4-year old incisor caps

Last Saturday Rose started giving me a fit about her bridle when I tacked her up. She was tossing her head in the grooming stall and doing little hopping mini rears in protest. She continued having minor tantrums under saddle. I just thought it was attitude.  Then I gave her Sunday off, and then on Monday I got a slightly bigger bridle tantrums. After our ride on Monday, I noticed that her normally white foamy mouth was pink on the left side.

Minor freak out on my part.

I proceeded to get the bridle off of her, with much lack of cooperation from Rose (can't blame her now), and then started to investigate. She had a big canker sore/ulcer on the inside of her top lip. I couldn't figure out how the bit would have caused this, so I went home and did a little online research. Bad idea. This didn't help at all, but I did learn all about fox tail in hay and a few rare diseases. I also made sure it wasn't a symptom of EVH-1. I went back at the barn on Tuesday, with the intention to look for fox tail in the hay, and pulled Rose from her stall. She was better about letting me look in her mouth this time, and that's when I noticed that she was losing her baby caps on the last incisors on her top teeth. The part of the tooth that used to be under the gum line was now sticking out, and causing the ulcers on her lip, on both sides of her mouth, with the left side being more severe. That was when I realized that her teeth were right on schedule, since she turns four next week.

Big relief.

No big vet bill, no mystery ulcer causing disease or bad hay. As a result, Rose is getting a week or so off. We don't have a bit-less bridle, and I am not going to ride her in a halter just yet, so she's getting longed in her caveson and that's about it. She's been quite happy with her new non-working pampering schedule this week as well. With a little luck those caps will pop off soon and we will be back to work in no time.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!