Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Cindy got this shot of our Belgian draft horse Beaver on Friday after giving him an oral anti-inflammatory paste called bute.  Day after day last week, he would stand there after getting his medication and do this … for several minutes.  For horses, that's a fairly common expression you see when they smell or taste something new or different or, in this case, something they'd rather not have squirted in their mouths.

For two years now, we have been treating Beaver for a large sarcoid tumor on his belly.  This is probably the worst location for one of these things because whenever he lies down, it gets squished under his tremendous weight and gets into contact with the ground as well.  It's almost impossible to keep it bandaged, too, so keeping it clean is not really feasible, either.  We tried two completely different treatment protocols but neither has worked, and the tumor continues to become infected and inflamed.  Hence the bute paste for his latest flare-up.

Our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, learned of an entirely new treatment for sarcoids that was recently pioneered by researchers at the University of Minnesota in a pilot study, so I will be trailering Beaver in to Erin's clinic on Monday to begin that protocol.  I will post more on Beaver's treatment tomorrow.

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Good news on wobbly blind Briggs:  His biopsy results came back as clean as the endoscopy was.