Greener Pastures Page 8

  The teacher clapped his hands together. 'All right. I've put today's project on the server, so you can log in now.'

  All the students started talking to one another as they switched on the computers, or rummaged through their bags.

  Shelby typed 'laminitis' into the search field and clicked on the 'search images' button. She flicked through the images – twisted, deformed feet, X-rays of pedal bones shaped like arrows pressing down through the underside of the hoof, horses in agony as their skeleton literally sank through the soles of their feet. Shelby hadn't known when she'd entered the search term how awful the photos would be, but there was no point stopping now. Maybe they would help to convince Lydia how serious it was.

  Lydia put her hand over her mouth.

  'This one here is standing like your horse does, leaning back on its heels. Wow, it looks pretty painful, doesn't it?' Shelby said. 'You should probably call a vet. Or you could talk to Clint. He's our farrier. He has experience doing founder rehabilitation.'

  'It might not be that, though,' Lydia said, although her face was pale.

  Shelby scribbled Clint's mobile number on a scrap of paper and handed it to Lydia. 'Clint can come to your place and do a consultation. He's really nice. Will you ring him? Today?'

  Lydia stared at the piece of paper. 'I'll ask my dad if I can.'

  Erin walked up behind them. 'What's this?' When she saw the images on the monitor she gasped. 'That's the grossest thing ever! That poor horse! Anyone who lets their horse get like that should be arrested. Don't you reckon?'

  Shelby frowned over her shoulder at Erin. Lydia pushed her chair back from the desk. 'I'll . . . I've got to go for a minute,' she mumbled.

  Erin took the seat she had just vacated.

  Shelby glared at her.

  'What?' Erin asked.

  'I just told her she might be killing her horse and then you come over and tell her she should be arrested,' Shelby told her.

  'Oh,' said Erin. 'I can go and apologise.'

  'Forget it. It's too late,' Shelby said, biting her lip. Maybe she should have approached it a different way? Maybe she should have researched more about laminitis beforehand. Instead she had scared Lydia.

  'What's this anyway?' Erin asked.

  Shelby explained about the Jenny Craig paddock at Wanada Park and what she had discovered about the disease from Clint.

  'Shelby and Erin, I don't think you girls are working on your project,' the teacher warned.

  'So what causes it?' Erin asked quietly.

  'This is the thing I don't get,' Shelby said. 'Most of these sites say it's because a horse is overweight. They say it's from grain and rich feeds. It's says even just normal grass can do it. Here, look at this page.' Shelby clicked through to the pages she and Lydia had read before. '"Rich new spring grasses are a common cause, but any grass that has suffered stress from frost or frequent mowing will produce more fructans. Like diabetes in humans, a diet high in fructose and other sugars is the underlying cause of most cases of laminitis",' she quoted. 'But Lydia doesn't feed him grain, and we saw what his paddock was like. It was just scrubby stuff. It was almost a perfect paddock, with something to pick at but nothing too rich. So it must be something else.'

  'What's this "mechanical founder"?' Erin asked, reading ahead.

  'It's also sometimes called "road founder". That happens when you ride them too much on a hard surface they're not used to. Sometimes racehorses get it. Do you remember that horse Barbaro a few years back? But I just can't see a beginner riding a horse that hard.'

  Erin nodded. 'I guess we're not going to know unless we ask Lydia.'

  The two girls glanced over at Lydia, who had taken a seat on the opposite side of the room.

  Their computer teacher turned on the data projector at the front of the room, and as he waited for it to warm up, he leaned over the computer on his desk. He glanced up at Shelby and Erin, and then there on the screen at the front of the room was the image from Shelby's monitor – a horse, back hunched, feet splayed, with its face contorted in pain.

  'What's this?' he asked, smiling. 'This isn't the project I gave you!'

  'Neigh!' called Ethan Agnew, turning to grin at the girls. Another boy cupped his hands together, making a clip-clop sound.

  Erin blushed, but Shelby wasn't embarrassed.

  They don't see the distress, Shelby thought as she looked at their faces. To the other students it was just a horse. They were looking at an almost life-size picture of a tortured animal and they were laughing.

  She looked over at Lydia. She had her head down, staring at her hands in her lap.

  Does she see it? Shelby wondered.

  After everyone had finished their laugh at her expense they all got stuck into their projects. Shelby retrieved hers from the server.

  While she was waiting for it to load up she turned to Erin. 'So who did Chad go on a date with?'

  Erin shook her head. 'You're an idiot.'

