Mother-Daughter bonding over abscesses

Katie is house/horse/mule/dog/chicken sitting until the 27th and called me the other night because one of the horses had abscesses pop through in the heel bulbs of both front hooves. Poor guy--one would be bad enough!

Cowboy was wearing pads on both front feet--probably to protect his soles--and they seemed to collect a lot of, well, you can guess. Not only collect it, but hold it up against the sole of the foot where it can ferment and do all kinds of good (bad) stuff.

We decided to pull his shoes (with the owner's permission), and Katie needed tools and first aid supplies, so I agreed to head down there early Sunday morning and assist.

It's really amazing what this parent-child bond gets one to do.



Cowboy was not a terrible patient and we did get the shoes off and his feet cleaned up, treated with Ichthamol (a truly nasty but effective substance), and wrapped in diapers and duct tape for the night. I have to say Katie does a nice job of creating a diaper-and-duct-tape boot for a horse. It seems to be in the prep work, which appears to include holding her knife in her teeth.



Last I heard--which was this morning since the cell phone service is a little spotty where she is--the diaper boots were still on Cowboy's feet and Katie was prepping to go out and check on him again. She planned on laying everything out before even going to get him out of the paddock, since he is now vaguely suspicious of buckets and medical supplies.

Silly horse doesn't know yet how good Katie is. Or how stubborn.