Rolling Dog Farm Blog

In a post last week, I reported that Bo our blind Appaloosa was experiencing episodes of nystagmus, or rapid eye movement, and sometimes showed some mild incoordination when this happened.  I had taken him to see our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor at Blue Mountain Veterinary Hospital, last Monday for an exam.  After getting him home that Monday evening, I led him off the trailer and we started walking to the barn when — suddenly — his eyes began darting back-and-forth and then his legs buckled.  He managed to pull himself together and didn’t collapse, but it was a scary moment for both of us.  It was much more severe than what we’d seen before.

Unfortunately, he has continued to have similar episodes since then.  The most recent and most dramatic one came this morning.  When Gloria went into his stall to lead him out to his corral, she noticed Bo was having the nystagmus again.  She haltered him and they were walking out together when he started staggering, then crossed his legs in front of each other, uncrossed them, and swayed from side to side.  He only stayed upright by finally planting his feet far apart. 

What is so odd is that these episodes only last for very brief periods of time … less than a minute … and then he suddenly is okay.  They’re unpredictable, fleeting, happen at different times of the day, and happen indoors and outdoors.  And they’re not related to any circling behavior that could make him dizzy.

I was already scheduled to bring Bo in today to see Erin again, so I had Gloria call Erin and tell her what she’d seen Bo do.  After earlier consulting with an internal medicine specialist colleague at Washington State University, Erin had planned to take X-rays of Bo’s head to try and find out if there were any tumors or growths or changes in bone structure that could give us some clues as to what is causing this to happen. The internist had told us that inner ear infections were essentially unheard of in equines, so we needed to be looking for other explanations.

During her exam today, Erin was able to induce not only the nystagmus but also the lack of coordination in Bo … but only when we walked him in tight circles to the right.  During the exam last week we induced the nystagmus but no other symptoms, no matter which direction we moved him.

In the photo above, Erin is X-raying Bo’s head for a top-down view.  Erin’s colleague, Dr. Angela Langer, stepped in to assist with the radiography.  In this next shot Erin is taking a side-view X-ray while vet tech Amanda holds Bo: 

And here Erin is looking at the X-rays, which didn’t show any abnormal growths or changes in the bone structure:

But clearly something is going wrong.  So Erin is now bringing another internal medicine specialist onto the case, this one at the University of California – Davis School of Veterinary Medicine who specializes in equine neuromuscular diseases.  With the two internists on board, along with Erin — who is a board-certified veterinary surgeon herself — we have an incredible amount of expertise trying to figure out what is happening to our blind boy.

Meanwhile, Erin asked me to leave Bo at the hospital so she could begin some aggressive treatment for the symptoms and monitor him closely for the next few days.  She started him on IV antibiotics, steroids, and anti-inflammatories.

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In that second photo you might have noticed someone in the back corner wearing a hat and looking like he was photographing us.  Well, that’s no apparition.  That was Pulitzer Prize-winning freelance photojournalist Mark Osler from Denver.  Mark has been with us for the past three days on assignment for AARP to do a story on the ranch.  (Okay, let’s get this over with right now:  Alayne is … shall we say … "post-50" and I am a very tender 49 myself — but not for much longer.  Egads.)  We’ll let you know when the AARP piece appears.  But, with a photojournalist here for three days, Alayne and I have been out of the office more than usual and have fallen way behind.  In my case, I now have 104 emails in my inbox waiting for a response.  So if you’ve called or emailed in the past few days and haven’t heard from us yet, please bear with us.  Tomorrow is catch-up day!

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