I rode Archie on Sunday before it got too, too warm.  I was still glistening in sweat once we were done.  I'm pleased to report that after a week of being out of his stall, we were able to canter laps without stopping to cough.  I texted this to my vet on Monday and brought up something that I hadn't previously mentioned to him:  Archie was getting hay in the stall, too.  Derp derp.

Smile cue transitions to the kiss cue.

So we've started Option B, version 2.0.  Archie is being segregated from the other geldings overnight so that he can stuff his face full of hay, in a pasture, and we can determine if this is the cause of this month's episode of Killing My Pony.

I pulled him out of the pasture on Tuesday and he was drenched in sweat and blowing, hard.  I stuck him under the barn fans and let him chill.  I've been trying not to hose him because I don't want his hooves getting wet, but the ceiling fans seem to be sufficient in getting him cooled out.  Once his respiration had dropped into the normal range and most of the sweat had dried from his neck and back, I tacked him up.  I wasn't planning a long ride, but primarily wanted to see how his esophagus was reacting to the hay.

I interrupt your regularly scheduled Archie update for something not horse-y at all.  Also, you can't ride them because they're so carb-deprived that they'd either pass out or slit your throat for a doughnut.  Not that I would know... (it was a cupcake).

And this is really only NSFW-ish if your job is prudish or your boss watches your screen over your shoulder or what you're looking at gets projected onto a large screen for small children to look at.  Then don't.  But I work in IT, so wtf do I know?  (I know what the bottom of a 25 oz can of Razz-ber-rita looks like, hint hint.)

To tell this story properly, I have to take you back to November of 2011.  My new husband and I flew from Savannah, Georgia to San Diego, California to watch my dying cousin get married. Here's a photo of yours truly with red hair and my darling natural ginger by my side.


And a couple of weeks ago, my darling husband competed in his first fitness competition.  So here we go..

This isn't him.

Not him either.

This was like.. the heavy weight body building class.  Biggest guys there.

Number 55, facing front, had the absolute best personality and an unbelievable grace in his movements.  He won "best poser" for the entire show.  He also started jostling the heavy weights, which was hilarious.

He didn't get a trophy (fuckers), but it was great for his first competition and we know what to do for the next one (March?).  Also, let's just end this on his competition spray tan..

Getting somewhere, yeah?

But he can always be a model.

Here's a pro-tip for vet visits:  if you know that the ailment for which Ponykins is being seen is exercise-induced, dress in a manner appropriate for exercise.  I'm going to blame it on the lack of caffeine as well as everything else going on, but, yeah, I wore gym shorts and now I have leg rubs.  Derp.

All of the horses were being seen for regular vaccines.  And I brought up this sudden health concern, so my vet saw other horses while I tacked Archie up and gave him a walking warm-up.  He listened to Archie's lungs prior to riding and said they sounded great.

So Archie did his initial cough when I first got on.  I guess I wasn't super clear in the last post.  I'm not worried about Archie's "warm up" cough.  He's 18.  We're going to start having minor issues everywhere.  What I am concerned about is that he has started intermittently coughing during exercise and isn't "working out of it".

I probably trotted/cantered around for about ten minutes, with Archie pausing and clearing his throat and doing an occasional cough.  After listening to him a few times along his lungs and his esophagus, my vet asked me to push him through a coughing spell and then let him stop.

And heard nothing.

He said that Archie's distal lungs sounded great, even during exercise.  But he understood my concern, as it just isn't right.  I've been riding this horse for ten years and my gut is telling me that something is wrong.

The vet said that we're going to have to approach this by ruling out what it isn't (differential diagnosis).  The first step is a complete blood count (CBC) to rule out possibly number one:  mild bronchial pneumonia.  If that comes back clean, we could proceed with a bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL).  This would require sterile fluid inserted into his lungs, removed, and sent off for analysis.  He doesn't feel like this is RAO, but he's very interested to see if his cough subsides once his night stall board stops in September.  So we could also "wait and see".  We talked about the time line and the fact that he didn't have this issue when he was in a stall last summer, but he said that RAO can start whenever.  He also briefly touched on the possibly of tracheal paralysis (roaring), which, honestly.. fuck.  I don't know what the best case scenario is.

My history in veterinary medicine is slowly dwindling to the distant past (which still doesn't negate the random and occasional "what do I do" texts) (prepare for those to haunt you for the rest of your life).  Even so, I can recall with eye-rolling enthusiasm the distaste we had for people who came in with a sick and/or injured pet and told us they'd read some-such on the internet.  The internet cannot perform an exam and therefore can neither diagnose nor prescribe medications.  Suck it.

While I still cringe every time I see some stupid what-do-I-do post on OTTB Connect, I still want as much knowledge as possible.  Fortunately, the best response for those people is the same response I've given myself and my vet is due out Friday.  Until then, though, I've been joyfully googling myself into a tizzy.  Because my raison d'etre lately seems to be insanity.


And I'm worried that Archie has developed either Recurrent Airway Obstruction or Summer Pasture-Associated Recurrent Airway Obstruction.  Because he coughs.  A lot, lately.  And he had a runny nose the other day.  The solution for one is to spend more time in the pasture.  The solution for the other is to spend less.

Since he was about fifteen, Archie's had a "warm up" cough - the sort that lasts for a few seconds and doesn't linger and after our first lap of trot, is never seen again.  I addressed it with my vet and he said no biggie.  Once he was sound enough for trot work after losing his shoes, he started coughing intermittently and repeatedly, to the point that we haven't done any consistent "hard" work.  Lots of walking, spurts of trotting, and canter one time when he was naughty.  Walking doesn't induce coughing.

I've thought of various things - the heat, the humidity, his age, my relationship with gravity, the tightness of the girth.  And his new stall.

We're learning to smile.

Unfortunately, I can't determine if the new stall is the issue because he had two weeks off prior to the stall, so my horse may have exercise-induced coughing for three weeks, but only really symptomatic for the one week in which he was actually worked.  If it were three weeks, that makes it more Summer Pasture-Associated.  If it's just this week, with the stall, it's more likely RAO.  You know, assuming it's either of those and I haven't tried to play vet too hard.

But, fortunately, my old man is still perfectly content and happy to march me around on the buckle at the walk.