Sad News...

I've been slow to post an update because it's not good news about Belle.  She most likely has some form of cancer in or around her liver.  The new bloodwork came back showing almost exactly the same terrible levels as last time.  


Despite what seemed like an improvement in her eating.


Despite what seemed like an improvement in her demeanor.


Despite what seemed like an improvement in her energy.


Despite everything...our old girl is dying.  And it's hard to watch.  And it's hard to think about...


But one thing that helped to perk her up about 2 weeks ago was the arrival of Aeriel, my cousin's 21 year old Quarterhorse mare.

They are like two kindred spirits, these two.  They bonded immediately.  And they don't go anywhere without the other one.

In fact, the other day, I had let them both out in front of the barn, to the pastures there and behind the house to graze, as the grass is more lush there than the current state of our moisture deprived horse pastures.  

Aeriel had wandered off a bit in exploration and lost sight of Belle.

She was trotting around, calling out for Belle.  Then suddenly,  she heard Belle's returning whinny and went RUNNING over to her ;-)

Both were so happy to be reunited again!

They then proceeded to graze again, being sure the other was not far away.

Until Belle decided it was time to head on back up to the barn.

And Aeriel dutifully obeyed.

But I fear for Aeriel and how she will handle Belle's passing.  You see, the reason she came down here to live was because her only pasture mate of many many years passed away a few months ago.  And she's been very lonely.  

Oh I know she'll be fine.  She'll bond with one of my other eight horses (in fact, I've already picked out who I think she'll like to spend her time with) but I think she might be sad for awhile.   I've started turning her and Aeriel out with the other horses but when I go to check on everyone, Belle and Aeriel are off by themselves, grazing contentedly.

It will be another transition for Aeriel.  For all of us, really. And one I'm not looking forward to.  

In the meantime, we'll keep Belle as comfortable as possible, under misters and fans during the hot daytime hours, and turnout at night under the cool stars and moon.  And we'll wait for Belle to tell us when it's time to say goodbye...

Sweet Belle

Well, I have certainly been absent for awhile!  Hope to keep this more up to date!  Much has been happening on many fronts here so I'll try to catch up a little at a time...starting with our sweet Belle.

Belle is 26 years old now.  That's ancient in horse years. The median age for a horse is 22 so Belle has lived long past that point.  And up to this point, she's been doing pretty well despite the expected joint issues.  Oh.  And there was that fracturing of her tibia a few years ago.  Twice.  That required over 6 months of stall rest.  

But we she recovered!  And she's been enjoying her twilight years well.  Until about a month ago when my vet, who was out to give spring vaccinations, noticed she felt warm.  Turns out, she had a pretty good fever going.

We hit her good with a few different antibiotics.  But it didn't help.  Blood work showed her liver was failing and her neutrophils were out of this galaxy (a normal "high" reading is 8500, Belle's were at 50,000!!)  So we kicked it into high gear and started her on a strong, 2x a day broad based antibiotic.  

And I started to see some positive changes.  She had really dropped off in her grain ration.  Normally she was getting about 6-8 scoops but had dropped down to 2 scoops a day, if I was lucky.  The girl lost weight.  I had written off the drop in grain to the heat of the summer picking up, being turned out 24/7 instead of putting her in her stall at night, and just plain old age catching up.  And we were busy.  Bad thing to overlook.  Because trying to kill this infection, get that weight back on and stimulate her appetite has been a bugger!  So now that she was on this new drug, she was up to her regular grain amounts and instead of hanging out on the fence line, napping, she was wanting to go out with Tommy and hang in the pasture.

She seemed to be a little more perky too.  But then on a different day, she'd eat just a few scoops of grain and be a little more low-key.  So, it's been hard to know if these changes will be long lasting.

Tommy would like to know too.  Because Belle's not looking so great and I think he's a little worried.  

The vet was out today and took some more blood from Belle so we can check her levels again.  We feel like surely they must come back a bit better.  He thought she looked much better than last time.  

And oh yes, there was a "little" addition to the herd last week that has helped perk Belle up...she's found a kindred spirit.  But more on that later...

And say a prayer for Belle, if you think of her.  We'd like her around as long as the Lord wills it...

Project 365 Days 121-127

Day 121 - May 1

While this picture is blurry (still trying to learn my settings), I like how I caught Tommy running with all 4 feet in the air.  He's a little out of shape here but I love to see him run and play.

Day 122 - May 2

Here's dear old Belle.  She's 25 years old now and showing every year, unfortunately.  Her teeth are pretty much shot.  She's on an all grain/mush diet now and it's difficult to keep weight on her.  I fear for the winter.  But for now, she's happy and loves to graze on the back pastures (even though she doesn't ingest much of it).

