Salmon Poisoning!

It's been a stressful beginning to a normally festive time of year. On Monday, Nov. 29, Mr. McCoy, our 7 1/2 month old Great Pyrenees, took the 25 mile car ride to our vet's office to be neutered. Livestock Guardian Dogs do not like to leave their family (goats, in Mr. McCoy's case). LGD's are submissive by nature (except when protecting their family) and show their submission to their goats, people, sheep, whatever, by sitting or lying down. Mr. McCoy went into submissive overdrive at the vet's office, refusing to get up and walk into the building. The vet's assistant had to pick up and carry that 70 pound lanky white blob of fur from the front walk into the office. McCoy was not any happier about getting back into the car to come home later that afternoon, when I came to retrieve him after his surgery. Again the assistant carried him and stuffed him into the back seat. He barely fit.

For the first two days after getting home, McCoy seemed fine... but a bit subdued... I thought because of his operation. The site of the operation looked fine... no heat, swelling, redness... so I figured McCoy would soon be back to normal. Thursday morning when I gave him the anti-inflammatory pill I was giving him morning and night, he threw it up along with whatever else was in his stomach. That was the beginning of a downhill slide. Our big white normally exuberant pup grew lethargic and totally stopped eating.

I thought McCoy might be having a reaction to the anti-inflammatory and would recover now that I'd quit giving it to him (no point since he threw it up). But he had not rallied on Friday so I called the vet. She said I'd have to bring him in for her to see what was going on. The thought of dragging that poor dog to the vet clinic again was enough to make me wait until Saturday to see how he was doing. He seemed a little brighter on Saturday although still not eating. Same on Sunday. Something, I knew not what, was very wrong. I was very worried. Monday I took Mr. McCoy back in to the clinic, much to his dismay.

We learned that Mr. McCoy had all the symptoms of salmon poisoning: swollen glands, fever, diarrhea, no appetite. But he could not have been around fish since he had been locked in the goat pasture for weeks. And the vet could find no flukes in his feces. He was also slightly anemic. She gave him a penicillin-derivative antibiotic, thinking, I suppose, that he must have some sort of infection going on, although salmon poisoning had seemed most likely to her, as this is the time of year for it. She just couldn't find the telltale flukes, necessary for diagnosis. The vet asked if our other dog could have shared some fish with him and explained how very infectious the flukes are. One dog that has licked the blood of an infected fish can give it to another just by touching noses. Apparently, virtually all trout/salmon family fish that come into fresh water to spawn in the Pacific Northwest, west of the cascades, are infected.

We have never seen spawned-out salmon dying in our creek frontage, but we know that this year is a better salmon run than usual and anything is possible. Shirley does have access to the creek and I suggested I bring her in to check her feces. Shirley seemed a bit depressed the last few days but I thought that was because all my attention and worry had been going to McCoy and she was jealous. Maybe, though, she was starting to get sick...

The next day, Tuesday, I hauled another very reluctant livestock guardian dog 25 miles to the vet and that same assistant had to pick a flat-on-the floor Shirley up (at least Shirley walked into the clinic on her own before realizing this was not where she wanted to be) and carry her in to the examining room. Shirley had a normal temperature, no swollen glands, but a touch of diarrhea. The vet put the feces under a microscope and soon came back triumphant... Shirley had flukes!

Salmon poisoning is caused by a microorganism that lives in snails that are common in the Pacific Northwest. When the snails are eaten by fish (salmon or trout that come into fresh water to spawn), that microorganism creates a cyst in a common fish parasite. When a dog (or coyote/wolf/fox) eats the fish, it ingests that infected parasite. 90% of dogs that develop the disease and are not treated, die. The good news is that most dogs that recover are immune from then on.

The treatment is tetracycline. Shirley got an IV of tetracycline and I got pills to give her morning and night. As soon as I got home, I turned around and took Mr. McCoy back in for his tetracycline shot as he almost certainly had salmon poisoning, too. Who knows why the flukes didn't show up in his feces. That made trip number 3 across the coast mountains to the vet clinic in 2 days.

