My horse is 26 and up until now has always acted like a young goofball. I've had her for 18 years.

Recently she had her first abscess in her hoof and was violently lame.  I followed my vet's advice and treated it the way you would typically treat an abscess.  After five days of soaking and Epsom salts and headaches, she appeared to be recovered even though we never saw the abscess come out.  On the tenth day with still no change, both my vet and my farrier recommended that I stop treatment; we all assumed it had resolved itself.

Although the abscess does appear to have resolved itself, Gazelle is still acting different.  There is still some residual soreness that is working itself out from the abscess, but to me that seems logical.  She is flatfooted and her shoe was off for over a week--she has to walk over a short distance of gravel to get to the arena.  The tenderness is most apparent when she walks across the gravel, and is improving daily.

She stands in the aisle normally, allows you to pick her other feet she will stand normally on the "bad" foot.  When picking out the foot that had the abscess and poking around, she does not flinch.

When in the arena (after getting across the gravel), she is not lame.  She is getting lunged regularly, and she walk/trot/canters with normal-appearing gait and freedom of movement.  She even spooks normally, and sprints away bucking sometimes.

She is eating normally, which for her is always the first red flag (if she doesn't eat there is something really wrong).  There have been no changes to her environment or turnout routine; the only change is she is getting worked more frequently (due to the abscess and wanting to keep bloodflow to the area).

But she's just . . . not right.  Normally when she's outside, she's the troublemaker that everyone hates.  She squeals and is perpetually in heat.  But now she's . . . mellow.

The mellowness is what is so odd to me; it's like she's "not in the mood."  Until recently, she's always been up for anything and rarin' to go.  And it makes me wonder: sometimes humans go through inexplicable bouts of just "not feeling like it." And there's nothing wrong, nothing you can do.  Sometimes there's more to the story, but for a lot of us we eventually just snap out of it.

So my question is:  Is it the same with horses?  Can a horse go through an inexplicable bout of the blues and come out on their own?  Or is there always a physiological explanation?

Since I've already consulted my vet, I guess I'm just looking for opinions.

Gazelle and me circa 1995

It didn't take 1 day to create.....it won't take 1 day to fix.