![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.1){kind=small}
I stopped at the grocery store because we had run out of horse treats on Sunday. You are right in thinking that the pet section in Giant does not stock horse treats, but the cookie isle has oatmeal raisin cookies. I got the good ones, Pepperidge Farms, because somehow I hoped really good treats would make the day easier.
It takes about forty minutes to drive out to the farm where we've boarding Jackson since we shipped him out here at the end of last winter. I remember the day he arrived, wooly from a cold Kansas winter. We had worried about how well he'd handle the trip across country but he walked off the semi and immediately started cropping the grass as if he hadn't a care in the world. The farm is very pretty, and after Jill and I walked him down to his new pasture we stopped and surveyed the idyllic scene of rolling hills, a pond, and horses scattered about, holding hands and content that this was good.
Things didn't start out well from the beginning though. Jackson had lived alone at Jill's parents house in a state of semi retirement for over ten years and with the exception of getting his leg caught in the fence and pulling down a quarter mile of it, tearing a palm sized section of hide away in the process, he had been a very easy keeper. I repaired the fence that summer and Jackson healed up quickly.
But after getting him off the trailer so well and his calm acceptance of his new pasture, our first trip out to visit him after we brought him here was very discouraging. We had wondered whether living by himself for so long would make it hard for him to reintegrate with other horses, but the reverse ended up being the problem. After spending a week with another horse Jackson developed such a separation anxiety that he would not be separated from the other horses. I've know Jackson for over 15 years, I used to work at the horse farm that Jill boarded him at In Kansas, and while he has had minor blow ups before they have always been riding related. His ground manners have always been superb, (Jill wouldn't have it any other way) so it was very alarming to have a semi wild animal to deal with after all this time. To keep everyone safe and at least keep a handle on the situation we kept them side by side that visit, chalked it up to "being somewhere new" and hoped that he would settle in and get over it.
It got worse. The next visit was just as discouraging, more so as Jill had hoped to ride and begin getting Jackson back in shape. We didn't bring him out here as a pet, Jill had planned on riding him a couple times a week to practice for her lessons. Jackson was never a jumper, and had no interest in becoming one now, but he would be great for walk-trot-canter, and so Jill could post and just get more saddle time than her one hour lesson each week allowed for. But when he was taken away from the other horses he would absolutely freak out, screaming, circling, breaking out into a muck sweat, it was terrible; especially as we've know this guy for the better part of our lives. I think Jill got him in her sophomore year of high school.
To go from a stolid fairly bullet proof quarter horse to this crazy snorting sweating wild eyed mustang was disheartening to say the least. We gave up any hope of riding that day, and just tried to establish some sort of calm control. After an hour or so of running in circles and screaming we finally reached a point where I at least felt we were getting some communication and left the ring on a moderate note.
The next time we decided to try and bring Austin (his pasture mate) with us. We didn't want to give in on this discipline issue but the idea was to get him used to working at this new place and then try to slowly but surely move the other horse away until he was confident working alone. With another horse nearby he was almost himself again, and that day Jill was able to ride and even enjoy the visit. We did several more visits like that, with Jill riding and me acting as a hitching post for another horse. As long as Jackson was within 25 yards of another horse (any horse as it turned out) he was fine. But if he lost sight of the other animal, or even thought he lost sight he would freak. It was extremely frustrating and more to the point it was dangerous. He never at anytime attempted to strike or bite, but a panicked horse is 1700 lbs of muscle and hoof that wants to get somewhere, anywhere, but here. More than once he would back into or circle into Jill and even if I could keep him still he would pace in place which is hardly conducive to grooming...
Our solution was to always keep another horse nearby. This is not a good solution for any number of reasons, and the problem was further aggravated by the fact that the horses he was pastured with belonged to people who used them and had no interest in taking Jackson along with them like a giant puppy anytime they wanted to ride their horses. When Jackson was left alone in his pasture he would gallop, a full gallop for all love, up and down his fence line until they came back. We would often arrive at the farm to find him lathered in a sweat and half dead from exhaustion coursing up and down his fence. He dropped so much weight in the first couple months he was here that we doubled his ration, then doubled it again. Part of that was a bad miscommunication between us and the farm owner as to what a "ration" amounted to but I believe that even with the full ration we had intended he would have dropped weight from all the freakout running he was doing.
Then he got hurt. I was in Kansas at the time working on Jills folks place so Jill had to try and deal with the whole mess by herself. We still don't know exactly what happened, unfortunately I don't think the farm owners were straight with us on this, but what I believe happened is during one of his freakouts he got caught in the fence wire and went down pretty hard. In addition to tearing away another palm sized piece of hide from his left rear leg he managed to get a deep puncture wound on his right rear leg. The injuries were bad enough that the vet counseled Jill on putting him down if it seemed like he wasn't able to walk well in a couple days.
Jackson is nothing if not tough however and in a couple days he seemed to be doing pretty well. His injuries required a ton of care and like I said Jill had to do it all by herself. The problem was he wasn't healing like he did before. I think the huge amount of stress he was putting himself under, being a couple hundred pounds under weight as well as just getting older (I think he was 36 this year) all contributed to his wounds just not healing. When I got back a month later they were not looking good at all. Jill says that they were much worse before, which I believe, but they were bad enough. With me home were able to get out more often and with the additional time and care they started to do better but were a continual source of concern this summer. The puncture wound especially as it was just above the fetlock and we were worried about infection in the joint.
