Sunday, June 5, 2011

Sorry it's been so long

I keep forgetting about this blog!

Anyway, I guess I'll pick up from where the last entry left off. Basically, the owner of the stable where my horse was living decided he didn't like me, and was an asshole. So I moved my horse closer to home. That fall, he suffered a bout of laminitis, and made a full recovery, although I learned an awful lot about insulin resistance, how grass makes sugar, laminitis, hoof structures, and corrective shoeing in the meantime. As an aside, if your horse gets laminitis, GET THE DAMN SHOES AND PADS. Shoeing isn't cruel, and my horse went from "barely walking" to "trotting and shoving me around" in the length of time it took to put them on his feet. He wasn't trotting sound, but he felt WAY better. It takes a full year for the hoof damage to grow out. Just shoe the horse. Don't make him suffer.

Anyways, remember the blog about when he slipped and I fell off? Turns out, that wasn't his hip, it was his stifle. It was ok for a long time, I was riding him again after he was comfortable and mostly over the laminitis, and all seemed well. Then he slipped again, not badly, but I'm no dummy! I wasn't taking any chances, and of course this also means he must have a problem.

I called an equine chiropractor, and she said that the problem was in his stifle (sort of like the knee on the back leg, but the joint looks closer to the hip if you're not familiar with equine body structure). She said that due to his age and muscle structure, adjusting him would be a waste of money, because he wouldn't hold the adjustment. She advised to retire him, as it wasn't safe to ride him, and could cause injury to him or his rider.

Now, around this same time, I noticed he was getting a little thin. He was getting plenty of good hay to eat, so this was a concern. The most common, and easiest to fix, reason a horse with otherwise good management loses weight is that his dewormer program has missed something and he's got some worms. So I took a fecal sample to my veterinarian, and they said the sample was clean and my deworming program was very good.

The next reason is usually uneven wear in the teeth. He was about due to have his teeth checked by an equine dentist so I scheduled an appointment. His teeth had a few points on them, a little bit of uneven wear. They needed some attention, but the dentist said the teeth were in no way bad enough to cause weight loss.

At this point I decided he must not be getting enough to eat after all, so I requested the barn owner to bring him in his stall at night so we would know how much hay he was eating, and to ensure that he wasn't spending too much time bossing the other horses around and not enough time eating. I also started him on soaked hay cubes (compressed hay cubes soaked in hot water until they are mushy) for extra food and also to increase his winter time water intake to help prevent colic. When the temps got around freezing, I started putting a heavy winter blanket on him to keep him warm and consere his calories. A warm horse isn't going to have to expend energy like a cold horse does in trying to warm up.

He seemed to hold steady on his weight for a while. I wasn't happy with his weight, but he didn't seem to be losing and I figured he would pick up again in the spring.

Well, the last bit of winter, he started losing again, and I noticed the muscle over his hindquarters was very quicky disappearing. I started him on Senior Feed, which is a horse feed developed for old horses who have trouble chewing enough hay to take in enough calories. It is a complete food, sort of like how we feed dogs and cats, where they can eat only that food and have everything they need for their health.

After going through a bag of the food, he was still slowly but steadily losing weight, muscle, and condition. He was also starting to sometimes seem unsure of where his hind feet were. I feared he may have a neurological condition, so for these two issues together, I called the vet.

My vet came out and in his examination ruled out a neurological condition, but was much more worried about the muscle loss. He was very frank with me, and said that between my horse's age (nearly 22) and other physical issues (the stifle problem), there probably wasn't much we could do. He said we could do some expensive blood tests to get a diagnosis, but most likely, old age was catching up with him, and his intestines were probably not working as efficiently as they used to. Even though he was being fed plenty of the proper foods, and the nutrition was there, his body simply wasn't extracting it from the food. And to make up for this, his body was using the fat and muscle for energy. His advice was to let him enjoy life for as long as he could, and then humanely euthanize him when the time came. He told me that I have taken excellent care of him, and that he was a lucky horse to have someone like me in his life.

That horse has been the center of my life for 3 years. He's been my best buddy. We've explored together, goofed around and had fun together. He's listened when I've needed someone to talk to, and let me cry on his mane when I needed someone to cry with. And that's what I did after the vet left. I went in his stall, put my arms around his neck, buried my face in his mane, and I cried.

But, when we love an animal, we have to do right by them. We have to put their needs in front of our wants. It's hard, it hurts, but it's what we do.

So, in the following couple of months, I just watched him. Is he still enjoying life? Does he seem to be hurting? He seemed fine. Aside from being thin, he was happy. He still bossed the other horses around (he's always been the boss). He still came to the gate and demanded his cookies and treats. He trotted across the pasture with his tail in the air.

But in May, he started slowing down. Rather abruptly, he stopped trotting and just slowly walked. He still had his great personality, but his body was definitely giving out. I started to worry that he may lie down at night and be unable to stand again. So, I made the decision to schedule the vet for the final visit.

I went to the barn every day (I'd moved him from the closer barn the previous summer, this one was further from my house) and spent time with him. The appointment was set for a Wednesday morning. On Tuesday, I was there in the evening. I brushed him, filled his water bucket, and fed him dinner.

The next morning I went with my family to the barn. When I went in his stall, the first thing I noticed was that he was still clean. He ALWAYS would lie down for a bit at night (it's a myth that horses "always sleep standing up." They do doze standing up, but must lie down in order to get REM sleep, deprivation of this sleep has the same effect on horses that it has on people), and in the process get dirt and shavings on his coat. So, he didn't lie down that night. I can only think that he had reached the point that he knew if he did lie down, he wouldn't have been able to stand again. So, I'd made the right choice at exactly the right time.

I'm going to describe the process of what happened now. So if that will bother you, don't read any further. However, everything went smoothly and as it is supposed to, so nothing bad happened.

We led him out to where the hole to bury him had been dug the previous day. There was knee-deep red clover growing there, and all he cared about was eating it. I also had a bunch of his favorite oatmeal cookies in my pocket and was giving them to him. The vet injected a tranquilizer to relax him. We waited until that had taken effect, and the vet injected the euthanasia solution. Immediately following the injection, he grabbed another bite of clover. Then, quickly, he staggered backward a bit, and fell over. His legs kicked out twice, and he was still.

I went to his head and was petting, talking to him, and crying. The vet checked for a heartbeat and there was none, and there was also no breathing. He checked for an eye reflex (touching the eyeball and seeing if there is a relexive blink) and there was a slight response. The vet said this doesn't necessarily indicate that there's any sort of consciousness from the horse. When the heart stops, there is oxygenated blood in the brain, which sustains reflexes for a short period of time. Within a minute, there was no longer a blink reflex. The vet helped me remove his halter (a horse's head is surprisingly heavy) and we left him, as the barn owner said he'd be by later to bury him.

So, my horse, my friend, is gone. He never won a ribbon or entered in a horse show, that wasn't his thing. He was a trail horse. He loved going out for trail rides. And he loved me. I came along when he needed a person to make him the #1 horse in her life. I loved him, I took care of him, and we were a team. Partners. I'm glad I could make his last 3 years happy. And while I didn't want him to go, I'm glad I could do it for him. I gave him the greatest gift a person can give an animal. I gave him a good life, and I helped him leave this world at the time that his body was going to start turning on him. At just the right time, I gave him a peaceful and dignified end. He passed away while chewing sweet clover and oatmeal cookies, his favorite thing. Goodbye, Old Man. I miss you already.