flintfootfilly
Well-Known Member
I'm trying to work out what investigations I'd like to have done on one of my boys (a 7 year old gelding), and am currently reading up all I can on various conditions so that I can have an informed discussion with my vet about the way forward.
Long and short is that everything I read about kidney/bladder stones focuses on a few signs, but I've not found any individuals' experiences of changes in behaviour with their own horses as stones developed, so I'm looking to find out more day to day observations of how stones can present before they get to a critical stage.
But if anyone is interested, this if the detail on my boy and why I'm looking down this route:
His history in brief is that he is not fully established in ridden work. Initial priority was to resocialise him with other horses. Then to ride forwards freely. However, he has never really reached that point. Only cantered under rider twice. Will regularly grind to a halt from a walk/trot, particularly in the school, and has to be ridden insistently to trot on at all. He feels safe enough. Just never truly forward, though he does bomb round the arena chasing the other boys around. I've never been sure whether he is stopping to wee/poo. Sometimes he does. Other times he doesn't. He doesn't like to be rushed into toilet decisions.
When I took him to the vets last autumn for an initial looksee, they felt he was "stubborn". I said I didn't think we could say he was being stubborn, just because we hadn't yet found a reason for his reluctance to move on.
He had acute colitis in December (when bloods showed very low white blood cell count and slight anaemia. Negative for salmonella and worms in faeces. So thinking it was due to infection or tumour) and since then seemed more forward (just at a walk). I was hopeful that the antibiotics used to treat the colitis had sorted out a rumbling infection, and that he was now "normal". But introducing a few strides of trot, I can feel the reluctance coming back. And he returned from a 1 hour walk hack looking depressed (head low, faster breathing, reluctant to walk to his pen). Temp/pulse appear normal.
Two years ago when he arrived back here (I had bred him, then sold him as a yearling, and bought him back as a 4 year old), I had a urine sample tested as he was dribbling urine on the yard whilst eating hay. Urine sample appeared normal, and we attributed the dribbling to him not wanting to wee on a concrete surface. I moved him onto a gravel surfaced pen which he seems happier to wee on.
Most recently he has started to kick up at his belly a few times when he's tied up ready to be tacked up. And he's started to kick out when I go to pick his hind feet out during tacking up. Doesn't pull grumpy faces or threaten to bite though. Interestingly he did both the bellykicking and the hind leg kicking at a similar time last year, but I can't trace any common link in terms of vaccination timings, clipping, change of hay, girth used etc..... and I've only seen it during tacking up and picking out feet. When we returned from a hack this week, I noticed he had a dribble of urine on his penis. When he does trot, even loose, he has quite a stilted hind limb action, appearing more up than forward.
There's definitely something going on, but I think it's probably not obvious enough for local vet to pick up on.
Have been trying to develop my case for further investigations, and what direction I'd like to go in.
Have only really come up with bladder/kidney stones; sheath cleaning (have checked and he's not had a bean since he's been with me); abdominal tumour; gastric ulcers (though I don't think that the kicking at belly and kicking out when hind feet are picked up, or the occasional dribbling of urine fit with that, do they?).
So I'm wondering about asking for him to be ultrasounded and rectalled with kidney/bladder stones in mind (though of course he was rectalled when he went down with colitis, and the only odd thing then was a more sensitive area lower right abdomen). And maybe a belly tap for good measure?
Whether to do this with local vet, or go to the nearest vet hospital which is only an hour's drive away?
Any other thoughts on other things it might be or tests worth doing?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Sarah
Long and short is that everything I read about kidney/bladder stones focuses on a few signs, but I've not found any individuals' experiences of changes in behaviour with their own horses as stones developed, so I'm looking to find out more day to day observations of how stones can present before they get to a critical stage.
But if anyone is interested, this if the detail on my boy and why I'm looking down this route:
His history in brief is that he is not fully established in ridden work. Initial priority was to resocialise him with other horses. Then to ride forwards freely. However, he has never really reached that point. Only cantered under rider twice. Will regularly grind to a halt from a walk/trot, particularly in the school, and has to be ridden insistently to trot on at all. He feels safe enough. Just never truly forward, though he does bomb round the arena chasing the other boys around. I've never been sure whether he is stopping to wee/poo. Sometimes he does. Other times he doesn't. He doesn't like to be rushed into toilet decisions.
When I took him to the vets last autumn for an initial looksee, they felt he was "stubborn". I said I didn't think we could say he was being stubborn, just because we hadn't yet found a reason for his reluctance to move on.
He had acute colitis in December (when bloods showed very low white blood cell count and slight anaemia. Negative for salmonella and worms in faeces. So thinking it was due to infection or tumour) and since then seemed more forward (just at a walk). I was hopeful that the antibiotics used to treat the colitis had sorted out a rumbling infection, and that he was now "normal". But introducing a few strides of trot, I can feel the reluctance coming back. And he returned from a 1 hour walk hack looking depressed (head low, faster breathing, reluctant to walk to his pen). Temp/pulse appear normal.
Two years ago when he arrived back here (I had bred him, then sold him as a yearling, and bought him back as a 4 year old), I had a urine sample tested as he was dribbling urine on the yard whilst eating hay. Urine sample appeared normal, and we attributed the dribbling to him not wanting to wee on a concrete surface. I moved him onto a gravel surfaced pen which he seems happier to wee on.
Most recently he has started to kick up at his belly a few times when he's tied up ready to be tacked up. And he's started to kick out when I go to pick his hind feet out during tacking up. Doesn't pull grumpy faces or threaten to bite though. Interestingly he did both the bellykicking and the hind leg kicking at a similar time last year, but I can't trace any common link in terms of vaccination timings, clipping, change of hay, girth used etc..... and I've only seen it during tacking up and picking out feet. When we returned from a hack this week, I noticed he had a dribble of urine on his penis. When he does trot, even loose, he has quite a stilted hind limb action, appearing more up than forward.
There's definitely something going on, but I think it's probably not obvious enough for local vet to pick up on.
Have been trying to develop my case for further investigations, and what direction I'd like to go in.
Have only really come up with bladder/kidney stones; sheath cleaning (have checked and he's not had a bean since he's been with me); abdominal tumour; gastric ulcers (though I don't think that the kicking at belly and kicking out when hind feet are picked up, or the occasional dribbling of urine fit with that, do they?).
So I'm wondering about asking for him to be ultrasounded and rectalled with kidney/bladder stones in mind (though of course he was rectalled when he went down with colitis, and the only odd thing then was a more sensitive area lower right abdomen). And maybe a belly tap for good measure?
Whether to do this with local vet, or go to the nearest vet hospital which is only an hour's drive away?
Any other thoughts on other things it might be or tests worth doing?
Thanks for any suggestions.
Sarah