  14 The Consult

  After school Shelby saddled Blue and was about to head out onto the trails when Clint stopped her and asked if she would go with him to look at Chance instead. Shelby agreed, mostly because she was pleased Lydia had asked for help, but also because she was happy for an excuse not to go into the Gully.

  It was kind of like when one of her favourite episodes of The Simpsons was on television. She was happy to watch it, but she'd flick through the rest of the channels anyway, just to make sure there wasn't something more exciting.

  She pulled the saddle off and let Blue back into his paddock with the other school ponies. As soon as the halter was off his nose he tucked his head down, bucking and kicking out.

  'You don't have to look that excited,' Shelby called out to Blue.

  He glanced at her over his shoulder and then galloped to where the other horses were standing. He headed straight for the middle of the herd and scattered them like billiard balls. Soon they were all running around, kicking their legs in the air and tossing their heads.

  She hopped into the passenger seat of Clint's red ute and wound down the window. As they drove along, the wind whipped around her face. They didn't talk much, mostly because Clint had been snappy with her last time, so Shelby was quite subdued. Clint seemed happy to sing along to a CD by a band that Shelby hadn't heard of before.

  'Do you mind if we stop at home for a minute?' he asked. 'It's on the way. I just want to pick up some tools.'

  Shelby shook her head.

  Clint's place was very different from how she imagined. He had a house on the top of a slope. She followed him through the house. It was scattered with toys and clothes, like her own house. It looked lived in.

  Shelby had never met Clint's wife before. Cassandra was pretty, with short hair, and was obviously very pregnant. Their daughter was playing on the veranda with some plastic farm animals. When she saw Clint she raced into his arms.

  'Hi there, my princess,' he said, laughing. He tossed her up into the air and the little girl squealed with delight. 'Back in a tick.'

  Shelby looked out over the veranda. She could see over the whole property. It was set up differently from any property she'd ever seen before. There was a track, like a racetrack, around the outside, except it wasn't even. It bulged in parts and narrowed in others. It spiralled and then ended with a large dry-lot – a Jenny Craig paddock in the middle. Between the tracks were large garden beds. Shelby wondered how they kept the horses out of there.

  There was a herd of about ten horses – mostly bay stock horses, from the look of them – wandering along the track.

  It was a beautiful property. Clint must earn a good living, she realised, to be able to afford a property like this.

  Cassandra sat down on one of the veranda chairs. 'Clint has been experimenting with a track system,' she said.

  'Looks pretty elaborate,' Shelby commented.

  'You're the girl who owns Blue.' Cassandra's daughter crawled into her mother's lap and Cassandra ran her fingers through the child
's hair.

  Shelby nodded.

  'I hear he's a beautiful boy.'

  'He's pretty good,' Shelby said, shyly. She knew that Clint had told his wife stories of the silly things she and her friends had got up to and she was embarrassed now that she was meeting her in person.

  Clint appeared in the doorway. 'Ready to go?' He kissed Cassandra and the little girl and they headed back to the car.

  'What's a track system?' Shelby asked.

  'The track is about a kilometre long,' Clint explained. 'In the narrow parts we've put down a range of surfaces – pea gravel, river sand, mud. We put out grass hay in the wider parts. The drinking water is in the shelter in the middle. The horses walk around and around, over all those different surfaces, all day long.'

  'So they exercise themselves,' Shelby said.

  Clint nodded. 'They keep moving, but that's not all. They trim their own hooves too.'

  That's how I'm going to set up my horse property when I'm older, Shelby thought. She'd have some different things as well – a couple of stables and an indoor arena, which Clint didn't have. She'd need a breeding stall like she saw at Cheryl's. And she would grow her own hay too. She wasn't sure ten acres was going to be enough. Perhaps fifty acres would do – backing onto State Forest. She would build her house right in the middle, on a hill, so she could see horses out of every window.

  When they arrived at Lydia's place Lee was standing with his arms folded and a scowl, but Shelby was confident that Clint would able to convince him that he knew what he was doing.

  Clint walked around Chance. He bent down, feeling the gelding's hooves. He looked at his watch. Chance was watching him closely out of the corner of his eye.

  'What's he doing?' Lydia asked.

  'He's taking Chance's digital pulse,' Shelby explained. 'The heat in the hoof and the pulse rate helps him figure out how much pain and inflammation Chance has.'

  Then Clint lifted each hoof, pressing the sole and sniffing it. Each time Clint put the hoof down again, Chance would lick his lips.

  'Now he's checking for thrush,' Shelby told her. 'If it smells bad it means his frogs aren't healthy.'

