Monty had - Abscess - Thrush - Cellulitis -

Heat Stroke - Mystery Lameness

John:                            Hello and welcome to another exciting Equinety podcast. This is one that I've been looking forward to for quite some time, as we've been running this ad for actually quite awhile on Monty, who is a 19 year old thoroughbred gelding. We're just going to jump right into this one because this was one of those that had my jaw beyond my desk, right on to the floor when I received these videos. Without further ado, let's welcome the owner of Monty, Larissa Norris. Larissa, welcome to the show.

Larissa Norris:               Thank you. Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure.

John:                            Well, we're glad to have you on here. Let's go back and let's get right into this. By the way, below this podcast on our website, this entire thing will be transcribed. We're going to have the videos, before and after, of Monty so people can see what we're talking about. What was going on with Monty prior to you giving me a phone call?

Larissa Norris:               Well, we started off as, we found a nail out in the pasture somehow. Of course, that happens here and there. It ended up turning into an abscess which led to thrush and cellulitis, went all the way up his leg. He wasn't putting his foot on the ground. It started off, he'd just stand on the tiptoe and he eventually never even put it down. He would not touch it on the ground at all. We were quite concerned. We've contacted multiple vets and the farrier was working with him. We had really, really almost given up on him. It was awesome to be able to find something to finally help him.

John:                            This was the video that you sent me and this is what we're going to have posted at the teamEquinety.com website, is you can Monty. He cannot put any weight whatsoever on that back left leg. At that time you had called me, because he had also, during all of this, also had a heatstroke.

Larissa Norris:               Yes. He had a heatstroke after ... We had been giving him different antibiotics. He was actually on antibiotics three times a day. It ended up we backed it down to two times a day and he was just having no improvement, really. He maybe put it on the toe again one day, but then the next day he wasn't walking on it again. He disappeared completely. We had him in a little run in and he was in a dry lot, but he never left the lean to. He had fans and everything and he disappeared. We thought, "Where did he go?"

Larissa Norris:               We looked and looked and looked for him and he was back as far as you can get in the back pasture. This is not even where any of the horses go. He was hiding in a brush area, far back. He wouldn't come to us. We couldn't get him to walk out, anything. That's when we called the vet out again and that's when he was diagnosed with the heatstroke. He was very odd. I've never seen a horse have a heatstroke. It was definitely different. We had to totes him back to the barn and treat that also. He still, even with vet care, he wasn't really improving. That's when we had really had to make the decision of what we were going to have to do with him.

John:                            It was at that time that you had called me because you had come across one of our ads that we were running on Facebook. You had told me the story about Monty and everybody from the vets, the farriers, I mean you had tried everything that you knew to do. Everybody's scratching their head. If memory serves me correctly, you said that you just purchased some Equinety and this is going to be make or break for Monty. That was going to be it, if this didn't work.

Larissa Norris:               It was.

John:                            Yes.