Strangles

I don't know how to begin. Last night and today when I could snatch a little sleep I had nightmares about it.

Odin¸ the little shetland pony (his eyes look funny because of the faulty red-eye removal algorithm)¸ brought with him the disease aptly known as "strangles." It has ripped through our farm in the last week. You can see from my previous posts that Katie was struggling. She eventually needed an emergency tracheotomy and is now in the hospital in Milton.

In this picture you can see that Odin has a discharge from his nose. Far from routine "shipping disease¸" this illness developed very dramatically. First¸ Odins's nose got runny¸ as you can see. Then¸ I noticed a slight swelling between his cheekbones underneath where the head & shoulder connect. Then the swelling got worse and worse¸ as you can see in these next few pictures.

I had no idea at all what was going on. I had never in all my horse days seen this kind of swelling. I wrote to Odin's previous owner¸ who said to give him some antibiotics and not to worry about it. But within hours of receiving that email I had gone online and had begun to suspect that this pony had strangles. I isolated him and waited for Monday. He looked terrible¸ but was still managing to eat and drink and had no trouble breathing.

Several days later Odin looked both worse and better. He looked worse because he was dripping blood from underneath his chin¸ but he looked better because his mood was better. His lymph nodes had opened up on the outside and begun to drain on their own. I took pictures.

It was just as bad as it looked. This poor little pony had never been handled but I tried to clean his wounds. But it was way too scary for him to let me poke around. The vet also tried and he surprised her by rearing up and almost broke her nose.

That was only the beginning.