The turnaround for both dogs has been fast and wonderful. On Wednesday, both dogs ate their treats and Shirley cooperated by eating her tetracycline pills hidden within the treats. McCoy had to have his pills thrown down his throat... and still does. Today, Friday, McCoy is back to his bouncy self, gobbling everything in sight (except the pills). Shirley has had a bit of swelling in her leg from the IV but is moving around better now and eating fine. I have slept well the last two nights for the first time since this whole mess began.

With the dogs on the mend yesterday, I took a stress-relieving trip to Egan Gardens with two friends to view the spectacular poinsettia plants. Wow! What a picker-upper! Rather than photos of sick or recovering dogs, here are photos of the Egan greenhouse full of poinsettias and a couple that I bought. Life is good again. Let the festivities begin!








This is all one plant! And a new variety for Egans this year.


















This one is very young, yet, and small. But oh so pretty! I bought several... couldn't help myself.

It's for a good cause: Egans is donating everything above their cost to a food bank.

Catching Up

Today was supposed to be my catching up day... catching my breath after a busy several days. Friday I drove 6 hours to the Washington kids' place to attend and help with another fabulous Shannon Peters clinic over the weekend. And to play with grandson Ian who has a cool new game for his WII, "Just Dance". Here he is during a clinic lunch break, following the WII dancer's moves.





Ian didn't have much time to spend dancing, though. He manned the concession booth at the clinic both days, selling hot coffee and muffins and a multitude of other things. Between customers, he played games on his portable computer. Ian is a high tech kid. But he knows how to make change in his head... no calculator needed.



The whole trip, not just the dancing, was fun but exhausting. I could get tired just watching Shannon working with horses and riders from the ground. At times with long lines, at times with longe whip and/or bamboo pole, she helps create the "inner fire" and instant response so necessary for dressage. She gives the horses (and the riders) positive reinforcement when they make the right responses and both horses and riders try hard to please her.












I drove home Sunday afternoon, before the clinic was over, so I could go to my Monday jump lesson. This was at a different barn than usual but with the same wonderful instructor. One of these times I'll have to coax Johnny into coming with me and taking photos. Mr. Smith and I had great fun learning to bounce. No, not the kind of bouncing on horseback I do without instruction. This kind of bouncing is jumping several jumps in a row with no strides in between. We did four jumps in a line, bouncing in and out. Very fun but, again, exhausting.

Today was supposed to be a restful day after all this excitement. But my animals, as usual, thought otherwise. Animals seem to be tuned into my moods and as soon as I'm tired and need rest, they do something to make sure I don't get it. This morning I discovered that Jessie Anne had, sometime before I arrived on the scene, managed to get herself on the wrong side of the electric fence, tearing it down in the process. I spent the first part of my restful day repairing fence.

Then I fed the horses their breakfasts. As I was doing so, I noticed Shirley Puppy headed through the bushes for the woven wire fence separating us from our neighbor. Mister McCoy (more commonly known as The Big White Dog) was right behind her. Those delinquents oozed through a widened space in the woven wire and disappeared eastward, toward the road. I screamed at them. McCoy reappeared, joyfully wagging his tail, and squeezed back through the fence. Shirley followed reluctantly. Once the dogs were on the proper side of the fence, I praised them for coming home but told them they must not go outside our boundaries.

Knowing I would be ignored, I shoved a spare white electric fence post into the ground, fastening the wires to it in hopes of blocking their escape route. Of course, the dogs are perfectly capable of creating other widened places so I wove branches through wires in other likely escape spots. I do not want McCoy roaming the neighborhood.

Finally, I headed for the goat barn to do morning chores, only to realize that I first needed to unload the feed I'd picked up at the feed store on my way home from my jump lesson yesterday. Eventually, the 10 sacks of goat feed were unloaded, goats milked and fed, barn cleaned. Johnny, who spent the day working on the new goat barn, helped unload the 10 sacks of horse feed. By now my catching up on rest day was half over with nary a sign of resting.

