Weaning the Bandage

I spoke with my Vet on Friday, after sending her the photo of Gentry's wound from Tuesday's bandage change. The verdict is that I can stop bandaging him now! The granular tissue has filled in nicely, and it is time to let it scab up and finish healing. This is such great news. Frankly I have never in my life been so happy to see proud flesh.

However, Gentry has had a bandage on his leg for 5-1/2 weeks now, so we can't just pull it off cold turkey. The plan is to do 12 hrs on and off with the bandage for two days. I couldn't wait one more day though, so after we got off the phone mid-day Friday I went down to the barn and took off the bandage.

Cannon Bone Wound - Day 38

The wound looked even better. I cleaned it up and sprayed it with Vetericyn and then let Gentry be bandage free for the rest of the afternoon, and then wrapped him back up for the night. Today was the first full 12 hours bandage free and it continues to heal up at a fast pace and is looking good and scabby. There was actually very little swelling in his leg this evening, and just a little heat at the wound site. All fairly normal for this sort of thing. So, I happily wrapped him up again this evening and look forward to tomorrow evening's bandage being the last I will have to do (knock on wood...vigorously).

With bandage weaning also comes hand walking. Yay! I am to start with 5 minutes of walking Gentry in hand, working up to 20. Since we get to hand walk now, it was also time to move him into a more comfortable double stall for the remainder of his stall rest. Hubs and I were actually ahead of the game on this one, and got him moved into his comfy double stall last night. In addition to the hand walking, he will get a little self exercise as well.

More room! Double stall time.

To say Gentry was happy to have the extra space would be an understatement. He literally jumped straight up in the air and bucked from a dead stand still when I took off his halter. That was the extent of his exuberance though. Mostly he just sighed a lot and seemed happy to be able to walk around.

The hand walking is going well so far. Gentry has not taken a funny step at all and I have yet to see his hoof buckle under, as it was prone to do early on in the recovery period. Although happy to be out of his stall, he is not acting hot or ridiculous at all. Operation Freedom is looking good (once again I am knocking ridiculously hard on my wood desk as I type).

Figuring out where and how to hand walk Gentry has proven to be a challenge though. We've had amazing weather (60's and sunny) so the footing is finally good. After trying and failing several different pasture set-ups with Hugo, I finally decided to just tie him up when I brought Gentry out. If I left him free in the other pasture, he became very excited that Gentry was out and would start galloping around and bucking like a mad man. Gentry of course is pretty calm, but would still startle at Hugo's antics. Not good for the injured leg. For some reason, tied up, Hugo just stands their like nothing of note is going on. Silly boy. At least I figured out how to get some peaceful hand walking done though.

Here is to hoping the rest of the weekend continues to go so well!

•Renee•