My pony drags his back hooves. It’s gotten worse over the last six months. My vet instructed my farrier to trim him short and upright. I bought boots for all four hooves. He has some signs of hock stiffness - he tight-ropes his back legs when he canters on the line. (His right hock didn’t test sound when I adopted him 3 years ago, so I assume it’s only worse now.) We’ve had problems with his left stifle all summer. His patella was a little slippy and sensitive. My vet told me to exercise him and do hill work. I paid someone to hand-jog him 2x week and we carriage drive him 1x a week; he turns out 2x a day for at least an hour. I had his left stifle injected this winter. His stifle improved and the patella stopped feeling slippy and he stopped reacting when it was touched. But then the jogging girl lunged him and forced him to hold the troubled canter and so that was a set back. I’m still working on exercising him without aggravating it. My working theory is hock arthritis with stifle injury.
I’ve done a full course of Adequan and I’ve just started him on Pentosan on the assumption that there are arthritis processes at work.
But his foot dragging is getting worse! Sometimes he stands with his left leg at a 90 degree angle - like a ballerina. A chiropractor/DVM assessed him and said he had TMJ and he’s pretty tight in his hind end, “muscle-bound.” She showed me some exercises. His teeth are being done this week. She told me to get an ortho eval. I’m dreading calling my vet. He always just blows off the foot dragging to pony being a fat, lazy pony. I would like to know what are the variety of causes of rear foot-dragging so I can make sure we investigate everything we should. If he wants to do nerve blocks, should he block at the hoof and work his way up or should we block the hocks first since that’s a “most-likely” issue? I want to know what to expect so I’m not taken on the long road to the airport.
