Life with Curly has not been so smooth the past couple of weeks. He has not been ridden since Sept. 30 since it appears he is still having lameness issues with his rear right hoof. (And when E did ride him, he tried his darnedest to buck her off! We all came out of our chairs when he started hopping around...)
E and I are pretty religious about picking out his hooves every time we touch him. And eight times out of ten, we find a pebble or stick stuck in the yuck. Yesterday during this routine the barn manager was chatting with us. She noticed that he pulled his hoof away when I started working on that back one, so she asked to take a look. She was able to pull away pretty much his whole frog - it was all detached, just sorta hanging there. And then he was really tender-footed! He wouldn't do more than tip-toe on it.
The barn manager took Curly into the round pen after this - he was having some issues with ignoring us and being very disrespectful (He continually refused to do as asked, ignored personal space and was constantly turning away from us - not good!). He was able to get around on the lame foot, and would put weight on it eventually, but it was definitely tender.
I had been taught that the frog is supposed to slough off sometimes - maybe not as extremely as Curly's did yesterday, but still shed some. But his reaction to our ministrations makes me think there is more going on. Perhaps another abscess? Some other (hopefully not permanent!) problem? The vet will be coming out to the barn this week for another horse, so the barn manager will ask him to take a look at Curly as well.
All of this started conversations about if we can afford to keep a horse who is not ride-able....E was pretty upset by the end of the afternoon. Understandable, really.
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