Sunday, May 6, 2012

Pie Shows Signs of Improvement

Pie has had four doses of his Oroquin-10 paste treatment (levamisole/decoquinate) for his new bout of antigen strain one of EPM.  Today was the first day he began to show signs of improvement.  His front foot placement has been normal throughout - Dawn showed deficits in her fronts and backs.  Today, he began to resist incorrect foot placement with the right hind; the left hind was still abnormal.  The biggest change was in his backing - he'd been dragging his hind toes and "searching" with his hind legs for where to put his feet.  Today, he backed almost normally in hand - lifting rather than dragging hind feet and putting them down toe first (in diagnonal pairs with the corresponding front), and he could back straight and there was no "searching" with the hind feet.  Walking forward, his walk was more deliberate.

So we rode at the walk for about 20 minutes - his walk was forward and free-moving and rhythmic, and he was able to do softening work at the walk.  He also halted well and backed well without dragging any feet.  There were no trips, stumbles or odd steps. Tomorrow if he continues to feel well, we'll try a little trot to see how he feels about that.

I'm encouraged - I think we caught his new EPM infection very early and I'm hoping the treatment will take care of it in short order.  He had his fifth Oroquin-10 paste dose tonight, and there'll be five more after that - he's very good about his paste but I expect he'll be glad when that's over!


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