Today was gorgeous - sunny and in the mid-70's. Absolutely lovely. And we did absolutely NOTHING. Well, I DID clean out Lizzie's stalls this morning when I went out to feed the horses - then I parked that cart that Duke was driving around his paddock last night over in one of Lizzie's stalls. Seemed more than appropriate that way anyway since she messes up her stalls continuously and he NEVER does, but more to the point, now he won't be able to throw the thing around and wake me up in the middle of the night!
I say Lizzie's "stalls" (plural) because I've given her access to both HER stall and the stall that belonged to Bug. She never liked to stay in her stall so I thought it might be helpful to let decide for herself where she wants to be. And sure enough - she seems to love to go back and forth between the two, and she does actually stay inside SOMEWHERE when it rains now. Progress. Now if I could just figure out how to get her to "relieve" herself outside as she changes rooms . . .
Oh, well.
I actually spent most of this afternoon checking online to try and find some sort of explanation for the "opening" in Duke's abdomen -- but no luck. I have NO idea what the heck it is - and neither did his vet for that matter. There's a "hole" in his abdomen right in front of his sheath. It's very small and not noticeable when he's just standing there, but it will easily stretch out enough to get my whole hand and half my arm in there when I clean it out! It apparently itches from time to time because he will lay down on his tummy and rub around in the dirt trying to scratch it, then he'll get back up and kick at it. Here's a video I took a year ago - the first time I managed to video it when I saw him do that. I've since learned that when he does that, if I collect him up and bring him inside I can reach up in there with a wet cloth and clean out the white smelly grunge that collects in there and he'll stop carrying on for a while. While I'm cleaning it out, he'll stand very still and kind of stretch his tummy out making it easy for me to get my hand up in there so it obviously feels good to him. At least that means it isn't sore or anything - just itchy. Here he is rolling around on Saturday this week. He's not as bad as he was in that first video because NOW I know what to do to get him to stop that.
I asked his vet about it while she was cleaning out his sheath last spring and although she did wipe that out as well at the time, she said she didn't know what it was or why it was there. I haven't followed up on it with her since everyone else has been sick and Duke seems perfectly healthy. But maybe if Lizzie and Joey stay healthy for a while and I don't have to spend a fortune on anyone I'll ask Anne about doing an X-ray or an ultra-sound to try and figure out what the heck that hole IS. Although after looking on line for so long without finding anything, I think it MUST be some sort of birth defect or genetic defect of some sort, not anything common and not any kind of "disease" or anything.
Just one more Duke idiosyncrasy, I guess. He IS unique.
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| What a sweet boy! |
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| A handsome guy, huh? |
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