A new year, another month (weeks 14-18)

Due to some craziness in the schedule (my fiance's health has been a little quite rocky lately) updates to this blog will be slow. In addition, since Badger's been mostly stable and weight gain is slower and steadier, I'm going to attempt reporting only every other week.

The weather out at the ranch has been rather...well, muddy; and in this area, muddy = awful. Where I grew up, the ground was pretty porous, so even though the rain came pretty frequently the ground would drain pretty fast. At the ranch, when it gets muddy, the ground gets slippery and the water pools and grows mold. Ugh.

Over the course of January, Badger mostly took things in stride, and when the sun came out he (and the other horses) were noticeably perkier. Except for the turnout area being too soggy to safely let him loose, he was practically bursting out of his skin to run to the round pen so he could roll and bounce around in there. I ran up and down the open riding area with him as well, so he could at least let off some steam via trotting. (Again, very thankful for him being so considerate of the tiny human running alongside.)

On Sunday the 31st, I'd gone to the ranch with some concern, as there was a message on the answering machine saying there was something wrong with Badger's eye. Not sure why I missed the call or when it'd come in (possibly a day or two earlier?), except that I think it must have come in while we'd taken my fiance to the hospital...so I went out there to check on him, and yep, his eyelids of his right eye were all puffy and swollen, and a trickle of goo was leaking out of the corner and down his muzzle. On the other hand, he acted completely fine, and still pushed his nose against the gate of his pen to say "I wanna go!" so out we went, trotting in high spirits and out to the round pen so he could roll and then say hello to the neighboring horses.

As I understand it, ALL animals get sick on the weekends so as to cause the most worry to their owners because the vets are unreachable. :)

On Monday, the vet came out to the ranch to check him, and it unfortunately wasn't an easy fix. Some sort of injury to his eye has since been made worse because he's been rubbing it. According to the vet, the injury probably happened somewhere around January 20-22 because small blood vessels have already grown far enough into his eye to start healing the scrape there, but him being calm and polite and uncomplaining meant that nobody really noticed anything until he'd scratched at it enough to make his eye swell up. ARGH.

Rather than make the attempt to medicate him three times a day at the ranch, the vet offered another option: several days of care at the vet's office, with a drip system installed directly into his eye to deliver the medication in a constant trickle. This method keeps pressure off the eye and stress off the animal, so I opted for that treatment instead, at least for the immediate future (the ranch owner has very generously offered to take care of medicating him as well, so when he gets back home he'll still be getting great regular treatment). So, for at least this week, I'll be visiting Badger in the horsey hospital instead of at the ranch.

Yesterday they called to tell me he was doing alright, and had met a new girlfriend, which was really cute. :) Today when I visited, I got to see the drip system in place (the tubing is braided into his mane so it stays where it needs to go). He's got a mask with a big plastic dome over his eye so he can't rub it, either. Reports from the vet assistants all mention how polite he is as well, which I'm really relieved at. What a good-natured guy. :) (I was told not all of the current patients are, apparently, quite such a joy to handle.) When I visited he wasn't quite eating his hay as diligently as he does at the ranch, but as soon as he heard the snap of a carrot, the ears perked up and his nose was immediately in my face. He even ate a handful of hay in between his carrots.

I got to meet his girlfriend too...her name is Brownie and she's very cute. Can't be more than 14.2 hands, didn't even look that tall. I'm sure she's even cuter when not so banged-up...I was told she had a nasty tangle with some pig wire while her owners were out of town (of course) so she'd already been in there for almost a week. Lesson to horse owners: WIRE = DANGER.

The end of this week will mark his 18th week with me. Hopefully I'll have more to report soon. :) I definitely have a lot of photos to upload!