A dry, warm day in the northwest?

Santana is feeling great after 5 days of anitbiotics for his cough and 3 days of Bute for his pain. He went out to pasture for the first time. He ran and bucked and played with Dino.

Sanata has a visit with the Vet

Yesterday Santana saw the Vet about his pain issues. He definitely had a shoulder injury at one time that caused him to put most of his weight on the other leg. He has a shin split on that leg. On his injured side the leg is a little crooked from putting his weight on the other leg. The Vet said he will probably be able to be ridden for 5 years before the Arthritis in that shoulder will set in. There is a test that can be done, it costs about $1200, that would tell us the extent of the damage to muscle. It is were they shoot a nuclear dye into the muscles and then scan the body. It would show them everything. But we won't be doing this procedure anytime soon.
We will Bute him for 3 days to get any swelling down and then try and ride him next weekend. Bute IS NOT a drug in is an antiinflamatory, like an Aspirin!
He saw a farrier last Monday and he said that with corrective trimming and maybe shoeing we can correct his crooked leg.
It is amazing that he survived out in the wild for so long. We are thankful to have him in our lives!
We have completely changed directions with Santana. He will no longer be a 90 day horse for the competition, but we will be attending and definitely do in-hand unless he miraculously gets better.

News about Santana

Santana has not gotten any better since just after his chiropractic visit. It seemed to help for awhile. He was seen by a vet for his cough and she thought it was allergies. We are watering down his hay but it still hasn't helped. I have not been able to ride him without him being in pain. We are not sure what is wrong with him as it would cost a lot of money to get e-rays on his hip and shoulder. He will be seeing a vet this Saturday to try and determining if we can figure out were his pain is originating. He is such a sweetie and we would hate to send him back to the BLM corrals as he would then have a strike against him. Three strikes and you're out, means they have three chances to get adopted. I'm not sure what happens to them if they get three strikes.
We have been doing lots of ground work and in hand trail and he is farther ahead on this than I expected.

Friday

Santana is like a new horse since his visit with Dr. Gene the chiropractor!

Friday part II

Today I drove Santana through the trail coarse. This is only the second time I drove him and the first time outside of an arena. He did amazingly well. He Is like a different horse!!! He is much more relaxed (he was so stiff before). He is willing and very smart.

Santana's trip to the Chiropractor

Wednesday Santana had his visit with Dr. Gene the Chiropractor. Gene said that Santana had many issues that had been with him for a long time. He had a shoulder injury at one time that probably caused is body to be so out of whack. His spine was rotated and his neck, his pole, his shoulder and his hips were out. Gene said that Santana would be like a new horse in a couple of weeks and that I could start riding him on Saturday. He gave us some exercises to do for a couple of weeks. Santana was very good for Dr. Gene, but a couple of times he put is ears back when Gene would push him to get an adjustment, then when the adjustment was finished Santana would lick and chew, which means he was accepting it, and even liking how he felt.

Even in the Snow!

NEITHER rain, nor sleet nor snow will keep Santana from practicing his trail
coarse!