Another report of EHV-1 infection. This one is interesting because it comes out of the famed Churchill Downs in Louisville, KY. The Daily Racing Forum reports:

“The Kentucky Department of Agriculture quarantined barn 47 at Churchill Downs on Friday after a horse trained by David Carroll tested positive for equine herpesvirus (EHV1), a contagious, potentially fatal disease that can cause upper respiratory problems and loss of coordination.

Carroll said the horse, a 3-year-old he declined to identify, began showing neurological problems Thursday and was shipped to Hagyard Equine Medical Institute in Lexington. Tests taken revealed the presence of the virus Thursday evening. He said the horse is “going to be fine, make a complete recovery.”

Read more

Update: Remaining Horses In Quarantined Barn At Churchill Downs Test ‘Negative’ For Equine Herpes Virus

“Tests for the equine herpes virus (EHV-1) performed on 35 horses stabled in a Churchill Downs barn placed under a Kentucky Department of Agriculture quarantine have returned results that show no trace of the illness in any of those horses.”

Read more at churchilldowns.com.

The LA Times has published a number of amazing wildfire photo galleries:

• Day 4: A Glimmer of Hope
• Day 3: Southern California fires continue
• Day 2: Fires rage on
• Day 1: Fires erupt in Southern California

In the Day 2 gallery there’s a dramatic picture of horses threatened by approaching fire at a ranch in Hasley Canyon.

This surreal image on Flickr shows a horse in its pasture surrounded by fencing that has melted in the face of the fire’s heat. The image’s author also provides a nice discussion that offers some context on the events in California.

Horses threatened by the California wild fires in the Malibu area are finding refuge at Pierce College in Woodland Hills, CA. As of yesterday afternoon 120 horses had been sheltered. The facilities at Pierce College can accomadate 200 horses and additional shelters are being set up in Los Angeles County. Read a press release from Pierce College here.

Update: signonsandiego.com has a news story on the evacuation of horses from fire threatened areas: “By 9:30 a.m., the fairgrounds’ 2,400 stalls were full. Horse owners who didn’t make it had to look elsewhere: to friends and family with barns or land, to an evacuation site in Lakeside or stables in San Juan Capistrano, Thermal and Indio.” Read more…

You can find a video on the horses evacuated to the Del Mar Fairgrounds here (a commercial plays first and then the real video).

KPBS the NPR station in San Diego has put together a great map of fire affected areas. It includes a wealth of information on the fires including info on evacuation centers, animal evacuation centers, evacuation orders, and more.

I received this email from a MD friend living in San Diego:

“It was hard to concentrate on anything yesterday. 300,000 evacuees, many camped in our neighborhood I guess with family. Hundreds of homes burnt north, south and east of us. Rancho Bernardo, Rancho Santa Fe, Poway, Santee, Alpine, the wild animal park, horse farms (relocated to Del Mar, which was then evacuated along with Solana Beach). It’s expected to get worse for a few days. The burn unit here is at capacity and our backup hospitalist was called in to see patients evacuated from Pomerado Hospital. The sky is gray; there’s ash on our cars and my throat hurts. Since 1900, however, nothing as central as where we are has ever burned. Signonsandiego.com has maps that are useful and lots of places have satellite photos of the smoke.”

Update: NPR.org has a large number of news stories on the California fires. One story (link, click the listen button) talks about a woman who was able to evacuate all but one of her horses to the Del Mar Fairgrounds. She had to leave one horse behind in a fire ravaged area. Sadly, I can only imagine that such stories are not rare.

I received an email on the AAEP listserv about a doctor who found a bottle of “Spohn’s Compound” when cleaning his barn. I’m not clear exactly when this product was in use as I haven’t been able to find a date associated in my quick Google search. I did find that Spohn Medical Co. was operating at least around the turn of the century (1900). The bottle reads (emphasis mine):

For Horses, Mules, Dogs, and Poultry

Active ingredients: Sulphur (chemically combined with turpentine), Oil of Tar, Creosote, and Turpentine

Instructions: Fully grown or aged horses are to be given several tablespoonfuls 6 times per day, using a thin wooden paddle, placing as far back on the tongue as possible.

Indications: Stimulating Expectorant (as in last breath?)

Question: “I have two questions. The first question is regarding testing for Gastric Ulcers. I have been reading about the “Sucrose Permeability Test,” for a couple of years, but still haven’t heard of any (Local) vets offering this test in lieu of traditional endoscopy. I was wondering what the reason may be for this, since it sounds, easier, cheaper, and less stressful to the horse, as well as being accurate?

My next question is regarding Lyme disease. I was reading a hot debate on whether or not “Lyme” is caused by borrelia burgdorferi, and if we aren’t treating for a disease that at this time is still unproven to cause illness in horses. What’s your take on this idea? Then if you do treat for Lyme, what’s the best course of testing, treatment? I have also read that the “SNAP” test is very accurate, but again, haven’t heard any local Vets using this test.”

That’s a lot to tackle in a relatively short blog entry. I would direct you to an article I wrote on Lyme Disease previously (link) for some answers to your questions. The controversy surrounding the existence of Lyme is too complex to tackle here, at least right now. I will focus on your questions regarding testing — both for gastric ulcers and on the SNAP Lyme test.

There was a paper presented at the 2003 AAEP convention which discussed Sucrose Permeability Testing as an alternative to scoping a horse’s stomach for the diagnosis of gastric ulcers (link, PDF 116k). The paper found that horses with gastric ulceration, when given sucrose in high levels on a fasted stomach, have higher levels of sucrose in their urine versus horses with healthy stomachs.