But in the afternoon bills were paid, appointments made, and too many hours spent on this computer trying to find lost information needed to make those appointments and pay those bills. I guess that's a kind of resting, just not very relaxing. So I elected to relax by catching up in this blog... instead of doing something useful, like unpacking the car... and my suitcase... from the weekend.

And now, before I get on with the evening's work and apropos of nothing, here are some recent images...

Elk and a Cedar Waxwing at Finley National Wildlife Refuge;













the big white dog where he's supposed to be, with goats in the goat barn;










and Johnny on top of the new goat barn, working late one evening.

Secretariat

On my way home from the World Equestrian Games, I bought the book "Secretariat", by William Nack, at the Lexington airport bookstore. This was the first I knew that Paradies has stores at most every major airport and that you can buy a book, read it, return it within six months to any of their shops with your original receipt, and receive a 50% refund. Cool. Except I haven't returned it. There are some books that I just can't turn loose of. This one is the true story that inspired the motion picture Secretariat.... a good movie... but the book is, of course, much more detailed, much more about the horse... and true.

My parents were horse-racing enthusiasts and we watched all the Triple Crown races on television, after television came into being. Johnny and I never felt the need for a tv, but I retreated to my parents' house to watch the Triple Crown most years, including 1973, the year Secretariat won all three of those races. The last and longest of the races, the one that at least some people thought was too long for the big red come-from-behind horse, Secretariat won by 31 lengths in a record time that has never been beat. It still gives me goose bumps to watch. Here is a video of that race: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xoFquax2F-k

Born and raised in Virginia and retired in Kentucky, Secretariat, (along with bourbon whiskey), is the pride of the blue grass state. A life-size bronze statue of Secretariat, with jockey Ron Turcotte aboard and groom Eddie Sweat hanging on to the reins from the ground, graces Secretariat Plaza at the Kentucky Horse Park. This photo is from the internet as I did not get a good one while at KHP in September... too many people were always gathered around the famous Big Red.


The movie played loosely with the facts of the coin toss that gave Penny Chenery Tweedy the foal that became Secretariat. That bothered me when I watched the movie, having already read the book. Although it made a good story that Penny had researched and decided the foal from the younger mare would make the better horse because the dam had distance horses in her background, it isn't true.

In fact, the heavily researched book explains that there were two sets of breeding results to be decided with that coin toss of 1969. The winner of the flip automatically got the first choice of the first pair of foals, those born in 1969, either the Somethingroyal filly or the Hasty Matelda colt. The loser, while getting whichever foal the flip winner did not select, would also automatically get the first choice of the second pair of foals to be born in 1970. The winner of the toss would get the second choice of the second pair.

But, as they already knew at the time of the coin toss, there would be no second foal in the second pair because Somethingroyal was pregant again; the other mare who was part of the 2nd year's deal, Cicada, was barren. Whoever won the toss would get their choice of the first pair, but only that horse. The loser would get a 1969 and a 1970 foal. Naturally, neither Phipps nor Penny wanted to win.

Penny lost the toss. Phipps took the Somethingroyal filly, and named her The Bride. Penny got the Hasty Matelda colt, naming him Rising River. Neither foal born that year amounted to anything. But the following year, in 1970, Somethingroyal gave birth to the second foal for Penny's Meadow Stable... because she lost the coin toss... and that foal was Secretariat.

Big Red, as he was known, was almost certainly the greatest race horse ever. About that, the movie did not lie. However, I wish the movie had explained how Secretariat did what everyone at the time knew was impossible: running faster each quarter mile in the Kentucky Derby than the previous one... no horse had ever done that in a mile-and-a-quarter race... and cutting over two seconds off the mile and a half Belmont record... simply not possible. But the big red colt did it. There was a reason that the movie never mentioned.

