Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Take the Picture Anyway.



In the past I have taken my horse out during their last few weeks to let them graze the better patches of grass. I stood and watched them, remembering our time together. I took photos, lots of photos and the odd short video of them grazing.

I decided to take a photo each day I took Brat out to graze this year. It's a record of the year, and also a challenge to not take the same photo over and over. Two weeks after I started I'm already feeling like I'm just taking the same photos. Yet I keep taking pictures.

Several years ago a friend and I did a photo day for our horses. She wanted a nice portrait shot to hang on her wall, and I was always up for taking photos of my two. The horses were good - not entirely cooperative all the time, but I kept taking pictures. Digital cameras are a wonderful invention! In the end the best photos of the day, the ones we had enlarged and printed on canvas, were not at all what we had in mind when we started. They were moments where the horses weren't posing the way we wanted, they were doing something else and I had continued to take pictures.

I remember that day's lesson every now and then. On the day this photo was taken I thought I had missed the light, took a few photos hoping one would be okay. Then the sun set, the last light of day came through under the clouds, and I took this picture.

Take the photos. Keep shooting even if you don't think it will turn out. You might just get something special.

Thursday, May 1, 2025

The Long Slow Build To Euthanasia Part 4



It's been three weeks since Brat got his Osphos injection, and two weeks after starting back on Previcox. The ground is drying up, despite the frequent rainy days. And in the last week spring has reached the tipping point as things begin to grow again.

Last week green started to appear in the fields of dry, brown grass. Seemingly overnight they turned more green than brown.  A few days ago I spotted the first pale green fuzz of new leaves on the willow trees that I drive past on my way to the barn. A couple of days ago there were a few more trees waving tiny green leaves in the woods along the road. In past years this was the time Brat's winter trace clip changed colour as the dark summer coat grew through the pale clipped areas.  I haven't clipped him in the last two winters as he hasn't been working hard enough to need it.  I kind of miss watching the clipped maple leaves on his shoulders disappear. 

We have had more very warm days than cold in the last week and Brat's breath rate has been higher than it should be. His lungs sound all right, leading me to conclude that he's just been too warm. So today I gave him an apron clip. I'll do more if necessary. I want him to be comfortable.

Comfortable and happy. The next six months may be all we have left.  While I hold that tiny hope for more, I don't want to miss out on what time we do have. The grass is growing, and I have started taking Brat out for a walk and half hour graze. I hope to take him out to graze every day (with as few exceptions as possible) during the next six months. Today we got wet.  I'm sure it won't be the last day we're standing in the rain while he picks out the best bits of green.

Thursday, April 17, 2025

The Long Slow Build To Euthanasia Part 3


There is always the question of when it's time. Barring an emergency situation, the question comes up again and again as health concerns appear. "Is it time?" and also "Is it really time?"

When the vet came for spring vaccinations I started the Osphos process. I also had Brat's teeth floated. He's been getting touch up floats twice a year for the last fifteen years, but this time I had a feeling there might be a problem. Sure enough there was an issue the float corrected. Within a couple of days Brat was much brighter and more interested in doing things with me.

Here's where the questions come again "Is it really time?" Was the tooth pain covering up the benefit of the oral supplement? Was the tooth pain sapping his energy to do anything? It's easy to say that a specific thing was the problem and the horse is fine now that's been looked after.

But that's not the case for Brat. He's more comfortable with the tooth looked after. His stifle, and all the related compensation strains are still causing him discomfort. I can see it in how he shifts his weight when standing in the barn. I see it in the care he takes standing up after a roll, the way he walks through the mud, and in the quick stop after a spring energy induced squeal and bounce. All the other concerns are still there, still valid.

I can hope the Osphos will allow him to strengthen that fragile stifle, but after two and a half years I don't think it's likely to get strong enough for another winter. I hope. Carefully and at arm's length, I hope for more time. In the mean time I take him out on a sunny day to hunt for the first green blades of spring, and I take photos as I enjoy watching him nibble.

Thursday, April 10, 2025

The Long Slow Build To Euthanasia - Part 2


For each of the three horses I have euthanized I knew in the spring that I wasn't going to ask them to go through another winter. Winter is a significant challenge for horses with mobility, strength or balance issues here. We cannot control the environment for a horse as much as we can for a dog. What do you think about when deciding if another winter is a bad idea?

This is the second part of the slow build to the euthanasia decision posts.

I am pretty sure that Brat's fragile stifle has been causing him pain that has increased over the last couple of months, and explains last spring's discomfort as well. Unstable or slippery footing forces him to use his body to stabilize his feet, straining the fragile stifle. In addition to the stifle issue, Brat's left knee is getting worse. As he bends the knee when lifting his foot, he is starting to move it to the outside instead of just straight. It is more obvious at the trot, but shows increasing discomfort in the joint.

So what can I do to help?

