Jinxed

                                                by Laura Crum

            Well, after my last post about how the horses were doing well, but I was too lazy to ride, I decided to, you know, actually ride my horse. So we hauled over to the roping arena on Thursday and saddled up, and Sunny felt great. Trotted out freely and eager to go, loped a few laps in the big, freshly groomed arena feeling solid and strong, stopped in a nice, balanced frame. And then, after maybe ten minutes light riding, in which he was 100% sound, he stumbled, trotting down the long side of the arena. And was immediately dead lame in the left front.

            Well, OK then. Suddenly my horse is head bobbing lame at the walk. I tie him up, pick his feet—nothing. I look for damage—nothing other than a tiny, tiny spot where he “might” have stepped on himself. No blood. But he’s really lame. By the time we load up to go home three hours later, he’s still lame. But there is no swelling and no sign of trauma. Weird.

            I unload him at home and he’s still lame, but happy to eat some grass hay that I feed him, along with the other horses. Two hours later he’s still lame—and he’s colicked.

            I’m not kidding. Pawing the ground, won’t graze, looking at his side. I have no idea if the lameness and the colic are related, but I give him a dose of Banamine and call the vet. Twenty minutes later the vet has not called me back, but the Banamine has kicked in and Sunny seems normal. I put him back in his corral and feed him about 1/4 of what he normally gets.

            The vet finally calls back and says to call him again later if the pain comes back. I check Sunny at bedtime and midnight (when the drug is out of his system) and he seems fine. He is fine the next morning—and not noticeably lame, either.

            So…what was that all about? The horse has never colicked before that I know of. He’s not really a big baby, either. Three days later, he still seems absolutely normal, enjoying life like nothing ever happened. I just can’t figure the whole thing out, though I’m grateful he seems fine now. Jeez…

Insuring the future

By Gayle Carline

Down here in southern California, winter has been opening the door of summer and doing the Hokey Pokey. One step in, one step out, then in, then shake it all about. We get promises of torrential rains, followed by actual drizzles of less than a quarter of an inch. The temperatures dip from daytime 60s to daytime 90s within the same week.

You know what that means to a horse owner... colic weather.

Unlike that old wives' tale about cold weather causing colds (especially if you go outside with wet hair, apparently), colic weather is real. The sudden changes in temperature can cause changes in a horse's routine and eating habits.

Last year in March, we had a sudden, slightly warmer week. I went to get Snoopy out of his stall, and he didn't try to chew on the halter or lead rope or me. This was disturbing, as it was not natural behavior for him. Even worse, he wanted to lay down and bite at his stomach.

Turns out, he had quickly gotten dehydrated, and spent a week in the hospital getting fluids. The good news is that I have major medical and mortality insurance for him. The bad news is that this year, because he was treated for colic, his insurance company excluded colic from the list of coverable illnesses.

I'm now feeding him electrolytes every day and praying.

Last week, we had a little episode, where he had, basically, a twenty-minute gas bubble. He blogged about it here (Tummy Trouble), and my rebuttal is here (My side of the story). What both of us left out is the massive amount of prayers I was saying that would keep him from actually colicking. Technically, I have the money to have surgery, but it means dipping further into my retirement account than I'd like. Plus, I just don't want my horse in that much pain, or having to have an operation, etc.

Curiously, another horse in the barn did the same thing today. For twenty minutes, the little mare (her name is Pearl) wanted to lie down. She was being shod at the time, which made it awkward. They walked her around until she felt better. (She was also not fed and monitored closely.)

I've recently found an insurance company that will cover Snoopy for colic and I'm filling out the paperwork as quickly as possible. On the one hand, I hate paying insurance because I usually don't use it. On the other hand, I've used insurance more than once for Snoopy's medical bills, so he's totally worth it.

Any insurance stories you'd like to share? Colic stories? Jokes? Cute kitty video links?

A Strange Story

by Laura Crum

As those of you who have read my blog posts know, my son’s horse went to colic surgery last year to save his life. They removed a stone as big as a cantalope from Henry’s large intestine as well as about two gallons of sand (which he didn’t ingest here) and smaller stones. The date of this surgery was Jan 31st.

So last Sunday, Jan 31st, I’m thinking about the whole ordeal, which is indelibly impressed on my mind. The sleepless nights, the worry, the anxiety and tears. I’m feeling glad we made it through and Henry is back to being a riding horse. Then I go down to feed the horses in the evening. Guess what I found? Yep, Henry was colicked. Exactly one year later.

He wasn’t colicked in any extreme way—he’d been bright eyed and normal all day. But he wouldn’t eat his dinner and he kept trying to lie down; he wouldn’t graze and he kept on trying to lie down when I got him out. He stood camped out, looked at his sides, and was droopy and miserable. He was definitely colicked. The scary thing was that these were all the signs he ever showed when he had the colic that led to surgery. He never got real painful, he did not sweat or thrash or have an elevated heart rate or respiration. But for 48 hours, as soon as the current dose of banamine wore off, he went back to showing these minimal colic signs. Exactly what he was showing now.