When Secretariat was euthanized in 1989 because of laminitis, a necropsy was performed by Dr. Thomas Swerczek. All of the horse's vital organs were normal in size except for the heart. Here is what Dr. Swerczek said: "I've seen and done thousands of autopsies on horses, and nothing I'd ever seen compared to it. The heart of the average horse weighs about nine pounds. This was almost twice the average size, and a third larger than any equine heart I'd ever seen. And it wasn't pathologically enlarged. All the chambers and the valves were normal. It was just larger. I think it told us why he was able to do what he did."

When the movie said Secretariat had the heart to win, it was literally true. There has never been another like him. It's an exciting movie to watch. But I'm glad I read the book.

Bad Horse Day

Every morning I have at least two hours of chores to do before doing whatever it is I'm going to do that day: go to the coast, prune trees (as I did yesterday), ride horses, or whatever. Chores include milking and feeding goats, feeding sheep/llamas/poultry/horses, mucking out the goat barn and ditto for the horse barn. I'm then good for only a few hours of physical exertion in the afternoon.

I had every intention of using my afternoon hours to prune trees, as I did yesterday. But it was beautifully sunny and the ground was finally dry enough to get the horses from pasture to arena so I decided to ride after an hour or two of pruning. But then I realized I would be too tired to ride if I pruned after all my morning manure hauling. So, after chores and lunch, I headed down to the far pasture where the horses were grazing. Mr. Smith is always eager to come out of the field and go somewhere in the horse trailer or just get out where he can snitch grass, since there's not much left in the horse fields.

But not today. Two months of doing nothing with the horses but feed and clean up after them has apparently ticked Mr. Smith off. When I walked up to him with the halter, he turned and trotted away. That made me angry so I put the halter on Nightingale instead. She is always happy for attention. Unfortunately, she doesn't lead terrifically well, especially away from the others. We proceeded by fits and starts on the long walk to the gate. The others tagged along behind, which helped. I opened the gate and took Nightingale out, letting the others come, too. They came, but did not follow us into the big field that leads to the little field by the arena. Instead, they put their heads down and ate grass.

After getting Night to the small field by the arena and turning her loose, I went back to retrieve the others. Polly and Jessie Anne trotted through the gate but Mr. Smith took off for greener pastures. I closed the gate and cornered first one and then the other reluctant horse and put them in with Night. Never have I had the horses behave this way before. Then I went back to get Mr. Smith. He bucked and ran into the field but would not let me near him. So I free lunged him as I do when training horses to come. Whenever he stopped to put his head down to graze, I swung my rope and hollered "Keep going!" He was having a wonderful time, bucking and galloping around and around the field. Finally, however, he grew tired of the game and gave up, letting me halter him and lead him through the little field into the arena. By now, I was pretty annoyed.

After an hour of brushing the mud off my filthy horse, untangling his mane which he seemed to have tied in knots, I saddled up and we headed out the driveway. I hoped it was dry enough on the trails across the road and it was. But Mr. Smith did not want to go. He walked as slowly as possible, stopping periodically to listen to the screaming mares left behind. We eventually made it through the woodland path to the new logging road. Still he dragged his feet and complained. Aggravated, I headed him up the steep forested hill hoping to cut through the woods and climb Spirit Mountain.

Apparently, this was much more fun from Mr. Smith's point of view. He took off up the hill at a canter and, instead of veering left where I thought our old, overgrown trail might be, he veered right to a nearly vertical slope that was covered in downed trees. Galloping now, he jumped, yes jumped, over the downed trees while I held on for dear life. I didn't dare pull on the reins or we would have gone over backwards. By some miracle, we both arrived at the top of the hill without breaking anything. Crazy horse. I am wondering if the jumping lessons we've been taking are a bad idea.

At the top of the hill, Mr. Smith kept right on going through the woods where there was no trail until we were stopped by thick underbrush. By now I was thoroughly disoriented and lost. So, I think, was he. My old mare Polly always knows where home is and I can give her her head and trust she'll get me there. Not Mr. Smith. He has as lousy a sense of direction as I have. Or else he just doesn't bother to go home. I turned him around and tried to retrace our steps. Soon I could see the logging road below. We made it down... at a walk with a tight rein.

