horse care


Hello! It’s time for a quick catch-up. Like many of you, the pandemic has kept me close to home. Here in Maine we’re dealing with winter weather. We’ve had frigid temperatures. I’ve been waking up to really cold mornings. This week it was -5 °F. (That’s -20 °C) It’s also rained (which just […]

Update on This and That


NOTE: This post has been updated since the original review! new comments in italics.) Tonka is stuck in his stall for the foreseeable future. He has a fractured phalanx (a bone deep inside of his hoof) and a bit of that bone is stuck to his collateral ligament. He hurts. […]

Haygain Forager Review


Not good news. Back at the end of the summer, Tonka was intermittently lame. Whatever was going on was mild, but it was there, so I went the whole 9 yards. Ultrasounds, x-rays, and finally MRI. The diagnosis wasn’t awful – he had inflammation in his coffin joint, a collateral […]

Affusion Fracture



A horse drinks up to 10 gallons of water a day, so to make sure that Tonka is never thirsty, there are two buckets in his stall. Each morning, what wasn’t imbibed the previous day is dumped out, the buckets given a quick swish with a scrub brush, and fresh […]

Bucket Fuss


Last week I took Tonka to Tufts (Cummings Veterinary Medical Center Hospital for Large Animals) to get a clear diagnosis about what was causing his front left intermittent lameness. This is the fourth time that Dr. Bubeck has seen Tonka. In previous visits, Dr. Bubeck has diagnosed neck arthritis, bursitis in […]

Lameness Diagnosis and Plan


For the last four years, Tonka has been intermittently off on the left front. Trotted out on a hard surface and turned sharply to the left, he shows a head bob – a sign that there’s something going on that is ouchy. Most of the time though, that’s it. On […]

Lame in the Front Left



In the more than seven years since Tonka and I have been a team, we’ve had niggling issues with soundness. Except for a couple of specific instances, it’s not been dramatic enough to come up with a clear cause or cure. I tell my veterinarian that he’s not 100 percent, […]

Hoof Prints Tell All


Recently I pushed myself to go out of my comfort zone and go to a fancy show. That required a multi-night stay for Tonka at the showgrounds, and me in a hotel. I like small schooling shows. An easy day drive there and back. No braiding. No pressure. Not much […]

Our First Overnight Show


Last week Tonka’s veterinarian, Monika, and her vet tech in training, Sara, came out to do some work on him. Tonka was due for maintenance to keep his body functioning well: shockwave over his back, and hock injections. Because Tonka recently has shown signs of that intermittent left-front lameness returning, […]

Training Horses for Veterinary Visits