Ticked Off

 So I was thinking the other day that is was time for a Quaid update. As we move further into fall towards winter the number of rides begins to drop off simply because it's too unpleasant. I don't mind so much because I can take advantage of every good weather day. 

look at that adorable face

 I still hate the time change in fall but I'm much less inconvenienced. So yay for not working. 

Ed and I

Anyway, in my rides on Quaid I've been focusing on having him forward and rhythmical. All of his fussing with contact or resisting a transition comes from him not being forward and balanced. When he gets fussy with the contact I make sure my hands are quiet and steady and just ride him forward to find me. I no longer drop the contact because, funnily enough, it turns out that is not helpful to his learning.  Unless I want him to learn to fuss to get me to back off.  

I had one ride where he was bucking in his right lead canter, which was throwing us all off balance. I actually dismounted and worked on the transition on the lunge, then got back on and worked through it. After a couple good transitions I called it a day. 

**side note: I find it amusing that I am amused by Carmen's bucks but not her spooks and it's the total opposite with Quaid....

On Monday I rode him and he was lovely. Responsive to my leg -which I'm really trying to keep quiet and not nag him every stride because this is a trap I fall into with less forward horses. We had a lovely right lead canter depart and kept the canter all the way around the ring. I ended the ride there because I was so happy. 

I took this picture right before I put on his bridle and got on: 

I realised that he's getting a little, ahem, chunky. Which is fine heading into winter but I decided to cut back his feed ration a bit. These Iberian horses can get overweight pretty quickly once they stop growing. I don't think he's stopped growing quite yet but it's definitely slowed down. 

The next day I figured I'd ride Carmen first and decide after if I was going to ride him too. I noticed in the morning that he didn't finish his breakfast but otherwise his stall looked normal and he seemed fine. I let him out and decided to just monitor.  

When I brought Carmen in he was standing, napping in the sun and didn't really care when I took her. Again, not unusual that he doesn't care but he normally comes up to score a cookie (I give my horses a treat when I get the halter on). 

I was riding Carmen but also keeping an eye in the paddock. Quaid hadn't moved. I told myself I was being overreactive and I would just check him after my ride. Then he laid down. At this point, I'd been riding about 15 minutes and 90% of my attention was not on Carmen. I gave it up and dismounted. I put her away and brought Quaid in to check his vital signs. 

I started by trying to find his heart rate. Full disclosure- I suck at it, even with a stethoscope so I gave up. I did check his breathing rate: 20 breaths per minute. A little high for a horse at rest. His gums seemed pale and then I took his temperature: 40.6. Uhoh. That is quite high (about 105 for non-celcius people).  I put him in his stall and brought Carmen in and then called the vet.  You may recall that our local vet clinic no longer does equine services. My new one is about 90 minutes away.  The person answering took my info and told me that someone in equine services would call me back. In the meantime I was worried about his temp so I gave him some Banamine.  After about 40 minutes the vet called and said she was in the area already so would shoot me a text when she was on her way. That was great, while I was prepared to trailer him over it's much better to not stress him with that.  

The vet, Dr. Kate, arrived before 2:00. I was out in the barn. Quaid was a lot perkier and had sweated, probably because of the banamine. We chatted about his symptoms. She took his temperature and it was 38 something. We both had the same thoughts about the diagnosis: Anaplasmosis. 

Ironically enough I had just researched and written an article for it for our local horse magazine. It is a tick-borne bacterial infection. It is all around me and I know of at least 3 horses who have had it this year.  The vet said she treated 6 horses with it last week. The main symptoms are: 

• Fever- typically 39.5-40 C but can go as high as 42.2C. It is usually highest after 5 days of infection. 

• Decreased appetite or refusal to eat

• Reluctance to move

• Limb edema

• Petechia- small, purple dots on the gums and/or skin

• Iceterus- jaundice of the skin, gums and whites of the eyes. 

• Increased heart rate

• Increased breathing rate

 

Quaid had 4 of the symptoms. No swelling and fortunately, no neurological signs (which sometimes happen). Dr. Kate  drew some blood to check for infection (she also showed me how to check his pulse on his jaw. She told me that his heart beat is difficult to detect with the stethoscope, even for her, which made me feel better.  His white blood cell count was a bit high but not as high as you would expect with anaplasmosis. But it was quite possible that I caught it really early and it hadn't had time to get high. We decided to treat it as Anaplasmosis because he had an infection somewhere. 

She did a dose of IV antibiotics and left me with some to give him orally. I'm to text her his temperature and how he's doing every day. Last night at supper time his fever was back up: 40.5 and he wasn't really eating his supper. But he was interested in his hay. I gave him more banamine (he's to get it for 3 days). This morning his temperature was 38.9. He hadn't finished his feed but ate a chunk of his hay. Right now they are still finishing up last year's hay but I've been giving him the current crop.   He's outside and is quite interested in grazing so that is good. 

Dr. Kate texted me today and said she looked at his blood under the microscope and there were some signs of Anaplasmosis but his white blood cell count was not as high as they would expect. She wanted to know if I wanted to run further tests. I asked her if it would change what we're doing and she said not right now. So we decided to wait. If he's not a lot better by Monday then I'll bring him in and we'll run more tests. She'll keep his blood in the fridge so if it needs to be sent off she can do it Monday. 

As always, Quaid is so good with the vets. I held him while she did the IV and fed him cookies. I can check his temp and dose him in his stall with no halter (at least right now).  Keep your fingers crossed that he continues to improve. 

here we go again.....

Honestly, if we could eliminate all the ticks in the universe I would not bat an eye.