Oh Pony

Last week was shots and teeth day for Penny. In the past J the vet has had no problem with Her Royal Poniness. Now, that can't be said for another area vet; Penny used to kick and bite him. So, we were quite shocked that she would not allow J to sedate her. She bucked, reared, kicked... so very unlike my pony. While there could be other possible reasons for her behavior our consensus is that it's another sign of her downhill decline.

She's gained quite a bit of weight this winter. In theory I should stick her in a corral and put her on a diet. But, she's just not going to be happy if I do that, so I'm not going to worry about it.

The state of the underside of her tail wasn't as depressing as it would have been a year ago. It is worse, but since I've decided to let nature take its course with her it was more of a sad sigh instead of tears over what opportunites I would miss with her due to her health. Those things are being missed regardless of the progression of her melanomas now.

Her tail has always been the worst part, but now the lower areas, which I accidentally didn't take a pic of, is so, so much worse than it's ever been. Nothing there is healthy now. You can feel the melanoma bumps in ever pinch of skin.

It does seem sort of wrong to me, who is so crazy anal-retentive over my equine's health, to just say, "Let it be." But, it's also very freeing. I can throw all the money I want into her and it's not going to change things. So, better to give her a good life while she can have one and when it's time it's time.

The bulge

Found a better shot. The bulge at the intersection of browband and cheek is the melanoma. It's on the eye side of the intersection. There is a natural bulge there, which is why I didn't notice it for so long, but this is really quite giant.

Crappity Crap Crap

The vet was over tonight to give Penny her Legend shot, our latest attempt at tracking down her owwieness. She looked at her head and said, "Have you noticed this big bulge between her eye and ear?" Sure enough, there it was. And she's 99% sure it's a melanoma.

Crap.

Crap. Crap. Crap.

This is not a good thing. (Duh.) It means her melanomas are no longer centralized in the under tail area. This one is more internal (it's all fuzzy coat on top) so it indicates there's probably other internal melanomas going on now. As for the ones under her tail, the hole in the one that ulcerated is getting bigger, indicating its not going in a good direction either.

I love this pony so damn much, but I suspect we're quickly approaching the "let nature take its course" point.

But! I had dreams!

It's hard when you think your friend might be done. Or, at least not up to what you'd like to do with them.

It's looking more and more like Penny was in some pain at Santa Fe. Needing her hocks done is sort of a no-brainer. Its almost been six months. The farrier was out yesterday and he said she's wearing her hind feet weird and he thinks there's something up with her back.

It's so hard with her, to figure out if she's being disobedient just because she wants to be disobedient or if she hurts. Even on the best of days she's still highly opinionated and you simply will not be making her do something she does not want to.  We've been chasing down possible pain in her for two years. She's had her poll x-rayed and ultrasounded, same with her hind legs. Nothing ever shows. We injected her hocks for the first time just to see if anything would happen: she got better, so now we're doing hocks. We had her on an NSAID for a month earlier in the summer and she was super. I could even ride her down the gravel road without shoes on. Alas, no NSAIDs for competing ponies.

I'm seriously considering retiring her from eventing. She loves the jumping parts, but she just hates dressage so much. Yes, I could compete her "for fun" but it's not much fun when she bucks during her dressage test. Also, it's a pretty expensive weekend with at least a 6 hour drive. We're always last unless other competitors get massive sj and xc faults. If there were more competitors in Area X we wouldn't have any ribbons at all.

For now, I'm taking Bean to Coconino at Pre-Comp and see what she thinks about XC. She's not a long term solution for a mount: she is 22. But, we'll do just fine and there's a good possibility we won't be last.

Horse Cookie Pops

When I started Penny on Cimetidine for her melanomas I got her the nice, ground, flavored version from SmartPak. However, what started as reasonably priced got more and more expensive so I decided to go with the pill form and devise a way to stick them in something so she'd eat them. I bought some of the pre-mixed low-NSC cookie mix and faithfully made her cookies. She hated them. But, seeing what the ingredients were got my brain thinking. I could fiddle until I found something she would eat. In the meantime, we discovered she'd eat the pills just plain in her beet pulp. All this effort!

The cookie pop (cookie pop because they're frozen, not baked) delivery system is much easier for breakfast and lunch than soaking beet pulp (even my husband can do it,) so I continued on. This is our current mix

Penny's Cookie Pop Recipe:

Ingredients:
Whole Flax Seed
Hay Pellets
Water
Baby Food.  I use Gerber Nature Select 1st Foods as it's just the veggie/fruit and water and they're a consistent size (each package has two containers.) Penny likes the apple and carrot ones. They also come in Organic.

Mix in bowl:
Handful of flax seed
3 handfuls of hay pellets
Add boiling water. You want to add and stir, add and stir until it's a consistency you like. Penny likes the pellets completely soft, you could add less water and keep them somewhat formed.
Stir in 1 container baby food

Line standard ice cube tray with plastic wrap.You'll want the piece of plastic wrap much longer than the tray as it will get shorter as you fill it.
Fill ice cube spots with cookie mix. You'll want to start at one end and push the mix all the way down in the hole as you go.

Freeze

When completely frozen pop out, breaking apart from each other if needed. Store in container in freezer, taking out treats enough ahead of time for them to thaw in fridge. I generally have two defrosting in the fridge at a time. When I feed breakfast the next morning's breakfast starts defrosting.

Thawed the cookie pops can be separated into two halves. I stick a pill in each half, roughly form a ball around it and toss it in her bucket. I used to stick them both in the whole pop, but when she'd eat it sometimes she'd grab a mouthful without the pill and somehow miss them. Having two obviously bite sized portions has helped with that.

If there's any interest the next time I make them I'll do a photo version of this.