OK, I admit it. I freaked. I simply couldn’t believe it was happening. I yelled at my husband to walk the horse while I called the vet. My husband gave me a look. It was getting dark, it was Sunday night, I know we were both having the same déjà vu.

“I don’t want to do this again,” my normally very sweet husband said. “Just call the guy with the backhoe.”

He was kidding, sort of.

I ran up to the house and called the vet (cellphones don’t work here) only to discover that (hard times all over) they had no on call vet Sunday night. Nifty. Now my choices were to adlib (give banamine paste myself and walk Henry) or call a vet I’d never used for a first time emergency call. My husband and I looked at each other.

“Or,” I said, and I knew he was thinking the same thing. “We could just haul him to the equine center now.”

“Lets,” he said. “Let them deal with it. It’ll be worth it.”

We both knew that by the time we had a ranch call, holiday charge, after hours charge, emergency charge, exam charge…etc, the cost would be almost the same as what the equine center would ding us. And at the equine center, somebody else would be checking on Henry all night long. And if his colic went the wrong way, they could hook him up to fluids. They had the drugs, the equpiment, the big clean stall, the crew of interns to observe and do the work. I’m not sure I would have made this choice with another horse in different circumstances, but neither my husband or I could face a rerun of the two sleepless nights that led up to Henry’s colic surgery. We loaded him up and hauled him one hour to the equine center and I kissed him on the nose and dropped him off.

Well, as fate would have it, they gave him the dose of banamine that I could have given, they watched him all night and called me in the morning and said he was fine. I picked him up the next day and so far he’s been fine. So I pretty much wasted the five hundred dollars it cost. Oh well, hindsight’s twenty twenty. At least my husband and I got some sleep.

So how weird is that? Henry just happens to colic exactly one year after the colic that led to surgery? Do horses have "anniversary reactions" like people do?

I have to say, there are moments when I almost wish I didn’t have any horses. How about you? Any strange stories to share?

Talk to the Animals

I have a question for you...Has anyone ever used an equine communicator? I have actually had a gal "talk," with our pony Monty and it was a pretty amazing "discussion."

Monty came into our family about a year and a half ago. He was fabulous. For seven months Monty was fabulous. My daughter took lessons from a wonderful teacher who is also a dear friend, but who is also a school teacher, so when she had to go back to her day job, she let us know that she had to back off of lessons and working with Monty. She was still able to do a couple of days a week, but I knew that with Monty being a new guy with us and with my daughter being small and although she'd been riding for a few years--she needed that extra attention. There was another trainer where we were at, at the time and I had watched him with some of the kids and thought he was pretty good with them, so I approached him.

Long story short--pony didn't like this guy. It wasn't long after they started working together that Monty had his first bout of colic, then Monty began to colic about every 3 weeks. Then he started doing things like bolting with his kid, and acting like a nervous wreck inside his stall. I started scratching my head wondering what the hell had happened to our fabulous pony?!?

My gut began talking to me, and my gut was saying there's something really wrong here. Monty colicked again, and at that point my vet looked at me and said, "Get him out of here, change everything about his program, or you might lose him."

There is so much more to the story, but it would be about ten pages long, so this is the short version.

Needless to say, I called up Terri (where we'd gotten Monty from, and she'd told me if there was ever any issue to bring him back and we'd figure it out). I told her the problem and within twenty-four hours we had the horses at her place.

Monty and Krissy have now been at Terri's for 9 months--and guess what? Not one colic, no silly pony shenanigans to really pique the fear factor for the kid or me.

So back to the equine communicator. This gal came to "talk" to the horses not long after we got up to Terri's. She had no prior knowledge of Monty and the issues. We told her we were concerned that Monty had had a tendency to get fast with his kid.

She wrapped her arms around the pony and after a few minutes looked at us and asked, "Who else rides him besides the little girl and Terri?" We said that I did and occasionally another working student (a young woman). The communicator said, "No. The man, who is the man?" She looked right at me and a shiver went down my spine. "You know who I'm talking about," she said. I nodded. "Yeah well, the pony doesn't like him and is afraid of him, and he has reasons to be." Now--there is still a lot more to this but for time sakes, I'll keep to the short version. Then she wrapped her arms back around him and asked all of us (my vet included here) to send him light and love and let him know how much he's loved. All of a sudden this lady begins sobbing. I mean--totally sobbing. We were all looking at each other... She apologized and explained that this happens about once a month with a horse. She told us that he had just let go of a ton of grief. That Monty never understood that he was anything more than a commodity. He never understood that he could be or was loved. Now maybe this sounds crazy to you, but this is what I can tell you happened afterward:

