Scout is fairly young, ballpark of about 7 going by his teeth and my basic knowledge of aging + his rabies tag from a year ago(which, BTW, also had him as a stallion, so who knows exactly. As the stallion goes, Scout is pretty darn quiet to have been gelded in the last year...), so I don't think its missing teeth. I was at a clinic a few years ago, one of the speakers was an equine dentist, the go-to-guy in my area for horsey dental issues. He recommended trying to wiggle the horse's jaw (one hand on the bridge of the horse's nose, the other on his chin, and try to move his lower jaw) to get an idea of the shape of their teeth. If the jaw moves, there probably aren't any major problems. I tried this trick, and Scout's jaws slide easily forward and backward, left and right. I live in the middle of nowhere, and farm calls are expensive for the dentist to come out and say "looks fine, call me back in six months, $50 please." Are there other ways to get a better idea of the shape of his teeth without the tools to hold his mouth open? He isn't dropping feed at all, and he hasn't been gapping his mouth or evading the bit, just a minimal amount of sucking and chewing on the copper snaffle mouthpiece, when I ride. The dipping has even diminished in the last couple of days. My mom had a thought that maybe he just likes the water. He had it rough over at least the year before I bought him, not abused so much as neglected. Could he just be checking to see that there is water available? We have an indoor cat who was a rescue and she has some weird water habits. She spent three days in a locked apartment with no food or water, abandoned by the owner. For years she drank out of the toilet, sat by the bathroom sink and cried to have the faucet turned on, and pawed the water in her dish before drinking. Could Scout be doing something similar? Wow, that got long!Thank you all so much!
