Making The Call

Like all owners of elderly horses, I've dreaded the day when I (1) find my horse dead, or (2) have to make the call for my vet to come and put my horse down.

A few days ago, I thought the day to make the The Call was upon me. My old mare Cupcake, who's had problems with hoof abscesses for a month, wasn't moving much on Monday. If fact, she was standing in the same place in the pasture where she'd been Sunday night. I'd fed her in the pasture on Sunday evening, and I carried her feed and water to her on Monday morning. At least, she was still eating. I came in and called the vet.

I had to attend a meeting in Rocky Mount later Monday morning, so I'd be near the vet's house. I figured on my way home I could stop by and pick up another tube of bute to ease Cupcake's pain. If I could get her walking again, maybe she'd bounce back.

But how much bouncing can a 29-year-old mare do? Nevertheless, I got her to take the bute.

But Tuesday morning, she still hadn't moved much, and she was standing with her right leg extended in front so it wouldn't have to bear weight.  She'd had two abscesses in her right front hoof, but finally they'd popped out the coronet band. She should have gotten better by now.

Hubby and I, figuring that the bute might kick in and she'd move, went to the grocery store. But when we returned, Cupcake was in the same spot. We figured—with rain in the prediction—she needed to be in her stall.

With hubby pulling the lead rope and me pushing Cupcake's hindquarters, the three of us inched our way down the hill to the run-in shed where Cupcake has a stall deeply bedded in pine shavings. On the way down, I noticed that the  back of her left front coronet band was oozing blood and gunk.

Hmmm. She'd apparently popped an abscess in the leg opposite the one that had been giving her trouble. Maybe she'd feel better now. In the stall, she soon dropped onto her side and went to sleep.

"Is she dead?" my husband asked. He went in to check. Cupcake raised her head. She was alive.

Tuesday night, she got up to eat her bute-laced pellets and drink water, but she was still pointing her right leg and not putting weight on it. I added plenty of hay to her stall so she'd have plenty to nosh on. I wondered if she'd make it through the night.

Wednesday morning, I could hear her nickering to me before I got to the barn. She wolfed her bute-enhanced breakfast and banged the stall gate to get out. I made a judgment call and let her out.
She limped past me—but faster than her usual limp.

Then I saw a copious amount of pus oozing from the front of her right coronary band and down her hoof. Another abscess—the Mount Vesuvius of hoof abscesses—had recently popped. I went to the house to get the stuff to clean her up.

Her hair obscures most of the abscess.
It had been cleaned, but the hoof is still stained.

When I returned, Cupcake was headed up the hill to where Melody was already gnawing on a round bale, but she paused briefly let me clean the foul-smelling and oozing abscess.

By afternoon, she was putting weight on her right leg and the oozing had stopped. Apparently this last abscess had been her problem.

She was up in the field when I did the evening feeding. I called her, and she came—slowly and awkwardly, but she made it in without any help. I filled her stall with hay and closed her in for the night.

I didn't have to make The Call.

~