03/20/2017
So many folks who cared about Junior and us have inquired about what happened to cause us to have to put him down at the young age of 14. He had in fact, just turned 14 on March 4, I know because he shared a birthday with my mother. So, here it is. I've tried to do this all day and haven't been able to find the words, so this may be brief or it may end up being a book, but I wanted to share because I know there were so many that cared about him and you would like to know.
The most obvious signs of Junior's demise started 4 weeks ago this Thursday. When I went down to feed dinners, he presented with yellow mucous coming from his left nostril. I was texting back and forth with my vet and also with Junior's dentist because he had a tooth that we found back in September that we were concerned about. I had put him on a supplement that was recommended by his dentist that we were hoping could help his tooth from getting worse, but it was far up in his mouth and not something I could check myself. So, Friday morning I heard from Lee that the tooth in question was on the right side of J's mouth and I contacted my vet again.
She said there were a lot of sick horses with viruses this winter because of the great fluctuations in temperature that we had been experiencing and we agreed that he probably developed a sinus infection from being sick. I had mentioned a couple times to Maya the previous two weeks that he hadn't seemed himself and she had agreed.
So, that Friday afternoon I picked up an antibiotic called Uniprim for him and had also started giving him some Oregano and Thieves essential oils in his feed.
That weekend he seemed better and the mucous definitely wasn't as bad, but the temperatures were also above average and by Sunday night the temps went down again and lo and behold, Junior's mucous was running again like Niagara.
I called the vet's office that Sunday evening and left a message that the antibiotic wasn't working and asked them to call me Monday morning. Monday afternoon the fabulous Pat Balzer came to look at him for me and after one look and one smell, (OH I HAVEN'T MENTIONED THE SMELL YET, HAVE I?), she said that's an infected tooth. She said based on her knowledge and the inflammation he was presenting under his eye, she predicted it was 3 or 4.
Thus began the search to have his tooth removed. This part I am not going to get into much detail about. Frankly, I spent days and days on the phone trying to make this happen with someone I felt comfortable with. My dentist lives in Indiana, he could have done the surgery when he was passing through in April, but after seeing the digital radiographs he wanted Junior to have the surgery sooner than that. On a side note, I ask that you please don't comment below with surgical options I could have explored, because I can promise you I explored them all locally and was still in the process of attempting to work with one local facility that was dragging their feet. I don't want to turn this into a diatribe of who can do what. Honestly, I'm thankful he didn't go through the surgery and spend his final days trying to recuperate, because knowing now what I didn't know then, it would only have lessened the quality of what few days he had left.
So, in the interim of the tooth dilemma, he presented with more challenges. Two Fridays ago, he came in for breakfast with 3 patches of missing hair and was lame in his right front. Not hideously limping, but looking a little off. Honestly they had been running around playing that morning and it was good to see Junior participating for a change, so I figured he had fallen and scraped himself up a bit or hit a tree or the fence. There was snow on the ground, so I didn't expect him to be muddy and the placement of the patches being in the same area and all on the same side made me think he could have rubbed over some rocks. They weren't kick marks or bites, so that was all I could figure at the time. Over that weekend the tooth or what ended up being two teeth were my still my biggest concern. The smell of the pus coming from his nostril made me gag and I was constantly cleaning it out. I also put salve on his bare skin patches thinking they were minor boo boos and kept an eye on the lameness.
Monday morning when I went to the barn to feed breakfast he was dead lame. He wouldn't even come to the fence to eat, let alone down to the barn. So I took his feed up and held it for him to eat in the pasture, then took him water and hay. I had an electrician working in the house all day and kept an eye on him throughout the day from the house. I figured it was an abcsess and would have to be soaked, but I called and left the vet a message. She called me back and we agreed that I'd contact the farrier and have his shoes pulled so I could keep an eye on his foot because he had snow pads on. He did get himself down to his stall for dinner on Monday, but literally laid in his stall to eat. I sat and held his bucket for him and also noticed that his skin was getting worse. All through the weekend the little patches of missing hair were dry and didn't seem to be getting worse, but on Monday afternoon the one on his neck got red and top one on his shoulder started spreading. I mentioned this to Kelly when I spoke with her about his lameness. I did't know what mange was, but I was googling that and trying to figure out why all the sudden his skin was coming off with his hair.
