Cannon Bone Injury Update - Week 1

Gentry remains a model patient. Honestly, I couldn't deal with being stuck in a 10' x 10' stall for a week and I am 1/10th his size. I give him huge, HUGE, H-U-G-E props for being such a sport! It does break my heart when he looks at me with those sweet lovey dovey eyes that are clearly communicating "but why?". Seriously, I feel like such a villain. It is for the best though, and that is what I tell him every single time that I stuff his face with cookies.

On Sunday we finally got a few inches of good snow. A little bit more fell on Monday as well. This is a good thing because the snow, for whatever magical scientific reason, actually breaks up the ice. Perhaps one of my readers is educated on this subject and can fill me in. Regardless, more cold frozen water fell from the heavens and for some reason that caused the ice underneath to break up and stop being so slick.

That meant that on Monday I finally got Gentry out of his stall for 10 minutes of hand walking. G-Love was so happy. He took some big deep sighs. So big that I swear his tail even sighed. He had some nice relaxing body shakes and greedily drank out of the automatic waterer. He is tolerating the new heated water bucket in his stall, but clearly prefers the paddock auto waterer. However, I was shocked that he willingly, seemingly without thought, walked straight back into his stall. If I were him I cannot promise that I would have gone so willingly.

This horse is seriously the best thing since sliced bread. Perhaps I should of had his registered name be Gold Mine. It would have suited him perfectly.

We did another 10 minutes of hand walking Tuesday. By hand walking what I mean is we did a lot of walk, stop, sigh, sniff poop, drink water, walk, sniff poop, etc. At the super slow pace we were going, there was no notable lameness, so that was good at least. He is still snail walk pasture sound.

I also changed his bandage again on Tuesday. I changed it the first day, and then two days after that, and then again Tuesday. So that was my third bandage change and it is looking quite good. The skin has remained nice and tight with no inflammation. There was a tiny bit of swelling toward the bottom on tuesday, which I haven't noticed before, but it was also the first day that he hadn't had bute or antibiotics and that may have made a difference.

Here is a photo timeline:

Day 1 - Freshly Stitched Up

Day 2- First Bandage Change

Day 4 - Second Bandage Change

Day 7 - Third Bandage Change

More or less, I don't see any big changes from the first time I changed his bandage, and I am taking that as a good thing. He has been a really good boy about leaving his bandage alone, so I am hopeful that at this point I will only have to replace it every three days instead or two (or daily). Healing takes a while, and although the stall rest is certainly for the stitches to do their job, it is also for the tendoned he nicked to get a chance to heal up as well. So there is a lot more healing going on that we can't see. FIngers crossed that things continue to go as well as they are.

Happy trails and swooshing tails!
•Renee•