Proud-Flesh on My Spotted Ass

I noticed a small area on my spotted ass Pacos face that was injured when playing with his pony pal Lightning. They sometimes enjoy playing kissie face and part of that game involves nipping. Pony like to nip Pacos face and this area was nipped and never given a chaance to heal as keeps getting "re-nipped" or rubbed off on a tree or a fence raiil., I gguess I should be happy to learn that this wound that wont heal is not a melanoma as I had feared, but only a simple case of proud-flesh. May have to seperate the two for awhile.

Proud Flesh and How to Prevent It

Your horse has a wound that just won't heal. It's filled with a wad of pink, fleshy tissue that seems to grow bigger every day. Uh-oh! Proud flesh - and it needs to be treated now.


What Proud Flesh Is: As your horse's wound begins to heal, pinkish granulation tissue fills in the gaps between soft tissues. Granulation tissue normally stops forming as the skin edges grow together to close the wound. But when healing doesn't go according to plan, the granulation tissue becomes exuberant-it keeps growing until it bulges above skin level, so newly formed skin can't grow over the wound. That's proud flesh.

When Proud Flesh happens: Proud flesh tends to form in wounds below your horse's knees and hocks, where there's little soft tissue between skin and bone, and where movement constantly tugs the wound's edges. It's most likely to occur in places with lots of movement, such as over joints, or when a complication, such as infection, slows healing.

How to prevent Proud Flesh: Minimize movement and prevent infection by taking the following steps.



Have your veterinarian suture the wound (if it can be sutured), as soon as possible. Call him or her for suture advice.


Bandage with a pressure wrap to help hold the wound's edges together.


Keep your horse as quiet as you can while the wound heals. When possible, stall rest may be best.


Follow your vet's advice for keeping the wound clean and covered, and administer antibiotics per his or her recommendations.

How to treat it: If proud flesh appears, this strategy will humble it.



Trim. Ask your vet to trim the tissue back to skin level, so your horse's skin can begin to grow across the wound. (Note: Proud flesh bleeds heavily when trimmed, but it has no nerves-so your horse won't feel pain.)


Wrap. Keep a pressure wrap on the wound to prevent the proud flesh from bulging above the skin again. This also helps to immobilize the wound, furthering the healing process.


Medicate. Ask your vet to recommend a topical cortisone preparation (often combined with an antibiotic). Cortisone slows the growth of granulation tissue and can even help shrink proud flesh.


Ask! Check with your vet before applying over-the-counter proud-flesh "remedies." Some are designed to cauterize, or burn the tissues. While this may make proud flesh appear smaller, it discourages the wound from healing properly.


Don't give up! If the proud flesh bulges again, it may need another trimming-and another, and another. Persist, and you'll win.

Barb Crabbe is an Oregon-based equine practitioner.

This article first appeared in the December, 2000 issue of Horse & Rider magazine.

Memories of Dads Last Christmas on Earth

Well eversince I learned THE TRUE story of the history or ORIGINS of Christmas and of the history of ALL RELIGIONS, I stopped celebrating individual holidays altogether and have determined in my new SECTARIANISM, to Celebrate Everyday AS IF it were our last....for it just very well MAY BE our last.

There was one exception and that was Christmas 07, when I spent the day at my parents house alone with them as mother and I helped father to Celebrate his last Christmas with us on earth. It was the most pitiful time of my life, sitting there in his tiny trailer-park bedroom, on the edge of his "hospice at home" deathbed where he lay for nearly 11 mo waiting to die from his heart disease (it was malnutrition that eventually got him) . It was only just the three of us, me, my mother and dying drugged up disoriented dad who (we) had chained to his hospital bed in hopes that he would die there peacefully in his sleep and not have a "traumatic event." This was my sisters idea, and she was the chief caregiver as she actually is/was a supervising geriatic nurse in a local nursing home. Perhaps that is why she was planning this course of immobility for my dad, as she works with death and dying everyday. Guess she knows the best way for a person to go is in their sleep and that is what she wanted for poor old dad. He just didnt go as quick as everyone thought. It is a different "ball-game" alltogether with heart patients on hospice. They are supposed to have a higher standard of care and the idea is to MAINTAIN functionality. Alas, due to sis's over-protectiveness of my father, whom I have NO DOUBT that she dearly loved and was trying to do her best for him, my father never got that higher standard of care but was instead treated as if an "end-day" cancer patient with "comfort care" given only. Despite having SEVEN brothers and sister in the neighborhood, I guess they all had other, more important things they had to be doing, other than spending my fathers last Christmas with him. The three of us celebrated alone together that day, but it wasent a joyous occasion. I sat on the edge of my fathers bed as he lay, propped up enough to be able to look out of the bedroom window at the snow that was gently falling. The three of us actually broke into song, as mother and I tried to FORCE SOME GAIETY into the room.

This is the ghost of my Christmas Past that shall haunt me for the rest of my days, but hey, at least I was there for him on his last day of Christmas on earth. RIP dad. You too mom. I hope the after-life was all that you had imagined it was, and that you (and dad) are now safe in your gods loving arms.