatment the scabs had remained the same while I continued treating them topically. That was until last week when they exploded.

Nastiness

So I sent the vet a picture of this grossness and she came out a couple days later. She gave me some more things to use on it, like a special shampoo, and he’s going to try 2 weeks of Tetracycline. Should be fun squirting the liquid in his mouth twice a day. At least it already looks quite a bit better than the picture above. She is also doing blood work to see if anything stands out and we might put him on vitamin e to try to help his immune system do something.

I rode Stampede today and he was very good. There is a horse show at the barn this weekend, so we rode in this little grassy field by the horse pastures. I generally do the B circuit at the barn, so I didn’t participate in this show since it’s a C. Stampede generally finds something to be scared of going around when I ride, so it was nice that he didn’t decide to do it today. I got a girl from the barn to ride Phoenix for me since I needed to leave at a certain time. She rode him for the first time and rode bareback and he was his usual perfect self. He is such an awesome old man. I always tell my husband we should clone him.

Tomorrow I will go ride Phoenix myself, Stampede will get a day off. Of course Stampede will still have to deal with leg scrubbing and treating and I will be starting the tetracycline tomorrow as well. I’m sure he will not be excited!