2011 – Rock & Roll – 12-26-11 –INDOOR ARENA-LAST LESSON

12/26/11: On Monday, Rock was not doing well. His entire rear end was collapsing and he was barely able to move. I decided to try to do his regular workout in the indoor arena over 3 1-inch PVC poles and just do two rounds to the left. He hit the poles very hard and scattered all three the first time over. The second time he only hit 2 of the three poles and the final time over, he only nicked one pole. There seemed to be some improvement in lifting and stepping with his two hind feet. Afterwards, I put him back in his run and he was so tired from that small amount of work that he went down almost immediately and lay flat out for a few seconds, then rolled onto his stomach. At this point Chad noticed that the cornet band on his left hind foot was bulging and did not look good. When I palpated it, it was squishy and inflamed. I called out the vet, Greg Farrand and after his assessment of the coronet band he said what was happening is that the lamina in his foot was deteriorating and he was “sinking.” We agreed that it was time to put him down, but since it was a holiday, we just loaded Rock up with an IV anti-inflammatory and pain medications. Greg was going to contact CSU and see if we could arrange for a necropsy and salvaging the bones for a teaching skeleton post mortem. It was a very sad day, but we all had a chance to say our good byes to Rock. We arranged to have him put down the following day.