Poultice Patrol, Part One: "Which Aisle Has the Horse Diapers?"

First let me start off by stating that I am quite proud of the fact that I have never changed a diaper on a baby-- or on any other creature for that matter-- in my entire life. So the fact that I decided to place a diaper on my horse turned out to be a far more momentous occasion than I had foreseen.No, I didn't put a diaper on Wally's butt. I put it on his sore hoof.

One of my friends heard about Wally's brewing hoof abscess, and she asked, "Oh, are you using a diaper for the poultice?"

My response was along the lines of, "Huh?"

Turns out that a Huggies or a Pampers works quite well to hold a poultice in place temporarily. Problem is, you see, is that the person handling the disposable diaper must comprehend the proper application of the aforementioned Huggies or Pampers. I knew I was in trouble when I went to Target and was confronted with an entire wall of disposable diapers, all in different sizes, according to the weight of the baby. I stood there thinking, "How much does Wally's hoof weigh? Is it preemie size? Toddler size?"

Next, I was flabbergasted that I was expected to purchase 40 or 80 of these things. I grabbed a Target employee and asked her, "Don't these things come in a six-pack?"

She looked at me like I was insane. She said slowly, "No..."

Then she got an even weirder look on her face when I began to explain that, "I want these for my horse..."

About the time I figured Target security was scoping out the crazy lady in muck boots on Aisle 15, I simply smiled and said, "Never mind" and grabbed a bag of 40 diapers sized to fit a 12-15 pound baby. (Of course, that weight correlated to nothing in my experience, as I know next to nothing about babies, so I just imagined a 12-15 pound turkey and figured that was approximately the correct size).

Thus I went back to my parents' place where Wally is recuperating in rather lush surroundings. He seems to like being part of a herd, and the softer ground and lots of green grass is much to his liking. I'd say he's about 50% better, but there isn't any drainage yet. However, I can see a definite area on his outside heel bulb that looks about ripe to pop, so maybe we'll have the long awaited eruption o' pus in a few days. Meanwhile, please continue reading the blog post below, where I present my photo essay on the entire diaper debacle.