Ringworm

Ashke has it. A quarter sized spot on the underside of his chin. N dealt with it pretty well considering she is at the end of her rope and was pretty worried that Cali would end up with it. She has a lot on her plate at the moment and doesn't need anything extra.

We both got to the barn about 10:30. We tacked up and went to the indoor arena again. I rode Ashke with the breastplate and running martingale. He was very responsive to it. I keep trying to move away from it, which works for a short time, and then I have to go back to it. We walked for a bit and then trotted for a bit.

Ashke kept pinning his ears at the other horses as we went by and swiveling his butt towards them. I guess this is somewhat typical behavior for horses that aren't used to working in an arena with other horses. Next, he'll be going after them with his mouth wide open.

I put him into a canter and we had half a circuit of the arena when he stepped funny on his right front foot and tripped, stumbled and almost went down. He took two steps with a bad limp, then relaxed and walked. I figured we had done enough at the point I am thinking I need to find a soft place to land. We spent about 20 minutes turning in a figure eight using neck reining and leg pressure. We worked on turns on the hindquarter and turns on the forehand. We practiced rollbacks at a walk. Then we practiced standing with our back leg raised for a good fifteen minutes while I watched Cali and N canter around the arena.

Afterwards, N and I set out to get supplies. We had lunch, then bought Betadine, white vinegar, Lysol wipes, lysol spray, cheap razors and Lomintrin (anti-fungal spray for athlete's foot). Back at the barn, the barn crew was just finishing up spraying down all of the stalls with bleach water. We wiped down our bridles with lysol wraps, then I dunked Ashke's bit in the betadine and let it soak for five minutes, then rinsed it with water and finished it off with white vinegar. I figured I needed to since the spot on Ashke is near the bit. I filled a bucket of water about half full, added Betadine and soaked my grooming tools for 10 minutes. While they were soaking, I shaved the area around the sore on Ashke's bottom lip and treated it with uncut Betadine. I left that to soak for 10 minutes. I wiped down all of my tack with the lysol wipes (I can't begin to tell you how dusty my saddle has become in the couple of weeks since I got it.) Then I went back and rinsed out my grooming tools with hot water, putting them to soak afterwards in a mixture of white vinegar and hot water. That soaked for 10 minutes. I washed the Betadine off of Ashke with warm water, then doused the spot in white vinegar. The vinegar is supposed to create an acidic condition that inhibits the spread or growth of the fungus. While the vinegar was drying, I emptied out the vinegar and shook off the grooming tools, leaving them in a line on my tack box to dry. Then I went back to Ashke and sprayed his spot with the Lomintrin. He thought I was trying to kill him. I sprayed it twice. Finally, I washed out and rinsed out the water buckets, which had been sanitized by the barn crew and then double sanitized by me, then filled them with water and hung them in his stall.

It's not going to keep Ashke from getting whatever type of fungus this might be, since he already has it, but the cleaning did make all of my tack very nice and pretty.