Arthritis, low ring bone, navicular help!

[MillieVaughan]

My 9 year old Connie cross tb has been diagnosed with an array of problems in both his front legs - he's had an MRI which showed Low ringbone/Arthritis in coffin joints, collateral ligament damage, navicular and inflamed laminae.

He was given the steroid injections into his coffin joints which didn't seem to help him at all hence we decided to dig deeper on MRI. Sadly that showed that the injections had caused the laminitis and therefore he is unable to have anymore of those. He's just had IRAP treatment which has helped him slightly but he is still visibly lame, the vet says he doesn't need to be 100% to come back into light hacking but how do I make that decision of how sound is sound enough? And what do I do if he isn't sound enough?

Baring in mind he's really not the type you can leave his attitude in the 7 months he's been off has deteriorated and even just leading him around he's throwing himself in the air and pulling me around.. what can I do to help him? (P.s. I've gone down the barefoot route and he is transitioning I would say nicely)

 

[be positive]

As you are going barefoot you should be able to tell how well he is doing as the work on different surfaces increases, I guess at the moment it is all inhand, I would take this opportunity to install some better manners in him by making the exercise more demanding and interesting so he is not just messing about, you should benefit from this in many ways but may have to think outside the box and try different ways to get him working.

I would be doing plenty of long reining if possible, lots of variety to what you ask as well as on different surfaces if he is up to it, polework can be interesting either on long reins or inhand, look at straightness training as an option that is very useful, with a view to starting doing short gentle hacks when he is placing his feet consistently heel first and looking confident on them, often the more you can do, within reason, the better the feet will build up and enable more work to be done, keep an eye on the foot balance and how he is landing but if all is well crack on a bit and be ready to back off if he seems uncomfortable, hoof boots may help if you have to use less than ideal surfaces.

I would also recommend having physio, if he has been uncomfortable for some time it should help and they usually give targeted exercises suitable for the individual circumstances so can often bring something new to the daily regime.

 

[MillieVaughan]

I've started with in hand work in varying at the moment between using our large grass jumping paddock and taking him out round the large yard (this has a long stony drive which he's coping great with) I don't think he's currently landing heel first but I've never really been in the position to really see the difference? Any tips on that? I have started walk pole work aswell..

I do have physio next on the list just awaiting his last vet visit next week - I'm just really concerned he's still in a lot of pain and working him could undo the improvement we have from the IRAP, do I need to get over this to deal with arthritis aha?

 

[Regandal]

Get someone to walk him and film him from the side with your phone. You need to get down quite low. You can then replay the film in slo-mo to see how his feet are landing.