Wednesday, December 6, 2017

ORPHANED

Mallory and Luna


My five-month-old foal is an orphan. 

On October 25, I had to put down her mother, Mallory. She was my 15-year-old Tennessee Walking Horse. I’m still reeling from the shock. I couldn’t write about it until now.

When I went to the barn to feed the critters that Wednesday morning, Mallory was lying down in the far pasture. She didn’t get up to eat. That’s always a bad sign.

Colic was uppermost in my mind. That’s a fancy name for a stomach ache, but it has many causes. If it were a simple impaction colic, a good poop would remove it. So I found my Banamine, which relieves pain and relaxes a horse, but couldn’t find any needles. Some emergency kit, huh?

My vet couldn’t get to me, so I took Mallory to him in Oneonta. I left Luna behind, fearing Mallory might try to lie down in the trailer and fall on her. It was the last Luna saw of her mother.

After parking and checking in, I walked Mallory until Dr. Whitley could see her. He gave her a shot of Banamine and listened to her heart. Its beat was elevated, He didn’t like what he found during the internal exam, either.  He recommended taking her to Coosa Valley Equine in Pell City. That didn’t sound good.

At Coosa Valley, an ultrasound and another internal exam determined her intestines were slightly out of place, The problem could be corrected through surgery. She had a 70 percent chance of going home…in two weeks.

I watched the procedure from an upstairs office window. It wasn’t a pretty sight, seeing your treasured mare upside down, tongue hanging out, legs propped in slings, her hind ones spread like a woman on a gynecologist’s table. I had to turn aside once they started fooling with her innards.

Within a few minutes, the vet who had examined her came upstairs. It was worse than originally suspected. They found a fatty lipoma that had strangulated the far end of the small intestine.  Eight to ten feet of tissue was dead. They could cut it out and re-attach it to the cecum, but the procedure carried an 85 percent chance of failure. Barring a miracle, euthanasia was my only option.

The clinic uses a potter’s field for burial. I couldn’t stand that idea. A vet tech gave me the card of a guy who brought Mallory home and buried her. It was dark by then, so he did the deed by floodlights.

I now have four horses and a goat buried in my woods. Pet Cemetery. Didn’t Stephen King write a horror novel by that name?

Luna spent the next few days pacing the fence line, whinnying. Fortuitously, I had put the rescued gelding, Chance,  in the same pasture as Mallory and Luna a couple of weeks earlier. When her mom didn’t return, Luna attached herself to Chance. I hadn’t planned on weaning her at three and a half months, though.

These past few weeks have been rough on both of us. An affectionate foal, Luna seems to crave my attention. I brush and hug her more, take her for walks in the woods, talk soothingly to her about how much we both miss her momma. I never see her running or cavorting any more. I’m thinking of buying another foal as a playmate. I bought a pony for my grandsons, but Luna hasn’t taken to him.

Mallory was a great horse and a good mother. She was calm, crossed bridges and streams on trail rides, rarely spooked and was so gentle I could put anyone on her. I had envisioned her dying of old age about the time I moved to a nursing home.

I’ve lost two horses, a beloved dog, a barn cat, a goat and four first cousins (humans) in the past 14 months. 

I don’t know how much more death I can take.












4 comments:

  1. I'm so sorry Elaine, Mallory was a beautiful horse.

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  2. I've very sorry for your loss, Elaine. It hurts so much to lose our pet friends, especially when they've been with us so long. My condolences.

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  3. Dang, I’m sorry to read about losing your buddy. We get attached to ours too and it’s always hard to let them go.
    Rick

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  4. Thanks for your condolences, guys. Luna is doing fine.

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