Having had enough excitement for the day, I headed home. Mr. Smith walked very quickly and politely until we reached the ditch at the side of the gravel road we cross. He always walks carefully down and through this ditch. Except today. Today, without warning, he took a flying leap across it. Thankfully, I stayed on, though not gracefully. Back through the woods, he kept to a rapid walk and did not jump any more logs in our path, thank goodness. I am definitely thinking jump lessons are a bad idea.

Home at last, unsaddled and brushed, Mr. Smith was turned into the arena to clean up the grassy edges. I haltered Nightingale and brushed her. Too tired to ride, I led her around the arena, over the wooden bridge Johnny made for a trail course, and to the grass by the gate going into the arboretum. Nightingale stopped before we reached the gate and refused to go further. Why, I have no idea. After much backing and being led forward and backing and forward, etc., she finally tentatively nibbled grass by the gate. Then I led her in front of the carriage house where the horse trailers and carts are stored and where there is grass at the margin of concrete floor and sand arena. This time she really rebelled, backing clear across the arena. We returned to our one step forward, back, forward a step and praise, forward another step and praise, back, forward, etc. After an eternity when I began to wonder if Night would ever turn into a horse worth having, she made it to the edge of the carriage house and nibbled the grass. The cart I'm hoping to drive her to some day was right in front of her but she would not touch it.

After putting Night back I brought her mother, Jessie Anne, out and brushed her. She is a very large horse. And dirty. I was quite tired by now so she only got a few minutes of grazing before I put her back in and went toward Mr. Smith. He started away from me but when I said, "Do you want to run around in circles again??" he stopped and let me halter him.

Meanwhile, through all the brushings and leadings, etc., Polly ran up and down the fence line screaming for Mr. Smith whenever he wandered out of sight behind the carriage house. Occasionally she stopped and pawed at the gate until I hollered "No, Polly!" By the time I finished with the other three, Polly was covered with sweat and I was tired so she did not get groomed today.

Getting the horses back into their field was nearly as problematic as it had been getting them out. They did not follow Mr. Smith, as they always do. I had to tie him inside the field and then go retrieve them one by one. Polly was particularly obnoxious. This horse who was hysterical whenever Mr. Smith was out of sight in the arena, now grazed without paying any attention to him, tied out of her sight. I had to go get her, except she evaded me and headed through the gate out of the big field on her own, but did not go to the gate into the horse field. Instead she led me a merry chase around the new machine shed until I said, "Polly! Keep going!" Since this was how I trained her to be caught when we first bought her, she knows well what that means. She went to the gate and waited.

Apparently two months of neglect has turned my horses into wild things that remember almost nothing about cooperating with the hand that feeds them.

I cut out dead bamboo canes for the next hour. They did not run away from me, take me on wild rides up mountain sides, or otherwise test my patience.

Now supper and evening chores are over. At night I just feed and milk, no barn cleaning. The horses are almost always up at the horse barn, waiting to be fed. Sometimes, though, they are not and I have to go find them with my flashlight in a distant field and lead them back. Tonight, if they had not been waiting for me, they just might have had to go without supper.

Horse Hoof Trimming

Today was Day 4, the last day of my bi-monthly hoof trimming ordeal. Normal people hire a farrier to trim their horses' hooves. I used to be normal, at least I used to hire a farrier. Then came the fall when Jessie Anne, bratty 3-year-old that she was, kicked at my farrier and he kicked back. I didn't blame him. But it was six months before I was able to even pick up her foot, much less clean it out. Since I didn't want to chance another episode with the farrier, I began trimming Polly and Mr. Smith's feet myself, plus three of Jessie Anne's. Eventually, she learned to trust again and now, six years later, she's very good for me.

