2011 – Rock & Roll – 10-18-11 – MASSAGE/ICE
10/17-18/11: Rock got a half hour massage on his upper two front legs and left hind and was iced only once yesterday morning. I was going to do him twice, but it was extremely cold and windy and basically unpleasant. He stood for the icing fine, but was anxious to get out after 20 minutes. I had all four feet in the ice for the full 20 minutes, but noticed he began to get very fidgety after 10 minutes and repeatedly tried to walk out every 2 minutes thereafter. When I went back to check him at 4:30PM, he had both knees locked and was standing comfortably, so I opted not to upset him by doing the second icing yesterday (17th).
I decided to have him exercise during the walk to and from the ice bath. He was put in his exercise rigging with the elbow pull and we started by going out his gate and into the dressage arena. He made a left turn after going through the gate with little trouble. I allowed him a wide berth to turn in (roughly 10 meters). We then proceeded through the dressage arena sand and over 4 1-inch PVC ground poles. He knocked 1 pole with the right front (17th) and 2 poles the next day (18th). We then proceeded through 2 more gates with two right turns (10 meters). On the return, the way through the gates was reversed and he did them easily. He did not knock any PVC poles coming back through on both days. He was then turned loose in his dressage arena/pasture turnout and did not seem to need to lie down as much at all as he had last week. I opted to keep him off the Bute because he was not exhibiting severe pain. Unless needed, I think it is better to allow him to be as natural as possible and live with some pain so he can let me know when things change…even slightly.
The second day, Rock went through the same exercise to and from the icing and knocked two poles with his front right foot going out and then no poles coming back. I opted to allow him to leave his back feet out of the ice until the last 10 minutes of his 20-minute icing (he starts to get fidgety every time at about 15 minutes). This worked well and he stood easily longer. I put the back feet in during the last 10 minutes and he was just beginning to tell me he didn’t like it when he was allowed to exit. We thought perhaps since he has shoes behind that the shoes and nails may be conducting the cold differently and could be causing pain in the hind legs. He seems brighter and happier with every new day. The sores on his body are healing very nicely both under the wraps and even the spots that are still exposed. The shoe boil is doing much better since we began taking off his boots at night.
