Dusty -vs- Concrete Nail:
On March 26th, I found one of our two horses, Dusty suddenly, completely lame on his left rear leg! I immediately pulled up his hoof to inspect it and was horrified to find 2 inches, of a 3 inch long concrete nail protruding from the rear (plantar cushion) of his frog (the underside the hoof)! I was able to remove it, using a lot of force!
Bill and I immediately gave him a Tetnus booster, injectible Pennicillin, Bute (an Equine pain reliver, thanks to Donna Brissette who had some!) then, Bill Teri-Savage and I hosed off and soaked his hoof in a warm bath with antibacterial/ disinfectant for 15 minutes, squirting a few syringes full of the disinfectant directly in the nail hole, then bandaged his entire hoof with thick gauze soaked in Iodine, covered with duct tape!
I continued antibiotics and Bute twice daily for a week. Along with 2 or 3 times daily foot soaks and re-wrapping Dusty's hoof! Then, as luck would have it, 🍀 only 2 days after Dusty's injury, my husband/my Veterinary Technician, Bill had to leave on a planned trip to North Carolina to visit family!
Needless to say, working on Dusty's hoof for about 2 hours everyday, was painful, back breaking labor for both Dusty and myself! Made worse and more frustrating each day by his growing, unwillingness to simply stand still and cooperate! When a 1200 pound animal decides he is DONE with his foot soak... he is ALL DONE! As the days passed, he also decided that he would ONLY cooperate and hold his leg up for treatments and bandaging, for a specific, predetermined (by himself) amount of time! There were many days that he could be seen dragging about 6 inches of duct tape, making it obvious that the previous bandaging took me exactly 0.2 seconds too long than he was willing to give me! Dusty also became rather good at "cheeking" his oral medication slurry that I would have to stand on my tiptoes and squirt in the back of his mouth twice a day! Even