He had pulled his “Dying Routine” several times.
I always worried he’d do it once too often! Meaning that I would have taken the steps necessary to end his discomfort but he hadn’t really meant it!
He was an old horse.
He came when a youngster and had been with us for almost a quarter of a century. We had all grown up together.
He had taught us a lot. He let the little kids hang on as he cantered them around the ring.
But now his head hung down as he gazed at the ground.
He hadn’t eaten for several days. He suffered from a disease that required careful monitoring of his feed and medication and vet calls. Never overweight he was now skin and bones.
My heart was breaking as I looked at him.
A touchstone...
On previous occasions when a horse died (two were hit by a bolt of lightning, our old mare colicked, a stillborn foal, etc. etc.) we had the rendering truck come and pick up the bodies. But this time, with this horse, I thought it would be helpful to have a special place to go where we could think about all the horses who have been in our lives. A touchstone kind of place to heal.
At least that was the mindset I was in when I checked on my buddy in the corral that night. Because of his medical condition he had not been allowed to eat much grass because it had too much sugar in it. But I thought I would give him some now.
He devoured it.
I figured he didn’t have anything to lose and might as well die with a comfortable feeling in his stomach.
(I’ll remember this if I hear anyone telling me to eat anything I want!)
So I took him out into the “forbidden” pasture and let him graze for a few minutes.
A few hours later I did it again.
I gave him his meds by oral syringe but then he refused to eat again.
The next morning he looked just as bad but I took him to the pasture to graze again.
I updated the vet. We decided to see if he would start eating his special feed again.
Could he make it?
My point is that he had started looking better and I got suspicious that this “dying routine” of his was just the “same old - same old” pattern he had done before!
But one of these times I was afraid he would do it too long... and he’d have been “put down” before he wanted to go! There’s a lesson here - the old fable where the shepherd boy cried “Wolf!” when there wasn’t any wolf, just to get attention. But I didn’t know how to tell my horse the story!
A strange thing happened...
A few days later, after all the grandkids had visited him and he was still perky enough to know them, he did something unusual.
I was standing outside alone in the quiet of the evening and heard him whinny to me. I looked out at the pasture where I had put him and saw him looking at me. I don’t remember him ever doing that before.
As we stared at each other I knew he had called me. And what’s more... I had this thought as we looked at each other... “It’s time, Ol’ Buddy.”
And it was.
So he’s not feeling bad anymore... but I am.
