Earl’s New Routine

Three times a day at 6 AM, noon and 6 PM, I prep Earl’s medicine and wound dressings then set about the task of administering the drugs and cleaning the wounds. I do my best to make the meds palatable by mixing in apple sauce and dousing the applicator tips in molasses. Of course, he pivots away from the stall door the moment he sees the bucket-o-drugs. He makes two circuits around the stall and he finally resigns himself to the inevitable.

After he gets his doses, I set about cleaning the infected tract that tunnels all the way to the spine. I scrub, rinse, scrub, rise. Only after the area is clean do I flush it three, four times. Finally slathering the hole with antibiotic cream and soothing the raw flesh where the wound drains with diaper rash cream.

I then turn my attention to working on his legs. I brush the crusts off, clearing away debris, and apply salve to ease the pain of open fissures and cracks. The first time I did this, he would kick out in pain. Now he doesn’t flinch. Rather, he rests the leg I’m working on so I can massage the swellings and get promote blood flow.

I then put on my grooming gloves and work to gently remove to sloughing tufts of hide. This is when he falls asleep.

After that, I take him for a 15-minute walk in the deep sand paddock where he soaks up the sun and gets his legs moving. He surveys his surrounds, sniffs, nickers and munches on hay.

Then it’s back in the stall for a nap until the next go-round of treatments.

*** I take Earl’s temp twice a day. It’s been 100-101, but today we had a victory coming in at 99.7!!!***