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Oh, and in other news, I finally did get the cut on Goose’s leg cleaned up. Lee got home from work earlier than he usually does so I got him to come down there with me in case I needed help with a twitch, but it turned out that I didn’t need him.

But we did almost have a huge wreck when I got Goose in the cross-ties and turned the hose on and there was air in the line and it took off hissing and spitting like it was going to explode. And poor ol’ Goose didn’t know WHAT was going on so he ran forward in the ties, which of course only lifted his front end off the ground. Then he sat down backwards, got up and then twisted around so that the cross ties were across his nose. I swear I thought he was going to hang himself, but I managed to pull the panic snaps and got him down before anything else bad happened. So after I got him calmed down and hooked back up I was a little more prepared when I turned the hose on the next time. It still hissed and spit, but I was ready for it with a hand on his shoulder and some calming words and he took it a lot better that time. He still didn’t like the water hitting his leg, but he didn’t do much more than keep picking his foot up and shaking it.

So after I’d sprayed it a while and got most of the dirt off, I got out the bucket of hot epsom salt and betadine water that I’d mixed up and started sponging it off with that, being careful to not rub too hard, and after the crusties were softened up I managed to get them picked off and could actually see the cut itself. It was about 4 inches long and about as wide as my finger, but thankfully was confined just to the pastern area and didn’t extend down into the coronary band.

I mananged to get it looking pretty clean and then I decided that since he’d been so good so far that I’d take my chances and clip the hair off of it, since I got a nice little set of quiet cordless clippers for Christmas. And he did real good. He didn’t even try to pull his foot away from me, much less make me have to use the twitch on him. So I was really glad to get that done. And it really does look a lot better with all that crud off of there, so I put some antibiotic ointment on it with a gauze pad and some vet-wrap and turned him out. And the bandage was still on there this morning, so that kind of amazed me. :o)