Ride Notes: The Stifle. Probably.

Well, more like Walk Notes than Ride Notes, but here we are.

"y u no bring me in for the riding?"

To recap the time line:

• Last Tuesday Opie got adjusted by the chiro. He saw/felt there was a stifle issue. We decided to do a week of descending Bute dosage, starting at two grams and going down half a gram every two days. 
• The next time I rode him was on the weekend. I rode him lightly both days. He continuously fell out from the left stifle.
• I didn't ride Monday. On Tuesday morning BM came out to assess wtf was going on while I was in the saddle.

always with the head tilt

While waiting for BM to arrive--no more than ten minutes--I got on Opie and started walking around and doing some walk-halt transitions. He didn't want to halt square by putting full weight on the LH. I could get him to do it if I shifted him around enough, but he wasn't willing to do it on his own. He was still falling out in that leg probably once every other lap.

When BM got there she was able to clearly see it from the ground as well. We talked through what I was feeling, what she was seeing, and the progression of how this played out. 

• She noted that his muscling was very even so it probably wasn't something he had been dealing with for awhile and was compensating for. 
• The likely guess that made the most sense to both of us was that he was either being a fool in the field with his friends and slipped (not even remotely out of the ordinary), or he was rolling in his stall and torqued it while getting up...possibly using his anti-casting boards and banked shavings to unstick himself. 
• The chiro then exacerbated the issue--obviously not intentionally--and now he's feeling the effects from that.

We talked about what a vet could do since the stifle is a tricky area to image, and agreed it probably wasn't going to make a difference to wait it out for a bit. I'm going to do a few weeks of walk only. He finishes his Bute this weekend, and I'll switch him over to Bute-less because even though I just started him on Outlast I don't want to kill his stomach any more than I have to. I also have Ice Horse stifle icing suspenders on the way because icing never hurt anything. 

If, after a month of that routine, he's still not in a good way, obviously the vet will be out. But the good news was with the continued Bute and time off when I got on him Thursday to walk him, he only fell out once as I turned him across the diagonal. 

riding or not, always gets the butt scratches

In the meantime, BM passed off Mo onto me which I know is mostly because she wants his crazy ass back in work so he's sane when she has the time to start riding again. Whatevs, he was a good boy for me this morning and at least it's more exciting than walking.

lucked out and was getting off right when the attack
chihuahua appeared

Opie also got his feet done this morning, so I've spent ALL THE MONEY I HAVE on him. Please do good things with it, sir.

got to hang out with farrier's puppy so no real loss