Rolling Dog Farm Blog

I mentioned in last Thursday’s blog that I take Brynn’s temperature every morning, just before I give her rear end and back legs a warm, soapy sponge bath to deal with the residual urine drips.  Taking her temperature gives us an early indicator of any infection, and ever since coming back from surgery at Washington State University’s teaching hospital she had been normal.

Until this morning.

As soon as I slid the digital thermometer into her rectum, I could tell it was going up way too fast.  My heart sank.  Dang!  Sure enough, the little alarm sounded when it reached 105.2.  While Alicia continued to hold Brynn at the front end (please note:  for some reason, no matter whether it’s Alayne or Alicia who’s helping, I’m ALWAYS the one who gets the back end of the horse to work on), I reset the thermometer and tried again.  This time, 104.8.  Average temperature of a healthy horse is about 100, so Brynn was way off.  Our worry all along is that something might go wrong from her urethral extension surgery, like suddenly leaking urine into her abdomen or backing up into her kidneys.

I called from Brynn’s stall and reached our equine vet, Dr. Bill Brown, on his cell phone as he was pulling into his clinic.  He didn’t like the news any better than I did.  I noted she was eating her grain just fine while I was taking her temp and she wasn’t acting sick or puny.  To rule out an anomaly with the thermometer, Bill suggested I get a different one and try again.  With a brand-new thermometer, I got 105.2 again.  Then Alicia (still safely at the front end, I might add) noticed some discharge coming from one of Brynn’s nostrils — the color of banana creme pie, she called it.  I called Bill again.  The consensus:  Better get her in.

Alayne was already getting our personal truck ready to head into Missoula for errands, so she switched to the sanctuary truck, which was hitched up to the horse trailer.  She took the photo above as I was loading Brynn into the trailer.  Poor Brynn was thinking, "Not another trip to the vet, please!"

Late today the good news was her blood work still looked great.  No changes in her kidney values or other key indicators.  Whew.  But her fever remained at a stubbornly high 105.  Bill thinks Brynn could be having an equine flu, so we started her back on a twice-daily dose of antibiotics (trimeth sulfa mixed with a couple of tablespoons of molasses … um, um, good!).  She still acts like she feels perky, which is a really good sign!

An aside:  If you look closely right below Brynn’s tail, you’ll see a small dab of white on the ground.  That’s the last patch of snow at the ranch.  Yes!