However even though his leg was swollen he seemed like he was moving pretty well, and the vet thought that he would be ok. Unfortunately his injuries put an end to any thought of ridding until they were well on their way to healing. Through out the summer fall we kept up our visits to groom him and take care of his wounds, always having another horse nearby, and while Jill didn't get a chance to ride him we did enjoy going out and spending time with him. But his legs wouldn't heal. Seven months later while they were better, they were still a long way from healed.
A few months ago Jackson started coming up lame in his front left, and then last month when we went out to see him there was clearly something very wrong. I had dropped Jill off at the pasture gate to save her the long walk to and from the grooming area while I went and parked the truck. As I was walking out to meet here I say her waving and motioning me to hurry. I jogged over and saw that something was wrong. Jackson wouldn't raise his head and was staggering as I tried to lead him. We called the vet out and she gave him a pretty through going over. Of course by the time she got there he had stopped staggering, the most worrying symptom, but he was still acting stiff and she gave him a steroid injection. He seemed to perk up pretty well. A week later he came up lame again. Last week when were leading him up the hill from his pasture we saw how hard he was laboring just to make it up the hill and I think Jill realized that she would probably never ride him again.
We decided that winter was coming; and before there was another emergency or a hard winter with him already stressed and under weight we would put him down when we could arrange everything and do it right. We've never had to make such a hard decision, we've both seen folks keep horses way beyond the 'right' time but maybe Jackson would make it through the winter OK and the spring would be a chance for us to get him over his separation anxiety. Or maybe he would go down in the field this winter or slip on the ice during a freak out and break a leg. It was time. We made a special trip out on Sunday to have a nice long grooming session and so Jill could say good bye.
I got to the farm a half hour before I was supposed to meet the vet and walked down the hill to his pasture with a pocket full of cookies. It took me a while to find him, they were on the far side down in a little valley that I didn't even know was part of that pasture. We've been working hard this fall to get him away from the other horses. If there are two of us I can keep him relatively calm by constant attention and the judicious use of a chain in his halter. He does well for the first few minutes but gets steadily more agitated the longer he is away from the other horses so I was trying to time it so there would be the minimum amount of time standing around waiting. He was very happy with the cookies.
We walked up the long hill and I saw the vet waiting at the gate near my truck. Horses are amazingly sensitive to your emotions. If you are agitated they will pick up on it instantly so it's very important to project calm assurance at all times. I've had a lot of practice at this and I can do it even when a horse his freaking out inches away from my face, but I've never had to work harder on it than that walk up the hill. When we got up to her she told me that the hauling company truck was parked over by the riding arena. I led him over in a wide arc behind the trees to try and make sure that we were up wind of the truck in case we were not the first pickup of the day, and even if we were the truck itself would carry the sent. This is the only thing I wish we had done better, I should have had her do it where we were and then brought the truck to him.
He started to get agitated when we got closer to the truck. I couldn't smell anything but I bet he could. But it was also about the right time for him to start realizing that he was alone too so it might have been that. I circled him a few times and gave him another cookie. That seemed to help and he relaxed. I turned him around and walked away from the truck and told the vet to let me know when she had everything ready. She came over to where I was and gave him a good dose of tranqulizer. That really helped and when she was ready he walked over to where she was set up behind the truck without any concern. It was a beautiful late November day and I made sure we were standing in the warm sun. I held his head close while she got the big syringes ready. By this time his head was already getting heavy from the regular tranquilizer and he didn't even flinch when she but the big needle in.
It takes two big doses of tranquilizer to put them down, she was very quick and used a stint type needle so there wasn't even another jab when she changed syringes. After the first dose I could feel his head dropping and I think he was gone before the second dose was finished. She detached the needle and we stepped back as he went down within seconds. I knelt and held his head while she checked for a heartbeat with a stethoscope. After a few seconds she said "He's gone." but I knew already.
She got up to collect her things while I took his halter off then lifted his head for her so she could get the stint since he had fallen on that side. I had to go deal with the driver and pay which was hard. I was exhausted from projecting "calm assurance" with every fiber of my being and wished I had made other arrangements to pay.
I paid the driver, who was a nice guy, and thanked the vet. I could tell that she was trying not to cry which about did me in. She was great, very professional, and when we have horses again we will go back to her, but this is obviously hard for her. I wouldn't want a vet that could do this easily.
I knelt down again and laid my hand on his head and thanked him for being a good horse. Then gathered up the halter and walked away. I didn't want to see the work of getting him into the truck. It was only a couple hundred yards to my truck from the riding ring but it took a long time to get there. The empty halter in my hand was a heavy weight, and I stood by the fence and hung it on a post for a while. I looked out across the pastures and was glad that I couldn't see any horses from where I was. I tried to think of something, anything except what I had just done. I think we did it right; for him one moment he was eating cookies and getting a head scratch then he was really drowsy and then he was gone. I pray that I am so lucky when it's my time. But it was really hard to watch him go down, and to see him lying there on the ground so still.
It was quite a while before I was ready to drive home and I had to stop a couple times. It would hit me really hard several times for the rest of the day and I'd tear up again just like I am now but it's not so raw anymore. It's been a real hard week. It's not helped by begin very sick for two weeks prior and still not well but life is like this sometimes. I'm glad that we did it now, before winter on and on our own terms, but If I never have to do it again it will be too soon.
-Justus
good
calm
determined
contemplative
listless
tired
drained
infuriated
