Author: Elaine

At our house, it is rarely a good thing when the phone rings before 8:30 am on a Sunday.  This morning my trainer D called to say that Lily was down in her stall when she went out to feed breakfast to the horses, and that she had to beat Lily to get her to stand.  She led Lily out to the observation paddock and Lily went down again.  D had already called the vet’s paging service and wanted me at the barn as soon as I could get there.

I had been puttering around the house for a while but hadn’t fed the critters yet.  I dressed myself and fed in a rush, and was on the road within twenty minutes.

When I got there D was feeding the rest of the horses, and Lily was on her feet chewing slightly.  The gate to the arena was open so I knew the vet was expected. Lily nickered to me, but didn’t come over to the fence.  Her flanks were sucked in and looked rigid.  We looked at each other for a minute and she decided to lay down again.  I pulled up the mounting block and sat where I could watch her.  Watching sick horses is never as boring as you would hope it would be.

In the horse books of my youth, there was a great emphasis on walking colicky horses so they can’t roll and cause a twisted intestine.  Current thinking is that the rolling is a result of the pain of the twist, and not the cause.   I will walk a horse if it looks as though they may cut themselves, but generally leave a quiet horse alone if the vet is on the way.

About ten minutes after I sat down, Lily pushed to her feet, and started nosing around the vegetation in the paddock looking for something to eat.  I went into the paddock and put a halter on her, and led her to a patch of grass by the arena.  My trainer used to joke that you could tell when the vet got in the truck out of reach of the phone because the horse would start to recover.  In these days of cell phones, the horse seems to wait until the vet is within a mile or so of your place.  Sure enough, a few minutes after Lily started nibbling on grass, H pulled into the arena.  She was still slightly tucked through the flanks, but didn’t show signs of the rigidity I had seen earlier.

Lily’s vitals were fine.  Her gut sounds were close to normal.  She responded to being examined with her usual serenity, even looking around for a treat from H.  We had one problem when H tried to close off her nasal passages, and Lily started backing away and half-rearing.  I remembered belatedly that youthful dental problems had made Lily very worried about having her muzzle handled.  I had worked with her to get her over it when being handled by me and D, but the learning had never generalized to other people.  I placed my hand where the the vet had tried to close her nasal passages, and Lily stood quietly while I did so.  She also fussed when the vet tried to examine her gums, but was fine when I lifted her lip instead.  (I can’t decide if I am more impressed or unnerved at her trust in me.)

I trotted Lily in hand and briefly on the longe line so H could be sure it wasn’t an obscure lameness problem making her want to lie down.  We all admired how nice a mover she is.  (And I am in better shape than I was in the spring because I don’t think I could have trotted her in hand then.)

Vets are never happy when they can’t find a story they like.  However Lily had a lot of pseudo colic episodes when she was younger, and D and I finally decided that they were caused by hormonal problems.  We just could never get any of our vets to agree.  H agreed it might be that although it is late in the year for a mare to be cycling. We decided to treat her as though she did have a mild case of colic, .  This involves pain killers and over hydrating and underfeeding the horse until you are sure you aren’t dealing with an impaction colic.  It also involves keeping them under close observation for a day or so. 

Lily doesn’t think much of the underfeeding part of this plan, poor girl.