Cellulitis

With grad school coming to an end, I've been excited to get back to riding. Little by little, we've been doing more jumping and more cantering. Spyder's attitude has been so much better so we've been using that to get more accomplished. He's finally shedding and looking a lot better. His prior front right injury has been wonderful. There has been no heat or swelling even with all of the cantering we've been able to do. FINALLY, we've been able to canter all around the big field. He's quiet and more willing than even before which has been nice...

After a ride, pondering his torture. :)

...AND THEN... Cellulitis. I went to take a lesson, and I assumed he was stocked up from standing in the shed due to rain overnight. He was sound in the field, picked up his feet nicely, and walked out to the ring just fine. Once we warmed up, the trot was awful. It was more a running walk than anything, so we went back to the barn. He had a fever so my trainer suggested he get bute and SMZ's. He got both and went in a stall per the vet to make sure the infection didn't spread, if that was in fact the issue. The vet came out to check on him (yesterday) after I saw he got a bit more swollen the night before. Two doses of bute and SMZ's and an injected boost of other antibiotics, he appeared more sound at the trot. I hosed his legs and felt some heat, but we're all confused as to why it was both legs. Usually, it's just one, but he didn't want to put his right rear leg down the night before so it was possibly causing the other to swell. His left rear had the heat the next day, though. Strange. The vet even made a joke about his legs because I mentioned it's always something. It's "ring around the rosie" with injuries on the legs as she put it. She'll be back to do more injections today and tomorrow and will be getting me steroids to bring the legs back to normal (hopefully). He'll be back in the field today (and I'm sure he'll be much happier as he made noise and called to each person that came in the barn to remind them that he needed to go back out.. haha), but I'm in Georgia for work so I am having the barn owner check on him. Let's hope it's not a recurring issue because we've got to keep moving forward... it's been so nice. :) Can't wait to see how it looks tomorrow morning.

Let's hope he heals up soon so I can get off the farm and get back to riding. Three weeks of grad school left (2 papers, 2 exams, 3 discussion posts), and I'm free for good. Spyder will be happy he'll get more time off in June than I would like because we're going to Yellowstone and Glacier National Park for 11 days. I can't wait to get some dates on the schedule for clinics and trailering to whatever events to get some more experience under his belt. I need to make some sort of goal or set up an event so that I work towards it. Not having one, riding can be pretty boring. I hope that we can hit a few cross country jumps by the end of the summer, too. His jump is coming along nicely, but for now, we just need sound and clean legs. I do need to upload pics and videos that I have so that all of the progress can be seen. It's been great.

Until next time...