Ah, that makes sense. I would imagine he has, and will get, lots of “boo boos” on those legs and joints.
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My opinion is we can’t put a human facial expression onto an animal. Or a human “desire to live.” Animals are programmed to keep going until they can’t and owners can often prolong a situation because an animal has a “light in their eyes.” I don’t think we can determine either way based on facial expression or desire to eat.
I honestly can’t tell if his way of going is due to “pain” or a total lack of flexibility in his joints with all the procedures. If a normal moving horse started moving like that I would equate it with pain, but with this horse he’s has so many procedures it’s hard to have a base line normal.
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He could have had a rub from the brace/bandage that he had on for a while.
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Not a human facial expression, but the Horse Grimace Scale was developed in 2014 using six markers to ascertain pain levels. Its use has been accepted and widespread since. There have been a couple of further studies (2017, 2020, 2024) to refine and update it.
So yes we absolutely can determine whether a horses in in pain from the look on their face
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I thought this poor thing should have been euthanized when it became apparent, he couldn’t be allowed to walk for weeks on end. Not fair to put him through that.
I am not so much “euthanize now” at this point if really is fairly comfortable hobbling around on his medications. Hopefully it will happen when things get worse as they inevitably will.
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I think we need to caution ourselves that sometimes we see what we want to see. I looked at the Horse Grimace Scale and some pictures that supposedly indicate pain look the same as when my horse is drowsy or tranquilized (like after dental work). I have also never seen a horse in pain with ears perked like in the “Prominent Strained Chewing Muscle” section.
In this foal, he doesn’t look super excited about life like other foals I have seen, but I would not equate that necessarily to pain/unhappiness. he may be just a more chill horse or may be after the relative excitement of hospital life, farm life is blasé, or he has so much more exposure that things that are “new” to other foals aren’t “new” to him.
I did a quick internet search on the Grimace Scale, see below links:
file:///C:/Users/bradyn/Downloads/fetchObject.pdf (note that this study was only conducted in assessing pain during castration of horses)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-2615/13/10/1623
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0737080616306931
(this one studies Horse Grimace Scale as related to emotions, rather than pain and the study is very limited but shows a positive correlation)
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34510132/ (this is just an abstract but notes there are gaps in knowledges and more studies are needed)
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159120300484 (positive correlation in dental pain)
So the Grimace Scale seems good at detecting some pain but not all pain and the studies thus far have been very limited.
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I think the amount of exposure he’s had as a baby is significantly higher than most yearlings and he’s going to be much less reactive (if this exposure is good exposure that’s a different subject). In his most recent video where he has visitors he looks fine.
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I’m not saying Seven isn’t uncomfortable or anything, but I agree with you here. My now yearling who lived at the hospital for a month and confined/bucket fed for longer after that does not act like a normal horse in a lot of ways. I’ll go out in the morning and he’ll be laying down. The other horses will get up and he’ll stay down for awhile. It used to worry me, but he just doesn’t have that normal horse instinct to not be in that vulnerable position. Once he wants to, he has no problem jumping up! They act a little different when they’ve had so much human contact so young.
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My 3 yr old has loved to nap ever since he was a baby. You can climb all over him and he will just lay there.
My boss mare, now she’s a grump if you disturb her sleep. You get the pinned ears death stare. Lol.
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His latest video.
IMG_2105
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There is a video that is now two days old on youtube where Dr. Ursini visits Seven at home if anyone is interested.
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Do they show him moving at all?
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They never show much of him moving. What moving that does show is kind of a shuffle. Nothing close to normal.
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Yes, they do show him moving. The video is around 15 minutes long in total.
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I think we can all agree this horse will never move normally. I have her on snapchat where she posts a ton of unedited content and he’s doing pretty good at home. Watching his videos I never expect to see him break into a canter, he gets along how he gets along and that’s that. 
All I can say is he is 100 times happier at home then in the hospital.
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Agree.
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If I couldn’t see his body, I’d think he was a normal foal. He seems comfortable and has a somewhat normal life, which is all we could hope for. She does seem to be trying anything and everything for him, and I’m happy to hear that acupuncture made a noticeable improvement. They all seem stumped as to how he’s doing so well compared to his medical results.
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I gave in and watched. Did anyone else hear Dr U say something like: He’s never acted like his radiographs say he should?
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I always want to take a Tylenol after seeing Seven bobble along, that back & rear legs. 
He looks content out in the paddock chomping down of food.
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I am glad he is hobbling around, best as he can, seeming to enjoying life despite his incredible disabilities.
He is simply a horse, however, and even the most hale and hearty ones find ways to maim and destroy themselves. So I hope that when he gets to where he’s in pain most of the time, or if he further injures himself, that KVS finds the courage and wisdom to euthanize him.
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