Vet report and... knees are strange.

So the most interesting (and encouraging) thing to me was when the vet came out on Wed. morning to look at Jasper's swollen knee he wasn't lame even after flexions.

He really wanted to play with the vet tech while trotting up and down the arena. She did not seem to understand this and did not play back with him. In fact, she told him to knock it off. Poor guy. He really was being clear about his needs. She was supposed to bite his head, pick up the pace, and possibly throw in a buck and a kick or two. Two words: shut. down.

He was also making a really strange hiccuping noise that he has never made before. The vet seemed just as concerned about that as his knee.


Xray of knee- you can see the bone spurs in the circle. The vet said they were tiny and are a 1 or 2 on a scale of 10. He doesn't think there is any reason Jasper won't be able to do what I want to do with him (eventing). It looks like he injured it at some point (I'm placing my money on last summer when he flailed over a rope tied across the entrance to his barn) and then recently whacked it again.

Another side view. I feel dumb that I didn't know that horses
have 3 joints in their knees until now.

Front view. Kind of cool.

The hiccuping noise seemed to happen whenever Jasper took in a sudden breath. The vet looked in his mouth and found swollen gums and a big wad of cheatgrass stuck between his cheek and gums. We're assuming he had cheatgrass stuck in his throat as well.

His treatment is 10 days of limited movement but all the walking we want to do. He's on 2g Bute and antibiotics (in case of infection from the cheatgrass) twice a day for 5 days. He had a DMSO pressure wrap on his knee for 36 hours which I took off last night. He gets 48 hours of on-and-off ice, then another pressure wrap if the swelling is not down. He's also, obviously, getting hay without any cheatgrass in it.

Cheatgrass. It doesn't look evil.

I don't believe in coincidences and I am very grateful that Jasper was making the hiccuping noise the morning the vet came out. He wasn't doing it that night so it was a very short-lived thing, but I would have had no idea that his hay was bothering him. I knew there was some cheatgrass in it but I figured that if they can chew hay up they should be able to chew up cheatgrass up too. Er... wrong.

I also decided to start giving him an injectible joint supplement called Pentosan. It's fairly new to the US and is like Adequan or Legend but apparently cheaper. Which is not all that cheap. You give 4 injections 5 days apart and it lasts for 6 months. It's all new to me but the research and reviews are favorable.

He seemed pretty willing to calmy walk around the arena tonight sniffing everything in sight and rolling 5 or 6 times. This is day 3 with no turnout. I'm not sure how long it will be until I'm walking a Velociraptor on a Leash.