Let Talk: Accident Prone

I'm sure you've heard me say it before, "My horse is extremely accident prone." I'm not exaggerating about that. Since the moment I brought him home, Guinness has been trying to bash in some part of his body.

"How dare you accuse me of such self-mutilation?! Why would I hurt this stunning body?"

Sure... I joke about it, but what are you going to do with a horse who has accumulated the following injuries in a one month period?

• A swollen knee, not lame, but hot. No cuts. Obviously tender to the touch.
• A cut across his front left cannon. Not deep, but still swollen and hot. Not lame.
• A big knot from some kind of blunt trauma on the side of his back left cannon bone. Slightly warm. Not lame. No reaction when you poke it really hard.
• A cut just above the fetlock on his front right. Not deep, and not lame.
• A small cut just above his nose in the middle of his face. Zero sensitivity or swelling. Was already scabbed over when I found it. Scab has since been pulled off about 3 times.
• A cut to the right side of his cheek (affecting the fit of his drop noseband). Slightly deep and tender. No swelling. No heat.
• A scrape under his chin, just an inch off his English noseband. Hard to see. Lots of blood. No pain. Easily treated.

This is the randomly swollen knee. I won't lie. I freaked out about this. I was absolutely certain it was bone chip from the trailer accident settling below the joint, and that my horse would be broken for life, or need surgery, or his leg would get infected and explode. Seriously. I lost my brains. Then it went away after three days.

That list isn't even an abnormal number of injuries. There is rarely a day that goes by that this horse doesn't have some sort of bump, cut, sore spot, bug bite, or chunk missing. I mean, remember how I've dealt with two instances of a bruised cannon bone that kept us from working? I'm so well versed in treating random injuries that I even wrote up this post including "Austen's Tidbits of First-Aid Awesome." 

Bubble wrap gets talked about a lot, but I'm honestly afraid Pig would somehow get hung up in it and destroy himself. Blankets seem to work to keep cuts and bites from his body, but he destroys them so easily I try not to have him wear them more than necessary.

Maybe we could try a hard hat instead?

For an animal that is the least energetic and playful on the planet, I don't know how he gets into such scrapes. He is on full turnout with a large group of horses. You might think this is the big contributing factor, but actually he has just as many injuries when stalled or turned out with a small group. In fact, he has less bite and kick marks with this group than any other group he's ever lived with.

So basically, I'm out of ideas and I've given up. My horse is going to look like a war-torn stallion in the show ring no matter what I do, I'm going to run out of betadine on the regular, and I'm going to constantly have to adjust my tack choices to accommodate his most recent face bashing.

Hell. He's probably out there right now sawing a new hole in his backside. Ugh. Horses. Amirite?

** Edited to add: He was in fact sawing a new hole. Since I wrote this post, this lovely scrape appeared. Seriously horse? Why?

Just superficial, but definitely hot, sensitive to touch, and swollen. Grrr...