LOTS GOING ON AROUND HERE......

 Suzanne and her mother should be heading back from Indiana this week.  Haven't heard any different that was the plan when they left.  Our volunteers have really been helpful making sure everything was getting done.  John and I can do it, BUT it takes us most of the day and we really appreciate their help.

Saturday morning we had to take Big Gus up to the clinic in Gilbert on emergency.  Dr Jeremy our local vet had been out Thur and Fri and tubed him for choke.  Most things equine related can be taken care of in the field.  But some of them need to go to a facility, where there is more equipment.  Dr. Jeremy had the tubes, x-ray and endoscope, but sunshine, heat, wind and an uncooperative patient made it really difficult to get an accurate assessment of Big Gus.  

Yesterday morning, Nora, Susan and Debra were here bright and early to help us get on the road as soon as possible.  It's about a 3 1/2 hour trip, we like to get there around noon, so if they are going to come home with us, we can get home in time to feed the homebodies before they starve to death.  They seem to think if we are late with feeding they will not survive.  A lot of them decide to take off and feed themselves off the land.  The others will stand in the driveway yelling when we drive in.

Gus got evaluated and 3 vets went to work.  Poor guy got tubed again 2 or 3 times before they managed to get the tube all the way to the top of his stomach.  Most chokes are high in the esophagus, but of course Gus' was at the entry to his stomach and was so packed they had a really hard time getting thru to break it up so they could flush it out.  

One bucket is clean water, the other two are to catch the water used to flood the esophagus.  

 

Checking his esophagus early in the game to try to figure out where the obstruction is.  It was way far away all the way down to where his stomach starts.  

It was a long hard fight to finally get a small amount of the blockage of food matter to start breaking up.  By this time Gus has lost any patience he had with the process and started fighting even though he was drugged.  Where the buckets were had lots of overflow of water so the floor was really wet.  Hooves on wet concrete isn't a good match and he went down.  

He showed no interest in getting up, which is really scary, we were afraid he was giving up.  We had already talked about him staying up there for a few days.  With that decision already made, we decided to head for home and leave him in capable hands.  

Got home there was a message on our phone, that he had gotten up on his own, they had managed to  flush lots of feed matter out and weren't going to do anything else that night.  They have not called today, since it is a holiday week-end I wouldn't expect a call unless he took a turn for the worse.  

He is also dealing with a swollen gimpy rear leg.  We thought it might be a return of the cellulitis he had last year.  Dr. Jeremy got x-rays that showed bone chips and a possible cactus spine.  So they are going to try to figure out what that is too.  Poor old guy and poor people that have to deal with him.  He is NOT a patient patient and will use his head to let you know he isn't happy.   

This week-end was the first 2 pack burro races in Colorado this season.  One was in Georgetown the other one today in Idaho Springs.  I believe they had 87 teams at Georgetown, which is quite a crowd to all try to run in the same direction thru town............!!  Ha! 

START OF GEORGETOWN PACK BURRO RACE

This is Nell and friends, one of our alumni that ran in the Idaho Springs race today

This week-end was the big annual Bishop Mule Days in Bishop, California.  Mamacita and Sasha now known as the Gorditas (little fat girls)  participated in the parade.  They have a wonderful home in California now and are going to be doing all sorts of fun things, like going to assisted living homes so the people can visit with them.  Karin said they seemed to enjoy all the fanfare.  Unfortunately they aren't going to appreciate the diet it sounds like Karin is going to have them on until they get more svelte bodies.........!!! LOL