Life is what happens when you have other plans - especially when horses are involved.

Today I had intentions to go and work with Faran on some training with endurance. We were going to go on a 8 mile "hack". I got out there and low and behold, he had a huge gash going down the inside of his rear right leg. It was pretty fresh. The blood was still oozing. It's not gushing, so I think that is a good sign. None got on his other leg, or in his tail. I don't know how it happened. He wasn't limping, nor was he seeming to have it be painful to step / stretch it.

I did use this opportunity to train him about bathing, and learning to stand still when I am doing something that may not feel just wonderful, or that he wants me to do. I gave him a full bath, and sprayed the wound out several times to clean it. Here is how the wound looks today (warning - it is a bit gory.)


This was when I found it.

This was when I had cleaned it once. It filled with blood rather quickly, but was not gushing.

This is after several heavy spray downs.

I couldn't scrub it, but he would let me spray it with pressure on the hose. I scrubbed his tail with shampoo, and scrubbed his whole body except on the inside of that leg where the wound is with shampoo to clean him as much as possible.

He stood good for his major part of his body, but when he thought I was going to get seriously involved and aggressive with his wound. If I stood near his hind legs he got a bit antsy, but I could scrub his tail, and semi-aggressively spray out his wound until I saw it clear (no blood, dirt, debris), but before I could get the camera and get a good picture, it would have blood back in it again.

No workouts for a while - this is bleeding enough that I can't ask him to exert that much stress or energy on it. When it starts to close up, we will get back to it. Until then we can train on ground manners when doing "vet" work.

You take what you can and turn every opportunity into a training session and as good as possible.

Until next time -
Happy Tails!
Lucy Roberts

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