There are a number of important points to know about this study and the suitability of Sucrose Permeability Testing for gastric ulcers in horses. 1) The study only looked at 13 horses. The researchers were only able to induce gastric ulceration in 11 of those horses. The study size is small and it may be unwise to draw broad conclusion on such a small sample size. 2) The study showed an 83% and 90% correlation between gastric ucleration and urine sucrose concentrations of .7 mg/ml and 1.0 mg/ml, respectively. These percentages represent a reasonably strong correlation, but also leave a lot of room for error. 3) The performance of Sucrose Permeability Testing requires a 24 hour period of fasting, the administration of sucrose via nasogastric intubation, and then the collection of urine form the horse via catheterization at time intervals post sucrose administration (2 hours and 4 hours in the study). In other words, the test cannot be performed by an owner, and is ideally suited to a controlled clinic (non-ambulatory) environment. The test is also more time consuming and as invasive as scoping and it may not even be cheaper than traditional scoping. 4) Scoping gives information about the state of the esophagus, sphincters, proximal small intestine and more information about the state of a horse’s stomach. I have scoped horses fitting the profile of a gastric ulcer afflicted horse to a T, only to find horrendous esophageal ulceration or congenital outflow problems in the pyloric sphincter and small intestine.

You can find a good, general and fairly technical discussion of Equine Gastric Ulcer Syndrome (EGUS) here (PDF 168k).

As for the Lyme test, you are referring to the IDEXX Laboratories SNAP 3Dx Test (link). The test is actually labeled for use in dogs, though I and other veterinarians have used it with good results in horses (i.e. I have seen good correlations between reported positive titers on the SNAP test and full ELISA titers performed by outside laboratories). I use the test to screen for the potential of Lyme infection. The test only looks for the presence of antibodies to the Lyme bacterium and cannot tell you if a horse does or does not have active Lyme infection. On a positive SNAP Test result I send the horse’s blood to an outside lab for a full ELISA titer and Western Blot.

If a horse is negative on the SNAP test it probably means that the horse does not have active infection with the Lyme bacterium. I have not found that the strength of color change on the SNAP test to be a good indicator of the strength of Lyme infection. I use the SNAP test as a reasonably reliable and inexpensive screening test, only.

Ok, this isn’t horse related at all. Stan has taken up residence at 483 Center Road. Tim & I don’t mind in the least. We expect him to be gone by the end of October. Take a look at more photos here.

Stan & Tulsa

Dr. Eggleston tells a simple story of how and when she decided to become a veterinarian. She was nine and at a family get together of mostly adults, her and her two brothers and a few cousins. An aunt asked her, in that condescending yet well-meaning way adults often talk to other people’s young children, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Aimee’s father, I can call her Aimee because I’m her husband and because I know her too well to call her Doctor, was at her side and answered for her: “She is going to be a veterinarian.”

It is unclear how Aimee’s father got the idea. To that point Aimee had never expressed the idea herself. But maybe seeing her daughter’s love of horses, growing stronger since her first pony ride at the age of five, and maybe because even then Aimee seemed a child of ability, the idea crystallized in his head.

When Aimee’s father spoke that word, “veterinarian,” the idea also crystallized in Aimee’s head. From that moment forward, she would answer the same way her father did, substituting 1st person for 2nd: “I am going to be a veterinarian.” I don’t know what it feels like to know the profession, the meaningful work of one’s adult years — as a child. But Aimee did and it started, in a real way, at age nine with her father’s pronouncement.

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On August 25, 2007, Australian government authorities reported an outbreak of equine influenza (EI). Prior to this outbreak only Australia, Iceland and New Zealand had never reported an occurrence of equine influenza. You can read a short report on the outbreak at the United States Department of Agriculture web site (here, PDF 129k).

A couple things… 1) Given the size of the Australian horse industry and given the prevalence of regional and international horse shipping, it is amazing that Australia hasn’t reported EI to this point. 2) Because Australia’s equine population has never been exposed to EI, the horses there have no built up immunity (based on vaccination or on natural exposure). Australia is importing large quantities of EI vaccine and vaccinating its equine population. It’s a long way to go, starting at 0. 3) The risk to your horse and mine, of course, is very low given that we’re half a world away. But it’s an interesting story (no EI to this point down under) and it’s still a good reminder to be mindful of infectious disease — to develop a holistic plan to combat infectious disease in your horse and facility.

The Quiet Corner’s Ride for the Cure is this weekend, September 30th. The ride supports the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. It is too late to register to ride, but you can still donate. You can do so through the Ride for the Cure web site or at the Susan G. Komen web site.

I recently received a call from a worried client. She had just fed Rusty, an aging and adorable Shetland Pony, his evening grain. Rusty dove into his grain, as usual, and my client went about a few chores. When she came back to check on Rusty, she found him standing in the corner, head low, neck stretched with foam and brown discharge coming from his nostrils and mouth. Rusty had only finished half his grain and he kept arching his neck and coughing. He looked like he was trying to throw up.

Rusty was choking.

I have seen a number of horses for choke in the past month. Most horse owners know immediately when their horse is choking but sometimes owners are unsure of what is happening to their horse — and of what to do next. Because choke can lead to serious, even life-threatening, complications in a horse, it is important to understand the signs of choke, and what to do (and not do) in the face of a choking horse.

Choke, also known as esophageal obstruction, can happen to any horse at any time — though certain horses can be more likely to choke. Horses that “bolt” their grain or hay, like the stereotypical overzealous pony, may be prone to choke. Horses having poor dentition (often older horses) may also be prone to choke, as they are less able to break down their feed.

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