So poor Satin is lame. In her 12 1/2 years she's only been lame about 3 times. She rarely has abscesses.
Her current lameness started a few days ago. When I let her walk to her pasture in the morning (we let her and her 3 pasture mates "free-walk" to their pasture) she was very mellow and didn't keep up with the herd. When she got too far behind she started to trot, immediately throwing her head in the air with discomfort, limped a few steps, and broke back down to the walk.
For the past few weeks I've noticed her 'popping hock' appearing to bother her a bit more. I can tell by her expressions and body language that it seems to be affecting her more than usual. Then her other leg - the stifle - starting to show signs of 'catching'. I spoke with a DVM friend about it and her advice suggested that I shouldn't worry - but she reminded me that she hasn't looked at Satin and that her advice was strictly just advice, not a diagnosis.
I figured I would work with her for two weeks, stretch her out and get her into better shape then assess her issues from there. But we had freezing weather, then rain, then cold, so I haven't worked with her like I planned. But now she seems worse! My guess is that she's abscessing in the front and because she's favoring the front she's putting excess weight on her back legs which are already comprised, exacerbating the back leg issues.
I plan to have Satin's vet out very soon to get to the bottom of her issues.
In the mean time I'll just be hanging out with her & probably soaking her foot.
When I approach her in the pasture she looks at me, ears forward, even as I reach her face. She's obviously 'glad' to see me. But if I stand 5 feet from her she still just stares, curious. But she doesn't approach. Maybe it's because her feet are bothering her and she doesn't want to move or maybe it's because she's lazy. But at this stage in the game, should I be expecting her to 'come to me'?
Your thoughts?
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