Maybe All I Need Is A Shot In the ... Stifle?

What do you mean "injections"?!

As I've hinted a bit both on the blog and off, Pig hasn't been moving as fluidly as he could. Back in January, I had his hocks injected and started a round of Estrone to help his stifles slide a little better while we legged up for the season. At that time, my vet and I discussed having the right stifle injected if the Estrone didn't seem to do the job.

The Estrone helped a lot with Pig's stifle "slipping" issues, and those have basically disappeared completely. However, he still felt a little off on the stifle. I debated calling the vet out, but instead decided to try a series of Adequan shots just before my last show.

Obviously that worked well... 

After shot number 3, there was a noticeable difference in Pig's freedom of movement. His confidence went up, and his nervousness went down. It was definitely working. I planned to use another series of shots prior to my May show, but then Adequan shortages hit again. While I was frantically trying to source more Adequan, I decided to just bite the bullet and call my vet for a more permanent solution for that damn right stifle.

Stalker photo of my vet prepping the joint goodies.

Pig is notoriously difficult for anything involving his stifles, especially now. He's ticklish naturally, and now the area is the site of pain. This means he is extremely reactive; hopping, bolting, and kicking out are common responses. Obviously we moved immediately to drug him.

No shame Buddy, we've all been there... 

Then, he kicked the needle right onto the floor. So we drugged him again. Then we twitched him. Because, why not beat a dead drugged horse. Right?

Don't worry. That managed to get the job done, though he was still pretty twitchy and reactive for the procedure. Even though he was too drunk to stand (I had to hold him up). Even 20 minutes later he was still so far gone that walking wasn't possible.

I feel like we've all lived out this scene on some late college night...

Finally I did get him into a stall, where he did sober up after a few hours.

No hay for drunks.

He has today on stall rest, and tomorrow off. Then we slowly reintroduce work, being back up to full collection work by the end of next week. Fingers crossed the injections work their magic, and my old buddy feels more comfortable in his work! Though, my vet did drop off a vial of Adequan from his secret stash. Just in case.

(Unrelated. Go check out L Williams celebration of 1500 crazy-ass posts. I think she's giving some shit away, too. But you don't need to worry about that, because I'm gonna win it all based on my stellar limerick-ability and the fact that the prize giving is on my birthday... so, duh.)