Up to this point Monty was never affectionate. He did his job but he never seemed happy. He didn't seem to care if his kid was there or not. He just did what he was supposed to do and that was that. The communicator told us to constantly talk to him and tell him how much he is loved and that he is now a part of a family and will always be a part of our family, because he had a fear that we weren't going to keep him. I did this with him for a week straight, and the most amazing thing happened after about a week. I was in the barn with him by myself and I took him off the cross-ties, and removed his halter to put the bridle on. All of a sudden, Monty just placed his head right in my chest and stomach. He just stayed like this with me for at least a minute or longer. Then he very gently (not pushy at all) rubbed his face on me--it was like when a cat rubs on you, not when my silly mare pushes me all over the place. I scratched him between his ears and told him hown special he is. And I swear he sighed. It was like this moment of true understanding for him--as if--"I get it. I'm part of the family." Since that day, as soon as he sees his kid or me, he jogs on over, he lets out a little nicker, he paws on the ground until we make it over to him, and it's obvious he feels like he is loved.

Both Monty and his kid are thriving together. He has been off his ulcer meds for two months now. He's fat and happy (maybe a little too fat), and he's settled.

Now I don't know your feelings on people who communicate with animals but I have to say that I am a total believer. I really believe that the lady who came and talked to Monty helped him and us a great deal, and I am really grateful for that.

Call me crazy or tell me if you've ever had anyone "talk" to or with your horses.

Have a great weekend,

Michele

Colic

By Laura Crum


All of us who own horses have dealt with colic. At least, all of us who’ve owned more than a few horses and for more than a few years. Colic is relatively common in horses, and by far the likeliest cause of death. And yet some of us skate through many years of happy horse ownership without ever facing that dreaded situation—the horse who is about to die of colic. I was one of those someones until five years ago. At that time I lost my great horse, Flanigan, to colic. Surgery was out of the question for Flanigan, because he had the pre-existing condition of a diaphragmatic hernia, diagnosed a year previously. So the decision to euthanize him came fairly easily, though it caused me much grief.

The next five years passed without another serious colic. My son’s horse, Henry, a reliable, bomb-proof mount, much loved by us all, had a couple of mild colics that resolved easily with a little banamine. And then…

Several weeks ago Henry had another mild colic. I treated him, but the symptoms returned. I had the vet out. We oiled Henry up, gave him fluids, more painkillers. But the symptoms returned. Henry was never very painful. His heart rate stayed normal. His breathing wasn’t much elevated. He wasn’t ever sweaty or distressed. He was merely uncomfortable. He looked at his sides. He stood camped out. He wouldn’t eat his hay. He wanted to lie down.

We spent thirty-six hours (and two sleepless nights) treating Henry. We walked him, we kept him from rolling, we gave him banamine and fluids. Every time the drugs wore off the symptoms came back. I cannot describe how helpless and depressed I felt. Henry is my son’s beloved horse. I desperately wanted him to get better. But he didn’t.

Early Friday morning, Jan 30th, we hauled Henry to the closest equine center, convinced that despite the apparent mildness of his symptoms, something was seriously wrong. At the equine center, X-rays showed what they said was a large pocket of “gravel” in Henry’s large intestine. Surgery was recommended. I stared at Henry, who still looked calm and relatively normal. Was this really a horse who needed surgery? The surgery is both expensive and also a danger in itself. 20% of horses that go through it have serious complications. I had no idea what the right choice was. In the end I asked the surgeon to look me in the eye and tell me what I should do.

He took off his sunglasses, met my eyes (pretty tear-filled by now, I will admit), and said “If he was my kid’s horse I’d operate on him right now. I wouldn’t wait.”

“Okay,” I said. And I left Henry there for colic surgery.

Do any of you know exactly what colic surgery entails? I didn’t. I do now. The vets at the surgery center explained the process to me very carefully. After lying the horse down, they open his belly, making an incision from belly button to near the sheath (in a gelding). Man, it’s a long cut.. Then they take the large intestine out of the horse’s body, drag it several feet away and open it up (This is to avoid contaminating the body cavity and the subsequent risk of peritonitis). In Henry’s case they found a section full of one gallon of black sand and small enteroliths (these are stones the horse makes in his gut—they looked like river rocks) ranging from two inches to one quarter inch in diameter. This is what they expected to find. But in the course of cleaning Henry’s large intestine out, they found another stone, in a place they hadn’t expected it, much further up the colon. They had to make a second incision to take this stone out. It was bigger than the biggest grapefruit you ever saw and weighs over fifteen pounds. I kid you not. It is on my desk as I type this.

While all this was going on, I was at home, alternately biting my fingernails, leaking tears, and trying to appear relatively normal for my son’s sake. Four hours later I got the call that Henry was coming out of the anesthetic, shaky, but okay…for now.

