Yesterday we had to put down my best friend and teacher of 12 years.
I can't even describe how heartbroken I've been for the past two days...I've finally gotten to the point where I can talk/think about it without immediately bursting out into tears, but I've been fighting routine all day(going out morning/evening to feed, going on rides, brushing/fussing over her in the afternoons, etc). Argh.
Yesterday when I went out to feed around 8:15 in the morning I noticed that Colletta was lying down in the paddock. That's not particularly unusual, because she's often sleeping or dozing at that time. The unusual part was where she didn't get up when I walked out to her, and I noticed that her eyes were so swollen and mud-caked that she couldn't see. So I ran back to the house, told Mom something was wrong, and ran back out to halter her up and get her to her feet.
When the vet arrived, he looked at her eyes and watched her general demeanor before saying that he thought that she seemed colicky, and that her eyes were swollen from rubbing dirt in them. By this point it was obvious that he was correct because she kept pawing the ground, trying to lay down, and looked very uncomfortable. So he pumped a gallon of mineral oil through a tube down her nose (made her nose bleed, poor thing), did a rectal exam, and gave her some pain meds to try to make her more comfortable. He also tried to do a saline drip, but couldn't get the needle to stay in the vein. (He was a young guy, and had only been working at the vet service for a few months, and was the only one on duty--I felt badly for him that he had to do it all alone especially when I don't think horses were his strong suit)
After he left we kept walking her and trying to keep her up--I had a chiropractic appointment at noon, so while I raced down to get that out of the way Mom kept her walking for me. As I was riding my bike home about 45 minutes later Mom called to tell me that Colletta had just gone down, and she couldn't get her back up.
When I came back into the yard she was lying down on her side in the yard, not even offering to pick her head up while Mom was pulling on the lead rope. I helped to roll her onto her chest (do you know how heavy a horse is that doesn't want to get up? Pretty dang heavy), and we called the vet again. He tried to put a saline drip in her vein, but from all the poking and prying he had done earlier the veins on both sides were pretty shot and he couldn't keep the needle in. So after some more poking and prying he gave up, and said that it was probably okay to let her lie down for a while but to not let her roll.
From 1 PM to 4:30 it was a constant battle: she would get up for a few minutes, walk slowly around, and stagger back down to lie on her side. Every time she went down her breathing would change to taking a breath, holding it, and then letting it out with a grunt. So I would sit down next to her head, try to keep her quiet, and whenever she rolled onto her chest to get momentum to roll over her back I would jump up and pull on the lead rope to try to keep her from rolling. This didn't always succeed, but it helped a little bit.
The time between the minutes on her feet grew longer and longer, and each time she got up she seemed weaker and weaker--to the point that after a few steps she would start staggering and drop to her knees. She would strain as well, like she was attempting to pass something but just couldn't. The whole time this all was happening the dog was circling and whining/barking with concern.
When Dad got home around 4:30 we all tried to get her up, and for a moment she seemed to rally: she got up and started walking, and seemed more purposeful for a few minutes. Dad was praying that she would 'have the biggest bowel movement in Illinois right now', and it really seemed like something would happen. The vet had already said that he would come out after his last appointments of the day, and a couple of minutes before he arrived she went down again onto her right side.
Before this point Mom and I had been talking, and we knew that we had to come to a decision sooner or later. The thing with colic is that one is never quite sure what causes it, and as a general term it can mean anything from 'gas' to 'blockage' to 'twisted bowel'. We have a feeling that it was a blockage (if it hadn't been, the mineral oil should have worked within a few hours, not taken over 9), and the only way to treat that is surgery. In order to have surgery, she would have had to have been taken to a university animal hospital, and I don't even know where the nearest one is to this area.
Anyway. Suffice to say, her groanings were getting worse, and she was trying more and more to roll the longer she would lie on the ground. The vet gave some faint offerings of hope in the form of surgery, but we already knew that that wasn't an option. She was in so much pain anyway that we couldn't get her to her feet at all, and we told him to do what he had to do.
He put her to sleep first (actual sleep) before the actual injection, and I held her head on my lap and stroked her face while he did it. Her eyes, after being swollen all day with no watery discharge, started tearing up and it looked like she was crying while he did it. (Lord knows we all were at this point) Even the dog was lying down about 20 feet away with his head on his paws and watching quietly.
We buried her out in the back pasture under a group of cottonwood trees--I'm eternally grateful to the excavator because he came out within 15 minutes of our calling and dug the hole well and quickly. I don't know if I could have slept with her lying out in the yard all alone.
I miss her terribly, as is to be expected, and to my consternation I actually spent some time tonight looking up 'horses for sale' ads online. Obviously I don't expect to get a horse again for some time, but gosh it's hard. I've been through more ups and downs, more friendships and teaching moments and lonely spots than I have with anyone else in my life. I can honestly say that she wasn't like any other horse I've ever known.
I'm just so glad that she didn't go alone, and that I was home from Colorado to see her for the last 10 days.
Anyway. Suffice to say, her groanings were getting worse, and she was trying more and more to roll the longer she would lie on the ground. The vet gave some faint offerings of hope in the form of surgery, but we already knew that that wasn't an option. She was in so much pain anyway that we couldn't get her to her feet at all, and we told him to do what he had to do.
He put her to sleep first (actual sleep) before the actual injection, and I held her head on my lap and stroked her face while he did it. Her eyes, after being swollen all day with no watery discharge, started tearing up and it looked like she was crying while he did it. (Lord knows we all were at this point) Even the dog was lying down about 20 feet away with his head on his paws and watching quietly.
We buried her out in the back pasture under a group of cottonwood trees--I'm eternally grateful to the excavator because he came out within 15 minutes of our calling and dug the hole well and quickly. I don't know if I could have slept with her lying out in the yard all alone.
I miss her terribly, as is to be expected, and to my consternation I actually spent some time tonight looking up 'horses for sale' ads online. Obviously I don't expect to get a horse again for some time, but gosh it's hard. I've been through more ups and downs, more friendships and teaching moments and lonely spots than I have with anyone else in my life. I can honestly say that she wasn't like any other horse I've ever known.
I'm just so glad that she didn't go alone, and that I was home from Colorado to see her for the last 10 days.