Unfortunately, I didn't know what I was doing when I first started trimming horse hooves. It was a combination of long toes on grossly overweight Mr. Smith and what turned out to be a metabolic problem that resulted in acute laminitis the following spring. All four of Mr. Smith's hooves were permanently damaged and he could not walk for the pain for weeks. I suddenly learned, perforce, a great deal about hoof trimming and caring for a foundered horse. His feet needed to be trimmed every week, once he could finally hold 3 up long enough to trim the 4th. Through an online vet, phone instructions from an expert in trimming the laminitic hoof, hoof trimming clinics, and a wonderful online community of other folks facing the same problems, I learned. My easy-keeping Morgan horses are now all on low-carb diets. Mr. Smith has to wear a grazing muzzle spring, summer and fall. And I gain more insights into hoof trimming each time I do it.

No two horses have identical hooves or identical hoof issues. To make things more complicated, each hoof on a horse is different from every other hoof. I have learned to use different techniques on different hooves. Add in the different personalities and four horses give me an intense learning experience each time I work with their feet.



Jessie Anne is still Ms. Sensitive. I would not dare holler at her when she pulls a leg away from me. I have to use infinite patience and try to figure out what her problem is. Another horse moved out of her sight? She sees a coyote about a mile away? Or maybe she has a muscle spasm or an itch. Whatever, gentle reassurance is the only remedy for her nervousness.



Nightingale, who is Jessie Anne's 5-year-0ld daughter, is nothing like her mother. She is extremely people-oriented and yet very alpha. She always pushes me as far as she can before I blow up at her. Then she is good as gold as though to say, "Just testing." She never gets upset when I holler at her for taking a swing at me (which she used to do). Patience does not work with her. She will just keep testing me until I yell. No book on working with horses tells you that there is the occasional horse that cannot learn his or her limits by consistent, gentle but firm discipline. Nightingale needs a book of her own.





Polly is thirty-years-old and knows the ropes. The only time she objects to hoof handling is when her arthritic legs are giving her problems. But she always tells me there's a problem with a gentle attempt to take her leg away. If I do not listen and let her rest, she will get more vigorous in her objections but I long ago learned that Polly does not lie and if she says she needs to put her foot down and rest for a bit, she does. I'm in no hurry. My back could use a rest periodically anyway.



Then there's Mr. Smith. He is my soul mate and would not hurt me for the world. But he has issues not just with his feet but also with his stifles and because of those issues, he tends to pull muscles. Once his feet improved after his founder episode, Mr. Smith galloped and bucked happily around, messing up his stifles that were not in shape for such shenanigans. His stifles have improved with cavaletti and hill work. I've been jumping him over low jumps for the last two years and that seems to help his stifles as well. But he often lets me know, when I'm trimming his hooves, that something hurts.

Today when I trimmed Mr. Smith's feet, he did not want to put weight on his right hind leg for very long when I trimmed his left hind hoof. I massaged the stifle area but that did not seem to do it. He always tells me when I've found the sore spot so I watched his face and lips as I massaged his right leg. When I reached his gaskin, the response was immediate: he put his head down, closed his eyes, and licked and chewed. He even turned his head to try to groom me as though to say "That's the spot. Yes, please. What you're doing feels so good."

Farriers could trim all four of my horses in one day. I, however, cannot. In fact, when I first started doing this, I could only do two hooves a day. I finally made it up to four hooves but that's my limit. If I'm to have any energy left for chores and other work, I can only trim one horse's hooves per day. That's why it takes me four days. (Well, five days this time since I took one day off to go see the beautiful Hooded Oriole that's visiting Oregon... more about that another time.)

Now I have six weeks or so (more in the winter when the hooves grow slowly and less in the summer when they grow fast) to recover. I could have a farrier come, now that Jessie Anne is good and Mr. Smith's hooves don't need such frequent trims, but I am proud of how my horses' hooves look and I like finding out what's going on with their bodies by trimming their feet. I'm slower than a professional, but I think I know my horses' feet better than any farrier ever could and have learned what works for each.

I'm always glad , though, when Horse #4 is done in this round.