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Re: [RC] lame horse mystery - steelsidedownDSLD is very prevalent in Peruvians. Here's a few sites with info: http://www.horseshoes.com/anatomy/esad/information/dsld/dsld.htm http://www.dsldequine.info/ http://www.equipodiatry.com/dsld.htm :-( Jen ---- Marlene Moss <marlene@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: Ok, this isn't endurance related other than the owner of the horse is 72 years old and if she can, rides 5 miles every day of her life. She is also on a fixed income and spent $8000 of her $12000 life savings to buy this horse and doesn't have a lot of options for expensive diagnostics. She is one of my boarders and I feel terrible about the horse and feel sorry for the owner even though I don't like her decisions so far. Anyhow, the horse is a 6yo Peruvian Paso. By my standards the legs are very small and by almost anyone's standards the horse is grossly overweight (1050, should be 850 or less). The owner understands we all think the horse is fat, but her best friend has the horse's full sister who is even fatter (they both think it's what the show ring demands, but neither show), so is reluctant to drastically reduce her weight since that horse is sound. The horse has something like a windpuff on the left front and one of the three vets who have seen her diagnosed that. The owner says she got it from dancing around when the horse next to her was taken from its stall to be ridden. The horse definitely favors that leg at times, but the real problem that I see is on all four legs. When the mare gets up, it takes her a long time, like she is seriously sore. After she gets up, she can barely move, she looks like she is going to die any minute because she is in so much pain. After an hour, she looks better, but still in pain on all 4 with some favoring of the one leg. Then her owner shows up a couple hours later (and I tell her how bad the horse looks), so she takes her to the arena to move around. She sees her being a little sore and then totally fine after running around a bit. She looks like a 35yo horse with severe arthritis. Can horses have rheumatoid arthritis? It is sad watching this horse move - soooo much action, such a big body on those little stick legs! But she sees her then going sound so she rides her with no problems. I think she needs to stop riding her, but her points are that she doesn't know what's wrong so has a hard time not riding, she thinks if the horse loses her "riding muscles" she'll never be able to be ridden again, and that she is 72 years old and if she stops riding, that's the end of her life (and that may well be true). I know this is long, but does anyone have any suggestions on what the problem could be (fetlock have not dropped at all, so not DSLD) or any diagnostics that we could help her with or that might be cheap? I am working on the weight issue and she's dropped 30-40 pounds but seeing no improvement, she's panicking that we'll kill the horse by not feeding her enough! I'm sure I haven't offered enough information, so if you have questions, please feel free to take this off line and ask and tell you what I know. This is long enough already! Marlene Marlene Moss www.LosPinos-CO.com - boarding, training, sales www.KineticEquineAnalysis.com - saddlefit for the horse in motion =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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