Friday, June 12, 2020

EOTRH: One Week Check

Short and sweet entry today! The vet was out this morning to do a one week check on Jack's mouth (or as I affectionately refer to it right now, his teef holes). He has been on the soaked grain and grass diet as recommended, mouth holes rinsed daily with diluted chlorahex, and twice daily antibiotics and bute -- although how much of that I get into him is anybody's guess. I'm real bad at pills with a horse who won't eat them out of my hand like the girls, haha.
I can get him to eat one pill out of my hand usually, but then he gets suspicious. That was not helpful for the 26 pills a day he is currently on!
At any rate, the vet was pleased with his healing so far! They lightly sedated him and gave the holes a really good rinse (they had a different, far more effective rinsing tool, lol). I'm supposed to keep rinsing the holes for another week, as long as he continues to be an agreeable patient. Since he's retired, no worry on a timeframe to put a bit back in his mouth or anything, but she said he should be pretty well healed up in another 3-4 weeks. We'll be keeping an eye on the bottom incisors, there are two that are questionable right now and might need to come out eventually, but they were not as bad as the tops so that's why we started there. Trigger will have a check up in a few weeks for his pulled molar, and another 6 month check on a root from another tooth he lost on his own, so they'll probably put eyes on Jack's teeth then so we can formulate a plan.
Rinsing the teef holes
Picking some alfalfa debris out of the cavity
Some more targeted rinsing
MY WHAT PRETTY TEEF HOLES YOU HAVE
(he was so amenable to us sticking phones in his face for pictures, poor guy haha)
Hanging out waiting for the drugs to wear off. 
While it can be a little hard to gauge his comfort level (you know, since he can't speak), he does seem to be eating a lot more alfalfa in his stall than he was in the past 8+ months. I'm tossing it on the floor (so he doesn't have to rub the wounds on a hay net, that seemed counterproductive) so he's wasting a little, but I feed the scraps to the goats and everyone wins. Summer is always a tricky time for him, he HATES flies and bugs and heat and humidity, so he usually drops some weight and is relatively miserable any time he isn't parked in front of his jumbo fan in his stall. But I'm hoping maybe if I can get more alfalfa into him he won't drop as much weight this summer, and maybe we'll get into winter a little ahead of his usual curve!

8 comments:

  1. It's amazing how quickly they recover from dental surgery! Onward and upwards.

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    1. I was amazed when he came off the trailer after the extractions already trying to graze! :)

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  2. I’m so happy that he’s doing well.

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    1. Thank you, me too! He's such a sweet old man who has been with me through so much ❤️

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  3. Glad he's doing so well! What a good guy he is!

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    1. He's been a real champ about the whole thing! Although maybe not about the meds 😂 at least we're done with that now!

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  4. Glad to hear that Jack's mending well!

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