Brat lives outside all the time. Maybe keeping him inside at night would give him enough relief from the unstable footing to keep the fragile stifle from overworking. Unfortunately his PSSM requires as much movement as possible, and his heaves would be significantly affected by being inside that much.

His paddock has very little mud, but even a little bit of slippery surface mud makes him uncomfortable. He's already on daily Previcox as a base, arthritic pain management. I did keep him in studded boots when it was icy, however everything slips in spring mud.

Last fall the Osphos for his arthritis was in full effect and he was doing well. I was careful about the footing where we rode. Brat was moved to a new paddock and loads of wood chips were put down to cover and stabilize the mud. The ground froze earlier than the year before. I don't really have a sense of how much the Osphos affected his stifle because of all the changing factors.

I do know Osphos made him overall more comfortable and have decided to repeat the treatment. It's not the best time to do it as far as determining the effect on his stifle. The drug takes a month to show effects, and during that month the ground will be drying out and putting less strain on his stifle so I won't be able to say for sure what is making him feel better. He also needs to come off Previcox for the week before and the week after Osphos - not ideal when he's already very uncomfortable.

But. The sooner it's done, the sooner he gets the relief from the Osphos. If, big if because I don't know, if he's not going to see another winter I want his last months to be as comfortable as possible. Osphos now will get us to September or October (5-6 months). By which time I should have a better idea of how it's affecting his stifle, and how his knee is doing, giving me more information to make the decision.

As it stands right now, if nothing changes I can't let him suffer through another winter. We've got some things to try, and a lot can happen in six months. The foundation for the decision is there with a clear understanding of what I'm going to be looking for over the summer. Letting Brat go will be the most difficult thing I've ever had to do, but his quality of life is the priority.

Saturday, April 5, 2025

The Long Slow Build To Euthanasia - Part 1


I'm down to one horse now.  My third horse is the last of the four horses I have owned.  He's 27 this year, and the last couple of years have had some health challenges in addition to his long term issues of heaves, PSSM and PPID (aka Cushings).  These three are still well managed through a precarious balancing act of care, but it won't take much to bring the whole thing down. 

I started this blog years ago to provide some insight around making the decision to euthanize my horse, hoping that people who needed it would find some support as it wasn't something widely discussed at the time.  There is more discussion around quality of life these days.  There are also many more veterinary options for care, resulting in many more questions about how much we should do, and when should we say enough. It's not a decision made in a short period of time. Considering the factors, options, the individual horse, and our own situation occurs over a long period of time.  Barring some catastrophic emergency, the decision to euthanize builds slowly over weeks, or months, or sometimes years.

This is the first of several posts looking at that slow build.

Here I am again. It is spring, and I'm evaluating how my senior horse handled the winter. We have real winter here - snow, ice, and freezing temperatures for months. This creates problems for horses with mobility, strength, and balance issues. Brat has several mobility concerns.

On September 30, 2022 Brat injured his stifle. He spent the winter healing and was doing very well when we got over an inch of rain in one weekend late April 2023.  The rain turned the spring mud to sucking mud, and Brat tweaked his stifle again. Over the next year he went through periods of healing and setbacks, not helped by a series of abscesses that followed a bout of cellulitis. I couldn't tell if the lameness was caused by the stifle or an abscess.

In the summer of 2024, between abscesses, he was close to sound. I realized that he was less sound on days where the footing was a little slippery. After consulting with the vet, we decided that this was probably as good as the stifle was going to get, and some strengthening work would benefit.  Brat was feeling good as he happily went out for walking with a little bit of trot trail rides. It was during those rides that I noticed he was dragging his left front toe as he swung that foot forward. He was losing some range of motion in the left knee.

Xrays showed some very minor arthritis of the sort one would expect a 26 year old horse to have. The vet recommended Osphos as a whole body arthritis treatment as an alternative to just injecting the knee.  After doing some research I opted to try it.  Osphos takes a month to show effects, and it can be done every six months.  Brat got his Osphos injection in early August, and in September I felt he was more comfortable.  He did well through the fall, but in the new year I thought he was losing the benefit.

Five months out of something that can be done every six months, and takes a month to take effect seemed like a questionable benefit.  I talked to the vet about alternatives and ended up trialing an oral joint supplement for six weeks. I didn't see any benefits, and in the third week Brat walked away from me in the paddock twice. He usually comes unless the footing is bad or he's not feeling good, in which case he stands and waits for me to go to him.

Exercise is a critical part of the management for Brat's PSSM and heaves. He wasn't really interested in going for exercise walks, and I had to give a lot of encouragement to keep him moving at a reasonable pace. He was increasingly uncomfortable about picking up his hind feet, and standing in the barn - symptoms I had blamed on constant abscesses last spring. Now I begin to consider if perhaps it was, and is, the stifle.

Snow, ice and mud are not particularly stable footing. As last fall's rides showed, he is more uncomfortable when he must stabilize his feet with his body - specifically the fragile stifle.  I noticed increasing trouble in January, three months ago.  April is typically varying degrees of muddy, making a total of four months with a noticeable degree of pain. There will be mud, ice and snow again in the fall. The question looms large. Have we reached the end of the line?

