Guess the total! UPDATE

I found my vet receipt at the bottom of my purse today--it was $45 per horse for sedation and $80 for floating, or as he noted it "dress teeth". Transylvanian Horseman commented that his horses got their teeth rasped in Romania without sedation. I remember vets doing that when I was young, with big old metal files like I see laying in Handyman's tool box!

My vet used a Porter Cable electric drill with two foot stainless steel extension with a 2" (or smaller) sanding disk on the end. No rasps around here gang! I'm paying the big adult dollars for the full-meal deal! :)


Okay--vet came here (trip charge) to give annual vaccinations. I was glad to get them done with the mosquito increase that must be happening during this monsoon season. So he decided that they should both have their teeth floated. I wanted him to look at Reno's, since he is old and they didn't look at them last year. But Princess is only 8! Wondered some about that.

Sorry no pics--they didn't call before they arrived and we were running out to meet them. Not sure you'd have wanted to see it while eating your breakfast anyway.

After looking at Reno's dermatological issues, he decided he'd give him some iodide intravenously ($$!) and a shot of cortisone to try to kill off the itching for awhile and maybe work on whatever fungus it is from the inside out.

So, out came the tubing, the syringes, the electric drill with the 2' extension, the hoist, the mouth speculum (?) and whatnot. He was glad I had electricity. I was glad I had 350' of extension cord. He doped Reno up to the point the old boy was staggering and had to spread his back legs about 5' apart! At one point during the show, #1 noticed that he was standing on the front of his fetlock joint. The vet quickly ran over and corrected that, then flipped down his nose-bridging flashlight and went back at it.

The girls especially liked the giant stainless steel syringe that squirted water all the way to the back of the horse's mouth and drained back out full of hay gunk. The vet said they were "rinsing and spitting". I heard the assistant say that Reno was swallowing most of the water!

Anyway, we all got plenty of looks at the tongues that look like giant sea slugs and the sharp edges that had to go. Sure enough, even though Princess is relatively young, she had never been done and did need it. He said that young horses should be done regularly as their teeth are softer and more easily maintained.

We got Reno out of the run-in stall and propped him up against the wall in the single stall while we did Princess. Poor old guy, I was worried that he was just going to drop over. It was kind of disconcerting. But he recovered well. I stayed out filling water tanks and kept an eye on him. Within about an hour, he was noticing me walking behind him and finally pricked his ears up at the carrot-snapping sound.

I was glad to hear the vet say that he looked good and could actually cut back a little on all his foods. Yea! Food is love here at Netherfield. Belly up to the bar! There's more! This is America! (That's what I tell my kids when the whine about someone eating the last of something...this is America--there's always more!)

Soooooooo, the grand total...it is distressing to stand with your checkbook while the vet sits in his truck figuring and figuring and figuring. I figured he needed a calculator--can't believe he doesn't have a little laptop for all this. FINALLY, he gives me the damages--YIKES! More than a car payment and it's a good car!

Don't tell Handyman, but $577 in all. $80 per float (don't remember if that included the sedation or not.) I think he did give me a cut on the trip charge--$50 instead of $75. I hammered him with questions the whole time. Figure if I have to pay him to come, it's my time to find out everything I can.

His call on Princess' color?? He said something like "buckskin dun/palomino". I don't think that's a real color. He asked if she had Rocky Mountain Horse in her and I tried not to be insulted. Then he finished by saying, well, it's a good thing you don't have to register her. ;) #1 says Buckdunamino is a perfectly good color.