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So when your horse goes from sound to lame, seemingly overnight, and not just a little lame—but toe-pointing, leg-dragging, melodramatic lameness—what are you supposed to think? In the absence of obvious heat and/or swelling in the joints, ligaments, and tendons, you might well have a horse with an abscessed foot.

This can present as dramatic lameness, with a very sudden onset. I'm not kidding when I say "dramatic," either. I know people who've hauled horses to the vet for a middle-of-the-night emergency call, because they were certain the horse had somehow broken a leg—only to find out the horse had an abscessed hoof, instead. If you do that with your own horse, prepare to be an extraordinarily good sport when the vet, interns, and techs you've dragged from their beds in the middle of the night snicker at you while they treat your horse.

So you go out to the pasture, and your horse is refusing to walk up and get his hay. He's toe-pointing, and non-weight-bearing on on leg . . . but he was just fine, a few hours ago. Once you ascertain that he hasn't been kicked by a pasture-buddy, the tendons and ligaments are cool and tight to the touch, none of the joints are hot or swollen on the affected leg, and there aren't any new joints and no bones poking out through his skin, it's time to suspect an abscess in the hoof.

There are a variety of causes for an abscess. Anything that compromises the sole of the foot—nail-punctures, bits of gravel or debris, improper trimming and shoeing, even a deep bruise—can result in this incredibly painful condition.

What do you do? The poor horse looks miserable, it's raining, and you're just not feeling up to performing exploratory surgery. If you go look it up on the Internet, you'll find a lot of contradictory and confusing advice: soak it, don't soak it, open the sole to let it drain, don't go digging around in the sole, get antibiotics for the horse, give him bute, don't give him bute, put him on stall rest, make him walk around . . .

If this is the first abscess you've had to deal with, first things first. Call your most horse-knowledgeable buddy, and ask them if they know anything about treating an abscess. Next, clean the entire hoof (sole, too) and leg. Check for visible punctures, bruises, and abrasions. When you look at the sole of the foot, look for black lines or pockets, especially where the sole meets the hoof-wall. Many times you can actually see where an abscess has formed.

Certainly, soaking the foot in warm epsom-salts water isn't going to do any harm, can help with the pain, and might help identify the problem area. Don't go poking around with a screwdriver or hoof-knife, though; leave that for your vet or your farrier, or your extremely knowledgeable friend/trainer whom you're willing to trust with your horse's future soundness. If your knowledgeable friend wants to poke around with a screwdriver, reconsider his or her participation and call your vet or farrier, instead; call whichever is most likely to be able to schedule your horse immediately.

Your farrier should be able to tell you whether or not you need a vet for a prescription for antibiotics, depending on how severe the abscess.

Regular hoof-care, regularly-scheduled trimming/shoeing, and keeping your horse's environment free of debris can all contribute to better overall hoof-health. If your pasture is muddy, try to find a way to bring in gravel or fill (hog-fuel is a Pacific Northwest favorite) so he's not standing in a constant environment of muddy bacterial soup. Keeping horses in a wet winter climate presents its own set of challenges and health risks. Fortunately, a bit of extra care goes a long way towards mitigating the adverse effects of the climate.

Next time: The Wild World of Scratches!

Well holy hell. Look whose back. After being involved in a myriad other projects, the members of Murder City Devils plan on a short, West Coast tour. The last I recall them touring – as opposed to just playing in Seattle sporadically – was in 2000. That might be off by a year or so. But it seems like a long time. And it is.

Out of everyone involved in MCD, Coady Willis may have maintained the highest profile drumming in Big Business as well as the Melvins. The future for those projects hasn’t been detailed as of yet, but each band member has a place on the new MCD website to blog. Maybe we’ll find out soon. Maybe not.

Either way, a decade seems like a great deal of time to transpire, but if Blur can do it, so can these folks. MCD just won’t be charging forty dollars for shows.

MCD somehow were able to incorporate a great deal of pissed off music into their songs. Swirling organ sounds can either recall ‘60s garage stompers of silly ‘90s danceable punk. It’s a mixed bag, but usually a pleasant one.

Their last studio release In Name and Blood, released 9 years ago, includes a few songs that don’t fit into either aforementioned category. There’s even a Neil Diamond cover – but you know what? It’s one of the strongest on the album. “I’ll Come Running,” is bit slower than the rest of the disc, but still focused on a tried and true rock trope – girls.

Dig the dates.

“You’re thirty years old and what do you have?”

“Nothing.”

“Is that what you want?”

"It gives me very little to worry about.”

Focusing on the inability of a group of men to obtain gainful employment during the (first) depression, the Goodis’ novel uses curt phases and direct, plain descriptions of scenes to explicate mood and intent.

Everything is spelled out, nothing is left vague. This isn’t necessarily a device only utilized by Goodis, but it does fit a broad description of pulp/crime/noir fiction coming out of the ‘40s.

Goodis would go on to work in Hollywood, as did many other authors of his generation. But any adaptation of his work – even with Bogart – was just that: an adaptation. Of course there are always arguments about what’s better? The book or the film?

The Blonde on the Street Corner won’t solve that question, but it does lend a very personal look at the live of friends, what they’re willing to do to have a good time, find a girl and make a buck.

Goodis’ work is rife with filmic descriptions of dark alley ways, people on street corners and debilitating, stifling work scenes. And in the economic times that we now live, perhaps his work will now ring true with readers. It’s odd reading about the struggles of men sixty plus years in the past and thinking that the agony depicted in these pages is again being played out in real life.

Even disregarding these real life applications of fiction to real life, Goodis provides clear prose, refuses to be wordy and is given to long descriptions of the female figure. Which all makes it somewhat surprising that this hasn’t become a film as of yet. At least we have Dark Passage, Don’t Shoot the Piano Player.