I have had a hard time keeping up on the blog, but also there has not been much going on.  Rocky continued to be hand walked daily, took his medicine, had his temps taken, stall cleaned etc.  He is such a good patient.  The only times that were not super fun is when it was blowing snow, you know the kind that hits you in the face and stings.  I also have not gotten too many good photos, days mostly consisted of walking in the AM, in the dark, going to work, and walking him in the PM, yep, you guessed it, in the dark....

I am happy to report that he is almost fully integrated again! We started out by spending a few hours turned out with Daisy, then the next day a few more and so on.  I kept a close eye on him in the beginning, even rushing out when Daisy started clacking at him, in fear he might mount her. After that I started stalling her and letting him have the run of the pasture, which if you look at the photo below, she hated. But we're up to full days turned out with Daisy, and nights in the stall. Mostly because we have had quite a few loose dogs in the last few months and I don't want anyone chasing him, especially with how slippery it is (ice). He's doing great!

Swelling is worse than yesterday, thankfully attitude wise he seems less depressed.  Walking around more etc.  Saw him eating a bit on camera, he also drank almost a gallon when I refreshed his water.

Rocky's swelling is pretty good now, the vet warned me that day 4/5 would be the worst.  It looks pretty bad, his entire sheath is swollen along with a pocket in front of it.  His incision looks good though and his PU site looks ok - not getting weird, just ok for what it is.

We picked Rocky up, he jumped right into the trailer.  I got my run down of all my meds I need to administer.  The roads were slightly better than going out.  Our road has a decent incline with a turn involved and I just didn't know if the truck and trailer were going to make it all the way.  My husband walked down and I hand walked Rocky up and he drove the truck and trailer up, no problem of course.  I just didn't want him bouncing around in the trailer too much, or worse loosing traction and ending up in the ditch, overprotective donkey mom?

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Daisy went from thrilled Rocky was home, to just mad....Probably because he's acting differently than before and she doesn't know what to think of it.  She busted out her old OCD behavior of licking things.  When I bought her, the prior owner kept her in a 12x12 pen for TWO YEARS! She developed some stress coping mechanisms, one is licking the fence a bunch.  So while its cute I see it potentially as a sign that she is feeling stressed.  

Sunday we met up with our vet and got to visit Rocky.  He was a little out of it, but VERY into going for a walk! We were allowed to take him for a short walk and see if he wanted to eat any grass that was around, which mostly was covered by snow.  His appetite has been depressed, and it had been a little before going into surgery as he adjusts to his PPID medication.

We took her on a walk to hopefully distract her and give her some exercise, but she wanted to stop often and scan for Rocky.  She did say hi to the neighbor's mini donkey.

While on our walk we recieved some text updates from the vets office, Rocky was doing well...than we finally got this!

Surgery is set for later in the day, he's all settled in, they'll get his IV going and prepare him.  Meanwhile I head to work and try not to overthink everything, I know he's in the best hands and we're going to be feeling alot better soon!

I received an update from the vet, they worked on Rocky for four hours and could not get the initial procedure to be successful.  Due to his donkey anatomy it just didn't work like it should (PU surgery).  They decided it was best to do an traditional abdominal surgery tomorrow, allowing Rocky and my wonderful vets to get some rest.

Rocky's surgery has finally been scheduled for December 17th, I am feeling confident that we have the best vet attending to him.  Because Rocky is older, the vet recommended doing bloodwork to ensure he didn't have cushings or another disease that would impede his healing progress.  We got the bloodwork back this last Friday, he does indeed have cushings.  He has been started on medication (let me tell you trying to figure out ways to get him to take a pill has been interesting), he will be on it for the rest of his life. Here is a link if you'd like to learn more about cushings.  Looking back I can see small signs that I did not pick up on prior, while Daisy does not have similiar symptoms, I will be having her blood panel done this month as well since she will be nineteen this year.  Thank you for keeping up with Rocky's progress!

If you enjoy podcasts, here are a few about PPID/Cushings

The Podcasting Equine Vets

Ask The Vet

Straight From the Horse Doctor's Mouth
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Rocky had been displaying some issues urinating, he would go, but then look like he still needed to, but nothing would come out.  I took him to the vet and they did a urine panel on him and said everything looked ok and that he maybe needed a bit more salt in his diet.

He continued to look like he needed to go more and more, he began to 'drop' more frequently, then he started to have incontinence.  I took him back to a different vet for a second opinion.  While we waited, inside finally since it was a very chilly, VERY windy MT morning, I walked Rocky around the exam area and let him investigate everything.  We walked around he stocks (he is not a fan of those), then I led him THROUGH the stocks (open on both ends) way to go bud! And then he go to see and hear the ultrasound cart.  He did so well, he generally is not super keen about the stocks and being at the vets as a whole.

The vet arrived and introduced himself to Rocky.  He very quickly listed off things it could be causing his issues, and how we could go about testing for each issue, he was very knowledgable!  His first recommendation was to do a rectal ultrasound on his bladder.  Rocky is pretty squirmy for all shots, I don't blame him.  Donkeys also have quite thick muscling on their necks and it makes it difficult to find a vein.  Thankfully this shot was a bit easier than past ones and he quickly relaxed from the sedative.

The vet was able to successfully use the ultrasound machine on him and Rocky actually tolerated the whole situation better than I thought he would! I thought for sure there would be a rodeo and some kicking, but he didn't fight it too much, which made the whole thing go so much quicker.  The vet found a calcium stone quite quickly and that was that.  I got brought up to speed on what causes them, how they can be removed, recovery etc.   It's big enough to require surgery, a little bigger than a golf ball.  I'm looking forward to having him back to his old self, I can't stand the thought that something is hurting him or making him uncomfortable.

We are looking at after Thanksgiving for surgery, I will be getting his recovery room in the barn set up this week. I need to find him a little bell so he can summon me at will. :)

If you'd like to help out click the button below! Stay tuned for progress updates.
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These boots are available for sale currently.

I've decided to start naming my boot sizes after some of the donkeys that I have made custom boots for in the past, these are the 'Paulianne'.  Paulianne was a grey overweight donkey resucued by Hithger, in Artois, Ca and later re-homed.  Her new home had me make her fly boots.

Each pair of fly boots are handmade, in Montana, by me.  Inevitably there will be variations in stitching and may not look perfect. And honestly, I'm a little out of practice, I used to produce boots a few years ago.  These boots show just that, some of the stitiching spacing is off (thanks to my binding foot being out of adjustment), none of which affect the function of the boots.

Why did I choose these colors?
I started thinking about how flies see color.  They obviously love my Daisy more than Rocky, but why? It's because of her color.  I researched this more and found that yellow is the least attractive to flies..."A key to making the device effective was the discovery that flies are three times more attracted to the color blue than to yellow and that yellow actually seemed to repel flies." Why wouldn't I make them yellow?  I am hoping to make the binding yellow as well.

These are sized medium, they should fit most large standard donkeys.  They are ten inches tall and fabric to fabric are 10" in circumference, but can be easily fastened down to 7", absolute minimum circumference is 4.5".  Please measure your animal before ordering.

Purchase them with confidence through Etsy, HERE.