Hi all my fellow horse enthusiasts.  I am going to take a short moment to introduce myself and to talk a little bit about my motivation for starting to blog.  I am a longtime horse owner, growing up with a pony and then joining the local Shooting Stars 4-H Club, in our county.  We somehow ended up with almost all of our members being horse owners that rode and showed and participated at the county fairs.  My neighbors had horses, and most people we knew had horses in their back yards.  It was not uncommon at that time to see 3 or more horses behind someone's house with a little shed for them to use as a shelter.  I was lucky to be surrounded by horse crazy kids, ugh hard working parents, who knew the value of kids growing up with horses. I am the lucky one. I had neighbors who noticed the barefoot little kid sitting astride the little pony, found trekking most days up and down the county roads. If not for my neighbors, and my local 4-H club I’m really not sure what my purpose would of been in this crazy life!  But those initial things I was taught at a very young age have stayed with me and inspired me to always see this learning process as never ending. I just need to keep raising the bar and through all the bumps in the road learn not to settle and more importantly to never give up.  So as I tell a little of my story I will try to share some learning. training or tips that have presented itself along the way.  I hope you find somethings that are useful along the way.
One of the things that came up at our barn while I was away at MHF, was one mare getting kicked by another.  My hoarder contacted me to explain her horses injury and to ask what she should do. Many times over the years I have been asked that question and many times the owners are not sure when is the right time to call the vet.  As I had the conversation with my boarder, here are some of the questions I asked:
1) Is she bleeding? If yes, how much? Is it spurting or trickling (artery or vein)
2) Is there swelling?
3) Is she putting weight on it?
4) Is it fresh or old?
5) Is it deep, a puncture or scrape?

More importantly in the days of the smartphones can you take pictures and send them to me?

This is the check list that goes through my head when trying to assess an injury. If you have been caring for horses for as many years as I have you too have received these calls. For many of us we are the first call before even the vet. We need to know how to assess the injury, call and speak to the vet when needed.

Some of the more severe injuries I have seen happened when horses kicked through the tin from the siding from an indoor arena. I saw one injury when the horse kicked from the inside of the unfinished arena out and one farm had the fence around the outside of the barn with the barn siding being the wall. Then one horse had the tiniest of holes on her cannon with a quarter size swelling on it and the barn owner had just cold hosed the injury but hadn’t planned on calling the vet. It was a classic puncture wound and the vet was called. The horse would have been in very serious condition had she not been treated. Well back to my story of my boarder calling me when I was out of town. Well it was decided that most of the injury was a scrape but a section was a bit deep and definitely needed good cleaning and treatment with a triple antibiotic. Having horses is always a daily adventure and it always seems they are getting themselves into something and the most important thing I try to teach my students is to stay calm, assess the situation and call vet when needed, and lastly to be able to talk to the vet about the situation.  Closing my blog for now, Gabe an early morning, horses to ride and lots of people stopping out! It is Easter weekend and they say it will be 70 degrees in Sunday! Yeah I am suddenly inspired to make tommrow a good day! Until next time enjoy the ride!