Refuses to Wear Clothes

So last week it rained and the horses were locked in. TC had a couple of days off and I spent a lot of time at the office hanging out with my coworkers, surprisingly enjoying the rain and winter weather. 

Then I went to the ranch and TC ruined my day by having a leg swell up.

He hasn't fucked up a leg (except due to like, a cut) in SO long. I was honestly surprised. Especially because the report from the winter weather was that all of the horses just chilled on their porches. My best guess was that he'd banged it while pawing, but apparently he hadn't even been pawing. Wow. 

It was legit super hard to take pictures
of, it was way bigger than it looks in
reality

Hand walking because WHY, horse
asks, why not ride the horse who is
totally calm and definitely not going
to do anything PROMISE

It was weirdly hard? I guess? I don't know, it was fairly warm and wasn't too squishy. Definitely not pitting edema either. Honestly, it kind of surprised me with how weird it was. 

I took him out of his stall and then proceeded to try to trot him out. He thought this was a really fun time to leap through the air. But during the moments that his feet were on the ground, he was *unbelievably* sound. 

I took him on a walk down the road and back and the swelling had gone down about half way. It was still warm though. 

Being good on his hand walk, also
being dirty lol

Sweat wrap

I decided to see whether TC would be okay with having it wrapped. He hasn't been wrapped since he was five years old and back then, he took off his wraps all the time. In fact, the last time he was wrapped, he actually ripped some of my favorite wraps and I decided that he could go fuck himself (I was so unhappy and he was in his 5 year old year, don't judge me) and that I'd never wrap him again. 

So I didn't. And I think the fact that he used up most of his lameness days (an arbitrary measurement I've made up that all horses need to be lame for a certain amount of days in their lives, Rico saved all his for the middle of his life) when he was young kept him pretty safe from needing to be wrapped. 

After the sweat bandage, definitely better
but not perfect yet

Pawing, well buddy, if you don't like
wraps, don't smack your leg up!

This time though, I put a sweat bandage on and then finished my work day. He shockingly kept it on, so I thought he'd finally matured. I took it off at the end of the day and the swelling looked about the same. Eh. Okay. He got a normal wrap over night, a gram of bute that night, and one the next morning. 

I was fairly confident after he kept the sweat on that he'd keep normal bandages on overnight. I was half right. He kept the bad leg's bandage on but he took the other one off and deposited it where he pees. Great. I was afraid for it at first, but he did somehow manage to take it off without ripping it. THANK YOU. I will take that kind of maturity any day of the week. 

Rude, but not torn

Looking good!

I took the other one off and his leg looked great! He still had bute on board, so I gave him the rest of that day off. 

We rode the next day and he honestly was super sound and the leg hadn't swelled since that initial day, so we did a regular workout. I backed him off to like, 30 minutes of work and about 30 minutes of walking earlier this fall when I knew that the rest of this year was going to be tough to maintain consistency in my riding. So it wasn't a huge amount of work. But still!

And he's totally held up since then. No lameness, no heat, no swelling. Coincidentally, the day after I wrapped him was when he got back into his pasture. So maybe he just wanted to be out in pasture and thought that banging his leg up was the best way to get it? I dunno. I don't care. I'm just glad he's good!