Chuck/Steve

[paisjpq]

Originally Posted by Riot

You don't need a baseline of "normal" to use thermography."Baseline" is influenced by ambient environmental temperature, wind, the metabolic state of the horse, what substances are in the horses coat (shampoo, water, etc), how long ago the horse had a bath (cooled, heated, etc), drugs the horse is on or has taken recently, exercise (peripheral or superfical vasodilation), and many other factors.

Thus "normal" changes minute to minute, day to day, week to week.

Because thermography reads what is current at the time, it's best and most accurate use for injury detection and continued monitoring of injury in the horse is simply comparing what you are seeing now in a bilaterally symmetrical animal.

I'm not really sure how you can say that...obviously the temp of an animal will change over the course of the day, and in differing environments etc. but one can't just take a single picture (as referred to in the earlier post) and make a determination about the health or soundness of the horse overall. For example: my own horse always has one hot ankle...because he has sh*tty ankles....but that's normal for him. A person who has never seen the horse, looking at him one time would think perhaps that he had some new injury rather than decades of abuse.