Tuesday evening the farrier came and pulled Junior's shoes and we agreed that his coronary band was hot and had inflammation. He also took a little off the interior medial side of his hoof as it looked longer and he felt that may take off some pressure. He wanted me to soak it in epsom salt and warm water, which I added thieves and oregano to.
Wednesday he was moving around better and I felt we must have gotten to the bottom of his foot problem. The heat and inflammation in his coronary band was pretty much gone, he was walking around and grazing with the herd and eating more vigorously. Thursday morning he looked good too, but in the afternoon when I went down to feed dinners, he looked off in his left hind and when I saw it, thought maybe he had earlier also. At this point, you are seriously prioritizing. His skin also was really starting to worry me. It was falling off in droves and for the life of me, I couldn't figure out what was going on.
But, if you know Junior, you know he has fought skin problems for many years, so I didn't feel this was a cause for panic, but it was concerning to me that in winter, when he's usually getting a break from his allergies and hives and all the other skin problems he fought, they seemed to be coming back, IN MARCH! Still, my biggest focus was his infected teeth and sudden lameness. I had ruled out a fall and was starting to think there was some underlying situation. Skin problems, infected teeth and what we then thought was an abcsess, these are all situations that spell weak immune system and I was really starting to worry. All the while during these weeks, besides all my conversations with various vets, my farrier and dentist, I am also doing a ton of research on my own. I was giving him Oregano EO and Thieves blend to help his immune system and also started rubbing those into his coronary band fore. I was also washing his skin with Thieves household cleaner in a very mild solution, putting Melissa and Purification oils on and then topping that with Animal Scents Ointment. This protocol was the final one that I had been doing the last few days and seemed to help the most, but it was not the only one I had come up with. But still with each passing day he lost more and more hair.
Friday morning when I went to the barn to feed breakfast he had a raw bloody patch on his left hip. This was a new spot for the skin problem to present and it had never looked like this. I got everyone fed and started his skin protocol and when I began working on the hip I realized that the raw bloody patch was not from rubbing, the new skin under what was dying and coming off was raw and bloody. AND on this morning he was also starting to look REALLY off to me in the left hind. And we're still trying to find someone to take out the teeth! That week I made three phone calls to a local animal hospital and finally heard back from them on Friday. So, I called my vet's office again and asked them to call me. I heard back from them almost immediately and made arrangements for the wonderul Kelly Balzer to come and see Junior that afternoon. I also sent her a picture of his hip from that morning.
I spent the entire day at the barn with him, he was REALLY lame and by afternoon was shifting his weight from foot to foot. The places where his skin had already fallen off started getting a red rash, and of course, his nose is running like crazy and smelling like death. Cash, Betsy and I never left his side that entire day except for the two hours that I had our technology installer here because the internet in the house had gone down the night before. Junior spent the day in Rosie's stall with me loving on him, cleaning his skin and nose and Cash and Betsy stood outside the stall and wouldn't leave him. When I went up to the house, they all went down to the arena where they eat. I was encouraged that Junior went out.
So, after I got the girls off the bus, I headed back down to the barn to wait for Kelly to come. Melissa ended up going to her friend's which was such a blessing because she was able to stay there until all this was over. Unbeknownst to me, this would be the last full day of Junior's life. Kelly took one look at him and said she was quite certain that he was foundered, likely in all four feet, his temperature was 104, his skin was coming off, his teeth were infected and she suspected organ failure. We drew blood, which she tested and it showed he had no immune response to the fever. She also did x-rays of the two feet I felt were the worst and they both showed bad rotation of his coffin bones. She contacted me that evening with the results and recommended putting him down.
The rest is the rest. Saturday morning I fed him like I always do, all his supplements, medications, honey, all of it. I even let him lick the spoon. He always stood in the door of the feed room and watched me make their meals. He didn't want groomed at all, nor did he on Friday. He cringed when I attempted to curry and brush him, I think the fever was giving him aches and chills. At times, he would be shaking and his breathing was labored.
