Tonka is sick! Well, not really sick. He acts the same as ever, but he's got an abscess under his jaw and one eye is goopy. So of course we have to worry about strangles. We won't know for sure until I can get it to come to a head so I can get a culture. In the meantime he's in quarantine, back in the "mustang pen" he lived in when he first came here.
Quarantine is a nasty word and I hate it! It's really hard to figure out how I'm going to keep from getting germs anywhere. Separate clothes/boots when I deal with him... bleaching everything... Ugh. I am not generally a clean freak and this is so weird for me. Slipping into cold boots and clothes left outside just for the purpose of dealing with him... Brrr. And he's so unhappy out there. Not depressed, more keyed up. It is a good bonding time though. I just hung out with him for a while this morning after we did the warm compress. He'd stand with me, go look for other horses, eat a couple bites, come stand with me again. It's nice to have him looking to me for comfort. Not that we didn't have a good relationship, but this kind of forces us to spend time together, with nobody else to distract us. Like a second honeymoon... Gotta look at the bright side, right?
Well, I'm off to shop and try to find some cheap or disposable coveralls... what a nightmare.
(I had to come back and edit, I realized I don't sound worried about my boy... I'm trying not to be, because it's probably not strangles. I'm trying not to think about it too deeply. I start thinking about him getting really really sick, or the whole herd getting sick, and I get pretty freaked. So yeah, I am worried. Not being heartless, just trying to keep my chin up!)
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