  Clint brushed his hands together. 'He's definitely foundered in all four. I can do a trim to make him a bit more comfortable, but I'd like to see some X-rays. You need the trim to correct the bones, not to make the hoof look pretty.'

  'How much is that going to be?' Lee asked.

  Clint scratched his head. 'I'm not going to lie to you, Lee. You're not going to get out of this whole business for less than a few thousand dollars.'

  Lee's lips were a thin line. 'A few thousand dollars? And that all goes to you, does it?'

  'Some of it will go to me. He'll need trims every two weeks to start with, and then once every four weeks or so. But I like to see foundered horses get some chiropractic and massage as well. You see, they stand on such funny angles to avoid the pain that they pull tendons, and put their joints out of alignment. I'd like to see him in boots too. He'll probably abscess.'

  Lee was staring at Chance so intently Shelby thought his eyes were going to burn a hole in the poor pony.

  'I can teach you to trim him yourself. That would save you some money,' Clint suggested. 'But I'd like to see his hooves properly balanced before you took over completely. You can use my tools to start with but then you'll need to buy your own.'

  'How long is this going to take?' Lydia asked.

  'The hoof wall generally takes a year to grow out from the coronet band down to the sole. If you're really diligent with your soaks and your walking, you might be able to have him sound in less.'

  'A year? I had no idea it would take so long,' Lydia said.

  Shelby watched the three of them. This consultation wasn't going as well as she had hoped. It was like Clint had said; Lydia and her father wanted the quick fix.

  'You're going to need regular visits from the vet too, because you'll want to medicate for the pain, at least initially.'

  'Bute?' asked Shelby.

  'It's a balancing act with bute. You don't want him to think he's better, and go running around like a goose and make the separation worse. At the same time you want to encourage movement for circulation. You don't want to give them any medications that are vasoconstrictors. Some people say they've had good results with cinnamon, although I believe it works better in other species. You could try it. It wouldn't do any harm.'

  'Cinnamon?' Lee asked, incredulously.

  'That's right,' Clint answered. 'Do you have any styrofoam? If you cut out some pads around the size of his feet you can duct-tape them on. It will provide some support to the bottom of his feet.'

  'I think we've got an old fruitbox in the back of the laundry cupboard,' Lydia said. She raced back to the house.

  When she came back the three of them watched while Clint trimmed the pony. He took a long time, letting the pony have frequent breaks.

  Chance was in obvious pain – obvious to Shelby, at least. She looked over at Lydia. Her face was pale again. She had her arms crossed. Lee was sitting on an overturned milk crate, still scowling, as though the pony's condition was Clint's fault.

  After Clint had done the front hooves Chance lay down. Clint trimmed the back two hooves while the horse lay on his side. Shelby had never seen that before, but Clint seemed to be quite comfortable with it.

  When he had finished Clint showed Lydia how to tape the styrofoam to Chance's feet.

  Chance didn't move. He lay on his side in the dirt. Lydia kneeled down next to him and put her cheek against his ribs, running her hand across his soft coat. Lydia did love the little pony. She didn't know what she was doing, but it wasn't because she didn't care.

  'Do we have to get him up?' Lydia asked.

  'No, he can rest if he wants to. When he does stand up he's going to feel much better. He's still got a long way to go.' Clint packed his rasps back into his toolbox. 'The most important thing is to determine the cause. You say you feed him grass and that's all? No sweeties? Even carrots and apples are quite high in sugars.'

  Lydia stood up. 'We don't give him anything else. Just grass,' she insisted.

  'Is it possible that toxins, pesticides or herbicides, can be washed down through your pasture from somewhere else? Maybe he's eating that? What did they used to grow on this land? Has it always been scrubby like this? Was it ever landfill?'

  Lee frowned.

  'I'm just saying, if you don't figure out what's giving him this founder then you're not going to ever make him better,' Clint finished.

  The two men shook hands and then Clint left to pack his tools away in the ute.

  Once he was around the corner of the house, Lee laughed. 'Cinnamon? Was he fair dinkum? I've never heard such a heap of claptrap in my life. I'm glad no one else can see those styrofoam shoes that horse is wearing. They look ridiculous!'

  Shelby thought about telling him that it didn't look as bad as being lame, but thought she better not say anything.

  Lee put his hands on his hips. 'All right, you can ring the vet.'

  Lydia smiled. 'Thanks, Daddy.'

  Shelby heard Clint's engine start. It was time to go.

  'A few thousand dollars. The stupid thing was supposed to save me money!' Lee shook his head.