My neighbor Jake came up to dig his grave and couldn't get Mark's excavator started, so he had to go home and get his own. When he got to his house he found his own cat passed away and had to bury Zeigfreid. He made it back and got the site started and the vet pulled in. I got Junior's halter and Maya and her friend came out to say goodbye to him. Maya stayed with him the entire time and I'm so proud of her. It took both the vet pushing him and me pulling to get him down to where we had decided would be a nice flat and quiet place to lay him to rest. When the time came, she explained to us what would happen and then we all said another final goodbye. The rest of my herd was watching from the upper pasture and when he went over Betsy started calling him. She and Cash were at the fence and they both called and called him and then I believe they smelled his death and they went crazy. All three of them were running around, bucking, rearing and going crazy. I walked Maya and her friend up to the barn, hosed off Junior's halter and hung it on this stall.
At this point my dear, sweet friend Emily came up with some treats that she had made for Junior and she was SO sad that he was already gone. She and I had a good cry and then I took Cash down to say his goodbye. I took him first because he was really hyped up and I didn't want anyone getting hurt. It was VERY muddy here yesterday. Cash was so nervous going down and we had to be careful because of the slippery hills, but literally the second he saw our peaceful boy laying there, he put his nose on him and calmed right down. I gave him a couple minutes and then took him up to his stall and got Betsy. I left the gate open so little Rosie could just follow us. She's old and slow and I figured there would be no harm in just letting her come with us.
Well, I have no experience helping horses grieve a herd member's passing. I've lost too many of my 4-legged family members, but never a horse. Betsy is the rock of my herd. She's a rock star on the trail, never spooks and has a great head on her shoulders, so I figured she'd be pretty calm through all this. Rosie followed us from a little distance, but suddenly when we got down to where Junior was, she came cantering up behind us. All the while, as I was leading Betsy down the fence line, Cash had started calling out. So, I guess when he saw Rosie take off it was more than he could take and the next thing we knew, we had Rosie cantering towards us and Cash at a full-on gallop running up behind the both of them. In hind sight, leaving Cash in his stall wasn't the greatest idea ever, but after what he did, I think he'd probably have jumped the fence to get to us, so maybe it wasn't the worst idea either. So, here we are, Junior's earthly body laying on the ground next to his 10 foot deep grave, with the bucket from Jake's back hoe and my friend Emily the only two things blocking the deadly hole. Me standing there with Betsy, Rosie and Cash coming up behind. This is NOT a situation that you can panic or show one single second of doubt. In my mind my horse was going to get to us and stop and there was going to be NO moving his feet around once he got there. It occurred to me as he was running towards us that he was now associating this place with death and I was leading Betsy there, so maybe he thought she was next. Maybe I was right, maybe not, but I do know I was not about to handle any more sadness, injuries or grief. The past month has been rough, all this has been on top of the many issues we've had moving into a new house and a pool being built. So by shear will, my horses stopped dead in their tracks right behind Betsy, they all had a little sniff of Junior which seemed nice for them to all say goodbye together and then I turned them all around, got Betsy out ahead of Rosie and Cash and started walking back to the barn. They all followed nice and calm. Jake started the back hoe up and proceeded to bury my horse and my dear friend Emily stayed until he started to cover him up and then came back up to the barn to be with me and the horses. She said Jake even got down into Junior's grave with him and she made sure he made him look nice.
Emily's husband Jay stopped up to offer support and my friend Joey kept Melissa through all this. My Mom also came up and stayed with Maya so she wouldn't have to be alone when her friend left. We are all fighting our own quiet battles each and every day, and we all have blessings that we can focus on and my greatest blessings are the wonderful people that I have in my life. Losing Junior has been harder than I could have imagined. It all happened WAY too fast, a 14 year old horse shouldn't struggle to get through day after day and suffer as much as he did. I know I did the right thing, I will always wonder if there was some treatment out there that I missed over the last three years that could have helped him, but that will not keep me up at night. Missing him at the gate every day will keep me up, missing his knickers, his pinned ears, his stink eye, his beauty, his loving attitude, missing all of him, that will keep me up at night.
