Jac and Fred in their stalls — Jac, left, and Fred in their stalls

Back at the end of June I was working on a series about our travels in Italy. I still intend to finish that up, in case you’re wondering. But at the end of June, on a beautiful Sunday morning, my life as I knew it then was abruptly changed.

I was heading to help friends with a yard sale and as I drove out I noticed that one of my horses, a big bay named Fred, was standing outside of his pasture. I drove down to where he was and led him by his fly mask back to the pasture. When I got there I noticed that one of the lines of the fence was missing. I use electro-braid electric fencing, three strands, to keep them in. They are older geldings and used to this fencing so it’s not always “hot” and it wasn’t in this case. I then walked the line to find that strand and found it way out in the field; by this time I knew something wasn’t right and when I returned to the horses I noticed that my other gelding, a Paint horse named Jac, was standing still and his hind legs were covered in blood.

I haltered both horses and led them up to the barn, where I tied them up outside and started to clean them up, while also calling the vet. It took a little while, being Sunday morning, to get a response, but I did get one and, after sending some photos of the damage, was told the vet was on her way. The damage was a deep slice in the hind leg, deep enough to expose bone. It had stopped bleeding, which was good, and the rest of his legs were revealed to be fine, once the blood was washed away. An hour later the vet arrived and we spent the rest of the afternoon at the barn as she cleaned up the area and sewed the wound shut. She showed me how to bandage him, gave me a routine to follow and set me up with medication for him.

The following day I went to the barn to take care of both of them and I put Fred out in a nearby pasture. He was not happy about being separated from his friend, but I figured he would settle down in a few hours. Unfortunately, he did not. I was driving in to the office a few hours later when my neighbor called and said I needed to get home and to call the vet, that Fred was bleeding profusely. I turned around and headed home and found that Fred, in attempting to get back to his buddy Jac, had tried to push through a gate and had torn his shoulder to shreds. I really did not think he would live out the day. I was able to stop the bleeding and get him somewhat cleaned up as I waited for the vet to arrive.

Another day was spent at the barn, this time as the vet not only cleaned the wound, but then had to stitch it up in three layers - the muscle, the subcutaneous and then the skin. She put in a drain and showed me how to take care of that wound. No bandaging could be done however, due to the location of the wound. We figured that a heavy application of fly repellent around the wound would be the best while I ordered a covering meant for keeping braids, called a sleazy, in place to use to create a type of bandage. I was given different medication and a different routine for this horse’s care and told it would be a long time before we’d know how well he would recover.

At this point, I lost all free time. I would get up, make a cup of tea and one of coffee and walk to the barn. I’d pull one horse out and do the wound care, then clean his stall and paddock and then medicate and feed and return that horse and do the other one. For the month Fred was confined to his stall with no paddock access. That made for a very smelly and messy stall. Jac at least could walk outside and do his pooping and peeing out there. I also learned during this time that Jac was a rather neat horse, usually peeing in one spot and pooping outside his stall. Fred would wait until I had cleaned his stall and put down fresh shavings and then pee next to them (never on top of them). I found myself spending two to three hours in the morning at the barn, medicating, tending wounds and cleaning up. The evenings were shorter, usually only an hour, hour and a half, with only feeding and cleaning. But four hours out of every day was most of my free time; no more bicycling, no more crocheting, no more cooking. I would make breakfast most mornings, but dinner was all on Van. In fairness, he does most of the cooking anyway, but I usually help with things like the salad or vegetables. No more; I usually didn’t make it back from the barn until 8:00 PM and by then I was too tired to do anything.

The first couple of weeks were OK; I was tired, but I was game. As the weeks passed it got harder. My only break was when we sat down to eat dinner in front of the TV to watch one of the shows we like. I enjoyed the time I was spending with the horses when I was there and I soon started to listen to books while I was down there (ten minutes hosing a horse’s wound doesn’t sound like a long time until you have to do it every day, twice a day and the horse doesn’t like it either). But everything else was suffering - my work was very busy, but I couldn’t sit down to do anything until 10:00 AM, sometimes later; then I’d have to shower and drive somewhere - my office, a property to show it, a new listing to look at. I’d come home in the evening and change clothes and head back to the barn. And then there were the days that the bandaging I’d done that morning would need to be redone - either it had slipped or been damaged by the horse.

I started to have new appreciation for all kinds of little victories - at first, it was just a day that no other disaster had occurred; then it was the day that Fred could go out in his pen and do his toilet outside. Then there were the days that the medication ended and I no longer had to grind pills or force a giant syringe into a mouth twice a day (for a while it was two syringes twice a day). Then they both got to the point that their wounds didn’t need daily attention; my time at the barn went from three hours in the morning to two and sometimes only one and a half. The evenings got down to 45 minutes.

Bandaging Fred’s wound was a whole other adventure. First I used the sleazy with a piece of t-shirt material cut to size and safety pinned in place to keep the flies off. He also had the skin to help with that. But then, when they stitches were removed, so was that flap of skin as it had died. At that point he had a huge open wound. The vet put in stitch loops that I would use to hold a bandage in place covering the wound; this worked for a week or so until the wound started to itch and he rubbed off those stitches. I finally went online and found a very large, very expensive bandage that looks like a giant t-shirt that would cover the area.

Amazingly, Fred’s wound, which looked so much worse than Jac’s - much deeper and much more ragged, started to heal up nicely. Jac, on the other hand, seemed to stay the same. This necessitated x-rays, which revealed what looked like an infection near the bone (and a broken bone in that leg, a finy thin bone) and so that started another round of antibiotics. This, plus some manuka honey, seemed to finally get that healing process moving forward.

There is a problem keeping horses in stalls for weeks at a time. Just like a human who is forced to rest due to an injury, the horse gets out of shape, which can cause new injuries to happen. One evening as I was at the barn feeding, my nephew shot a buck and the gunshot spooked the horses who ran out of the barn into their paddocks. When Jac came back inside he was carrying his good hind leg and seemed unable to put any weight on it. I watched it, took photos, called the vet and waited. It never swelled up but he also could not set it down for more than a few seconds. The vet said to cold hose it, give him some bute and call in the morning with an update. Well, the next morning he was the same; the vet arrived around 9:15 AM and took some x-rays; nothing was broken, but it appeared that all of the ligaments around that hoof had been damaged. We talked about what care would look like, but with the other leg compromised and no guarantee that he would actually recover, combined with his being 25, we made the heartbreaking decision to have him put down.

Putting down an animal is never easy but at least with an animal who is older you usually have watched them go downhill and then you know when it’s time. The problem with horses is that everything else can be just fine but one leg; Jac was as full of life as ever, but horses cannot get by on three legs. It was a terrible shock to us and more heartbreaking because of all the time I had recently spent with him.

So, now I have only one horse. I was concerned about his mental health as horses are herd animals, but he seems to be doing fine. I go down twice a day, as before, only now I take him out for walks, both as a chance for him to get out of the stall for a while, but also to help him build up some muscle and get fit again. I hope his wound continues to heal as nicely as it has been and that in a few more weeks he won’t need the big t-shirt bandage and I’ll be able to put him out in a small pasture. Eventually, I hope he can go out in the large one where he can roam and hang out with the various deer and birds. Fred is also 25 but barring any more injuries, he is in good health and shape.

Horses and why I haven't been writing