Henry stayed at the equine center for five days. The young vet who took care of him called me every day to let me know how he was doing. Henry, as she said, was a “rockstar of a patient”. He recovered smoothly, had a good attitude, was easy for them to handle. Our family visited him several times at the equine center and took him for walks. It cheered us all up to see how normal he looked, even just one day after his very major surgery. They showed us the bucket of sand and stones that came out of him and gave us the big stone to take home. It cheered me up to realize that I’d made the right decision. Henry would never have survived without surgery. It was his only chance.

I examined the bucket of “gravel” that was removed from our horse. The black sand never came from our property. There is no sand that looks like that here. We have owned Henry for a year and a half and my son has taken him on over one hundred rides. Three hour trail rides over many hills. Twenty minute loping sessions in the arena. Henry has always been sound. He had plenty of strength and air. He never showed the slightest sign of weakness. And yet Henry was packing that load of sand and stones, not to mention the big stone, on every single one of those rides. It boggles my mind.

After five days we were allowed to bring Henry home. He had a big “belly band” around his middle, supporting his incision and keeping it clean. He had to be fed four small meals a day. He had to be kept in a stall. He had to be hand walked for ten minutes two to three times a day and allowed to graze on green grass. I’ve been keeping quite busy with his care, especially since it has chosen to rain pretty much non-stop since I brought him home.

But I’m getting it done. Henry’s bandage stayed clean, he got his walks and meals and grazing. At his first re-check he was said to be healing well. He is still not out of the woods. He will have three months of rehab before he can return to normal use. We still have the risk of potential hernias and future colics to get through. But I am grateful we have come this far. We’ve given Henry a chance.

For any of you who ever face the same choice, I can only say that I’m glad I listened to the surgeon. I had Henry operated on before he was too far gone to save. I will be eternally thankful I made that decision.

Here’s to Henry…
Laura Crum

Know Thy Horse

I wrestled a bit with the title for today's blog. It was between "Wishing They Could Talk," and obviously I settled on "Know Thy Horse." I did so because I realize they're never going to be able to talk to us, but they do communicate with us. The key is being able to translate their specific language, and I believe each one of them has individual ways of communicating with us. Some nicker, some whinny, some kick up their heels and run like hell, etc.

Well, I didn't "listen" to my daughter's pony Mister Monty too well last weekend. Little Monty is a good guy. He takes great care of my little girl. He packs her around, is a good teacher, only gives her enough of a test when he feels she's ready, and he has one of the kindest eyes I have ever seen on a horse. He has an occasional buck in him, but never with the kid on him. He gets ridden six days a week and a turnout on the 7th. We do our best to keep him happy and so far I think it's working.

Last weekend though, my little one got up on him for Pony Club. hHe'd been ridden the evening before by her and the day before that by the trainer. He'd been out everyday, so none of us felt he needed lunging or a turn out.

Walk, trot around the ring was fine. He looked a bit strong but my daughter is a good little rider and none of us were concerned. And, then she had to canter...Mister Monty threw out a little buck and was faster than usual. The kid stayed on. The teacher had her bring him down and start over. This time, the pony let out a few good bucks. The kid still stayed on. I was scratching my head and so was her regular trainer. We were both about ready to tell the pony club instructor to bring Monty and my daughter out so the trainer could work with him, when the little rascal took off around the ring and pulled a full on bucking bronco act. This time the kid came off. We dusted her off, gave her a hug and were all relieved that she was fine. However, I had this feeling in my gut that said something was wrong with Monty. On the flip side of that feeling, I was pretty irritated with him that he dumped my little girl.

The trainer took the pony and my daughter into the round pin and they lunged him for quite some time as he bucked and ran and bucked like crazy. Then the trainer got on him and rode him for a bit. Then my daughter got back on him and by now he was a perfect gentleman. Yeah, well...this is the part I should have listened to my gut, and the pony. We get him cooled down and put away. About thirty minutes later, I go back in to get my horse out (she is stalled next to him), and Monty is panting and sweating. I took a listen on either side of his gut--and you probably know what I heard--nothing. Monty wasn't trying to be a nasty guy in the ring with his kid, he was colicking and trying to run away from his pain. He was trying to tell us that he felt miserable. Let me just say that I felt horrible and so did our trainer--really, really horrible. Thirty minutes later my vet was there oiling him. Thankfully, Monty was much, much better by the next morning, and he's completely back to his sweet self. I am, however, still feeling like a bad mom--and boy, have I learned my lesson: "If you're horse isn't acting like your horse, start asking questions."

I did tell Monty later, "I know you felt bad, but you have to find another way to tell us, rather than dumping your kid."

I'd love to hear from readers about their pet communicating experiences (they don't have to be about horses). I do think animals "talk" to us, but sometimes we don't really listen. I, for one, am going to work on my listening skills.