04/26/2025
This picture is from a very long time ago. It had to have been about 2003-2004ish based on the haircut.
This young filly got wedged somewhere around or in the roping chute and ripped the skin from her front leg all the way across her entire belly on both sides. I don't remember how long it took but I do remember that it took a ton of suture.
I didn't see this horse again for years and it was for something fairly simple and I never would have known it was her if the client had told me. Everything healed up great and I don't even think there was much scarring.
Sometimes things seem big and huge and undoable but the important thing is to at least try. What did I have to lose by trying? This was done under simple anesthesia, no machines, no triple drip just one dose of xylazine/ketamine and working as quickly as I could.
Veterinary medicine has gotten lost in the notion of some kind of standard being the only way to do things and I think we need to get back to just trying to help the animal. Is it always perfect, heck no but God made animals so amazing and most of the time they are going to get better even if we are not doing everything by the "standard"!
I long for the day when we in veterinary medicine can go back to supporting each other and being ok with everyone practicing medicine how they want to and not demanding that we all be the same. Clients can't afford all of us to be the same and by forcing it we are killing more animals than we are saving and that is wrong on so many levels!
This filly was laid down in the dirt, cleaned up and sutured up in the dirt and not perfectly and she lived and did great and to my knowledge is still alive. Had it been demanded that she go to a facility and have general anesthesia and all the "standard" of care, she would have been shot by the owner and everyone would have lost.
I think we need to learn to have more grace and less time spent worrying about what other people are or are not doing and just practice veterinary medicine in a way that works for the people we serve the animals they own.
