11-13-2014, 05:14 PM
I'm afraid if I bed her down near the wood stove and wrap her foot in a bag of frozen peas, we'll be finding peas all over the basement for the next two years.
I just remembered something from long ago that makes me wonder if she may have picked up a cactus spine. This reminds me a lot of the time Cuzco's foot suddenly swelled exactly like this and he wouldn't walk on it at all. I thought it was broken and had a vet out to look at it. The vet thought it was a thorn (even though we couldn't see anything) so he packed the hoof in pine tar to act as a drawing salve and then wrapped it tight and told us to leave it for a few days (I think). It's been 12 years so the details are hazy, but I may also have soaked his hoof in hot water and epsom salts for a few days after we took the pine tar off. In any case, it did the trick. Delilah's no better tonight, and if she doesn't improve by tomorrow morning I may pick up some pine tar at the hardware store and see if that treatment helps. If she has a cactus spine I'll never be able to find it to pull it out by hand (if there's even anything sticking out).
I just remembered something from long ago that makes me wonder if she may have picked up a cactus spine. This reminds me a lot of the time Cuzco's foot suddenly swelled exactly like this and he wouldn't walk on it at all. I thought it was broken and had a vet out to look at it. The vet thought it was a thorn (even though we couldn't see anything) so he packed the hoof in pine tar to act as a drawing salve and then wrapped it tight and told us to leave it for a few days (I think). It's been 12 years so the details are hazy, but I may also have soaked his hoof in hot water and epsom salts for a few days after we took the pine tar off. In any case, it did the trick. Delilah's no better tonight, and if she doesn't improve by tomorrow morning I may pick up some pine tar at the hardware store and see if that treatment helps. If she has a cactus spine I'll never be able to find it to pull it out by hand (if there's even anything sticking out).