Thursday, February 15, 2024

The Promise of "How Things Should Be"

 

Photo by Wendy Webb Photography

Very few of my best horse memories are of competitive events, but this one weekend with my fourth horse, Rory, was special. It was my favourite endurance ride, not that I'd done very many by then. It was the closest ride, and one for which I did a lot of pre-ride volunteering.


The previous ride had been my first attempt at doing two 25 mile rides in two days,  and I had pulled out halfway through the second day because Rory was tired. That had been a mostly flat ground ride, and as this one was in the big hills I thought two 25s would be too much that soon, but I wanted to do one. Plus there was a 13 mile night, training ride that I really wanted to do, and I wanted to ride both days.

I ended up entering the Saturday 12 mile Set Speed (which is graded based on time and final heart rate - no placings), Saturday night's 13 mile training ride, and Sunday's 12 mile Set Speed.

For Saturday's Set Speed I set a goal of achieving a Grade One finish. I rode alone, and my horse was super. Rory did everything right, and managed to pass the scary cows without dancing. As we approached the end of the second last field on the last loop, I heard thundering hooves behind us. I looked back and saw a loose horse cantering along. I decided to run down to the corner where the track went out of the field, dismount and turn to face the loose horse. Rory let me catch the loose horse and lead both back along the trail to where I found the rider (who had already dismounted before her horse bolted). Despite the delay, we got our Grade One finish.

The night training ride was a great experience. Rory was really good, and we traded off leading, following, and being tail with the other two riders. The loop used for the night ride shared trail with the loop I had ridden twice for the Set Speed earlier in the day. It was amazing how the horses went over the rough parts without a stumble or hesitation. I hadn't previously done much night riding with Rory, yet he took to it as if it were an everyday occurrence. As a training ride there was no grade or placing, but we did pass the vet with top marks.

Sunday I was the sponsor (responsible adult in Endurance) of a first time Junior rider. She was good company and eager to learn all she could. We had a good ride despite a rainy first loop. The sun came out for the second time round. Rory didn't put a foot wrong all day. 

This weekend is a special memory not because of the successes in each event,  but because Rory had had so many challenges in getting to the point of being capable of doing this sort of thing at all. It felt like we had finally got things figured out, our partnership was solid, and were ready to move forward. 

It was also the last competition we ever did. The wheels fell off for good a few months later, then the neurological diagnosis came the following year, specifically Wobblers six months after that, and euthanasia last fall. The promise of that weekend was never realized, and it remains a treasured memory of how things should have been. 

Saturday, January 13, 2024

The Limits of Veterinary Care



 There comes a time in a horse's life when the limits on veterinary care, both dollars and treatments, will change.  Depending on when you got the horse, this may occur more than once.

My super horse, Brat, has been with me since he was only a few days old. At one point when he was in his prime, I was going away for a few days, and I wrote care limit letters to my barn owners and vet for him and Tommy (the horse who inspired this blog).  The letters were to provide authorization for treatment in the event they couldn't reach me.  At that time Tommy was retired and at the point of pain management. His letter had a lower dollar amount and a "no hospital" directive. Brat's letter had a much higher dollar amount and permission to take him to the hospital if the odds favoured a good outcome.

Brat has a few well managed health issues, and is still in very good shape for his age. It's only in the last year that I've been seeing the indications that he is a senior horse. As much as I would like him to live for ever, we're at the point of having perhaps a handful of years left.

He colicked in December 2023.  A month ago, as I write this. I caught it early and had called the vet about an hour after he stopped eating. It seemed a fairly straight forward gas colic, and he hadn't had time to develop secondary issues like dehydration. But he was still uncomfortable ten hours later, and still showing the tension line of pain on his belly the next morning.  We had the vet out a second time, and I had to tell them that Brat was not a surgical candidate.  If he had to go to the vet hospital for treatment, we would be euthanizing him.

It was a heart stopping, gut wrenching realization that my Super Brat is no longer young.

As our horses age we learn manage the issues that develop.  It is easy to add one more little thing, and then another, until we have a carefully balanced house of cards.  As long as nothing upsets it, we can keep things going. Brat has three chronic health issues, and has been healing a stifle injury and reinjury for over a year. Stall rest would upset the management of two of his chronic issues, and not do the stifle any good either.

It is important to regularly assess our horse's management and health, and think not just about what our dollar limit is on emergency care, but also on how current health issues and management would be affected by various treatments. While not a pleasant task, it is easier than trying to make emotionally charged decisions in the middle of a crisis. Knowing those limitations can help with treatment during an emergency.  I had considered giving Brat some anti gas and waiting for an hour or so to see how he did, but because of his age and not being a surgical candidate, I decided to call the vet sooner than later.

We did get the colic resolved and cause addressed, and Brat is back to normal.  And I realize that it's past time to update his veterinary care authorization letter.