Poor Shade

I think her cough is getting less severe but there is just something wrenching about hearing a horse cough when it is not just clearing a bit of dust out. I probably jumped the gun starting Sadie on Tucoprim after hearing just one cough from her but I don't think it will hurt her any. Knocking wood profusely I haven't heard any of the geldings coughing.

I am mixing cough free herbal powder with olive oil and then adding a bit of grape jelly behind it to give it to Shade since she wont eat it mixed with feed. Sunday I mixed the cough free with Gerber bananas and it was clumping and clogging in the syringe, the oil is working great to be able to syringe it. Thank goodness she is eating the Tucoprim with sweet feed, it would be getting painful if I had to syringe that as well but if I get "I wont eat that" in future I'll have to try mixing it with oil now that I stumbled on that idea, as I recall it was painful to get the tucoprim to dissolve in water last time I was syringing it.

I had emailed the RM that is only 40 minutes from me and has a ride on Oct 2 that I would come over and volunteer or be a floating crew for riders if she has plenty of volunteers. She replied that she'd love to have me ride if Shade got better but with the cough I've been hearing there is just no way I will do that. I am going to want to give her 2 weeks from the time the cough is completely gone before I start *light* riding to make sure I am not stressing lungs that haven't recovered yet.