Endurance.Net Ridecamp Archives

My husband's Paso, Twigs, who had the uveitis and needed his eye medicated several times a day, is such a sweet, eager to please guy that it only took a few times before he figured out the routine.  Then we didn't even have to halter him...just walked up, treated his eye with the two meds, patted him, and that was it.  He also had to have banamine given orally, twice a day at first, then once a day.  Now, I *know* that stuff tastes like crap, from accidentally tasting some when I stuck a syringe in my mouth to hold it.  But Twigs would see the syringe coming and actually open his mouth for it.  Ross' other Paso, Diamante, would not be so accomodating for the banamine, I know.  <G>

 

Dawn

 

On 4/10/08, Tx Trigger <txtrigger@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

My horse had to get eye meds every 3 hours, around the clock, for a WEEK a few years back for an unusual "fungus" he had. So, out I went, middle of the night etc. to do this.  After about the 3rd time, he was on to this game, and was not going to let me squirt that stuff in the eye. One of the meds had DMSO, so I bet it stung.  And getting hubby to trek out with me, to help hold him, was not a plan. So, I started giving him a peppermint after the eye med got safely into the eye. In the beginning I had to tie him up, and push his head to the end of the lead rope to have his head steady, as I opened eye, and applied. After a few applications with a reward of a treat, I no longer needed to tie him or even put a halter on him. He stood there, and actually leaned his head towards me, waiting to feel the medication in his eye, and then the lips would start moving, looking for the goodie. To this day, I can walk up, and open his eye with a couple fingers, like I am going to apply medication, and he just stands there.

 

My week long treatment did not get it all, and he still went to the vet and spent a week with a pump strapped on him, and a tube running into a slit they put in his eye lid, with a constant drip of a stronger medication going straight into his eye.  Saved his eye, and might have saved the horse, as they fungus could have spread, and the vet said could have been fatal.

 

Jonni