Take Your Medicine Like ... A Horse

Our old blind horse Scout has not been doing well in the past few days.  We found him stiff, unwilling to walk, and acting "ouchy."  Our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, suspects Scout has a case of laminitis, which affects a horse's feet and makes them painful.  In Scout, the cause is not overfeeding or too rich of a diet -- in fact, we've had a problem keeping weight on Scout -- but more likely associated with a condition like Cushing's disease. 

Although we tested Scout for Cushing's last fall and the test came back negative, Bill says the tests can sometimes be wrong.  He decided yesterday to treat Scout for Cushing's and see if that helped.  We placed a rush order for a special apple-flavored medicated powder from a compounding pharmacy in Oregon and UPS delivered it late this afternoon. 

In the meantime, though, Bill had us start treating Scout with an anti-inflammatory called Banamine to make him more comfortable.  Our task was to squirt the Banamine into Scout's mouth using a syringe; Bill wanted us to use the injectable fluid version, rather than the paste form, for Scout's oral dose.  (It avoids having to stick him with a needle every 12 hours, is less expensive than the paste form of Banamine, and is just as effective as the paste.)

Now, Scout is a wonderful, sweet old horse.  In fact, I call him the "huggable horse."  But that doesn't mean he likes to take his medicine.  And he certainly doesn't make it easy, as you'll see in this video I took this morning of Kathryn giving Scout his Banamine.  Kathryn had already gone two rounds with Scout BEFORE the wrestling match you see in this clip.  Although the raw video was nice and crisp, somehow in the compression process for the Web parts of it became blurry ... I'm not sure why, but I apologize for the quality in parts of the video.  Still, I think you'll appreciate what we go through around here!

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Comments

[ginger & Tobias (the greythound)]

I don't know who suffered more, Scout or Kathryn. The fuzzy image may be due to the cold weather. I enjoyed the video because I certainly helps us that are not actually there really appreciate what you go through to take care of your precious creatures. Thank you so much.

[LuAnn]

Whoa...that reminded me of all the times I have had to wrangle some domestic or wild animal to give meds. The whole time I watched I kept thinking, 'man, i bet her arm is going to be sore trying to hold that big strong horse head!!' You guys are amazing... what adventures you encounter on an almost daily basis!