Lameness

Riyah has suddenly (very suddenly) come up extremely lame on her right hind! I am beside beside myself with worry. She is in obvious pain, and I don't have any idea what happened. I have a vet appointment, but not until nine in the morning!

Riyah and I were playing down at the fairgrounds this morning. I had intended to ride her in the arena, but the footing was heavy mud and hadn't been worked since the rain a few days ago. Instead of riding, I just played some of the Parelli games, basically making her think about what we were doing as opposed to what that big tractor over there was doing and what that noisy train was choo-chooing about, and what the dump truck was doing with the trash can, etc. (There are lots of things to see at the fairgrounds!) I sent Riyah over a couple of logs and up onto the dirt bank thing (see photo)and off again(and even here she is resting her right hind, but she showed no signs of lameness at this point.) . We went around trash cans, gates, poles, the calf shoot, and everything there was to look at or go around.

She was interested and thinking. That is until a bull in one of the pens stood up and spooked her. Riyah actually yanked away from me and took off about 40 yards across the parking lot where she suddenly stopped and realized the bull wasn't actually chasing her. She snorted a few times to test him then she came back to me as I walked toward her. (That might be a little thing, but it was a big thing!) Luckily no train was blowing by and the tractor was on the other side of the stadium. Whew.

Anyway we went back to check out the bulls to let her see they were penned up and ugly and certainly not worth getting excited about. She was mostly fine with that, so we continued our tour of the fairgrounds. Every time she got a little high-headed or too close to me, we stopped and backed up. Lots of backing and sideways stuff today, but nothing she doesn't do all the time these days! And virtually all of it at a walk (except when she took off to get away from the bull--that was at a gallop, but it was short.) About 100 yards from the trailer, she noticed a horse and rider in the arena. Her head went up and she started to let her attention drift so I backed her up to the end of the lead rope and we just camped out for a few minutes till she got back to being more left brained about things. It didn't take long--five minutes, tops, but when we walked off again she was not wanting to bear weight on her right hind. At All. Riyah hobbled to the trailer and managed to get in. It was painful to see. I drove straight home with my heart in my throat.

I was afraid she would fall out of the trailer while unloading, but she managed to stay on her feet. Three feet. I cold hosed her leg for 15 minutes right there. I then palpated the whole leg: hip, stifle, hock, tendons, bones, joints--everything looked OK. No heat, no swelling. Her hoof and pastern looked fine. No scrapes, cuts, etc. I called Tammy to come see if she could see anything. She came right over, but there was nothing obvious, unless possibly the inside heel bulb may be a little tender, but Riyah didn't really flinch--she just picked her foot up a little higher, and not consistently.

I gave her two grams of Bute at 11:30am and coaxed her into the barn. She ate her hay and drank, but didn't try to move around. I checked on her all afternoon. No improvement at all. I couldn't tell that the Bute had made any difference. At 3:30 I called the vet.

Tonight Riyah is still penned in the barn aisle; she is eating hay with Keno nearby keeping her company. She doesn't seem too stressed, but she definitely hurts. She is not walking. Her toe is resting on the ground, but she's not really putting weight on it. I feel so sick.