Day 123 - May 3

Here's our cutie-patootie Amelia.  Ava's class had a field trip to this cute little zoo in Gainesville.  In front of the zoo is a nice, large playground that everyone had fun playing on when I caught this shot.

Day 124 - May 4

  

So today was the actual day of the field trip.  I snapped this picture of several of the animals at the zoo.  Can you spot the really wild animals in the mix?

Day 125 - May 5

This is one of our gorgeous sunrises, straight out of my camera.  I love how the water tower and the county courthouse are silhouetted so strongly on the horizon against the bright pink sky.

Day 126 - May 6

I was so excited to attend the Colt Starting seminar that Pat Parelli gave this weekend in Fort Worth.  Wow.  Did I learn a lot!  And most of it was just by sitting and observing the 8 or so of Pat's students work with about 16 different colts and how they started them.  Pat really broke it down in to a few simple steps and to see his students apply those with different horses was so educational!  There were some 'exciting' moments (as you can tell from this picture) but these were the most educational, in my opinion, because you started to learn what to do when things don't go as planned or hoped ;-)

Day 127 - May 7

The next day of the Colt Starting seminar had a sliver of time for Linda to come out and speak about horsenalities and how you sometimes change your methods based on your horse's personality.  She also was able to introduce two new horses - one which will most likely replace Remmer, her warmblood that she had to retire early this year due to an injury.  That's Hot Jazz on the left and Linda is riding West Point.  The girl riding Hot Jazz is Linda's "personal assistant" (for lack of a better term).  She gets to work side by side with Linda everyday, including helping her to exercise and train her horses.  If I were only 20 years younger...

Update on Belle

We had a little scare with Belle yesterday.  I went up to the barn in the morning and she was fine.  Had a lesson on Tommy and she still seemed fine.  Went down to the house for about 20 minutes and when I came back, she had slipped her halter off and looked as though she had rolled in her stall (which is very bad with her fractured tibia).  I put the halter back on after making sure her leg didn't seem worse.  She seemed fine so I got her grain and supplements ready and put it in her trough.  She didn't touch it.  That was when I become concerned.  Belle never leaves her grain. I hand walked her outside for awhile.  She put her nose to the grass and smelled but wouldn't eat. She tried to lay down while we were outside and I was becoming increasingly worried.  


I took her temp (96.5 degrees - low for horses) and checked her respiratory rate (25 breaths per minute - on the high side of normal) and decided to call the vet.  He felt concerned and that she was probably trying to colic.  No surprise based on how she was acting.  He told me to give her 10 cc's of banamine, take her outside in the sun to hand walk her, and make sure there was water nearby if she wanted to drink.  


After giving her the banamine, I hand walked her about 2 hours total.  (1 hour at first, another hour later in the day).  She drank a little but by 5 pm, still no bowel movements and she wasn't drinking much.  Called the vet again and he said to give her a dose of electrolytes that come in a syringe.  If she hadn't gone to the bathroom by 8, give her another 10 cc's of banamine.  Ran to the feed store and came back.  Gave her the dose at 6 pm, by 8 pm she had gone to the bathroom!  Success!  


So, I felt a little bit better about going to bed last night!  Although I did wake up at 2:30 and go up to check on her again.  She's still doing well this morning so she's on limited hay today and if everything is still going well, back to regular feeding tomorrow.  


As my vet said, the actual fracture isn't our biggest concern in a horse of Belle's age.  Founder and colic are big risks.  Being that we're only 1 week into her 6 week stall rest, I'm hoping the rest of the time is uneventful!!


Until next time...

Poor Belle

Belle is my 24 year-old Quarter Horse mare.  She was almost my first horse back in 2003 when I was looking.  Instead, I bought Tommy and few months later, my friend Lori bought Belle.  It was a great combination because Lori and I would take weekly riding lessons together as well as ride together during the week.  So, we also spent a lot of time with each others' horses!  At the end of 2006, Lori was looking to move up in her type of horse (by this time, Belle was 19 years old) but wanted to make sure Belle would go to a good home.  We only had Tommy and Butters at the time so I said, "Sell Belle to me!"  I knew she'd make a great 'husband horse', was calm, trustworthy, etc.  And that is how Belle came to live with us.  And she's been a wonderful addition to our herd ever since.  

So, that grand introduction is all leading up to what happened Sunday.  I came up to the barn Sunday morning to feed.  Everyone was in their stalls, waiting expectantly for breakfast.  I fed and we left for church.  We were gone most of the morning and into the afternoon so I didn't return to the barn until Sunday evening to feed dinner.  Belle was waiting in her stall and that was when I noticed her back right leg was swollen from her hoof all the way up to her hip!  You can see how large it is in comparison to the other leg!

Belle sometimes will stock up when standing in her stall overnight but she had been turned out and this was way beyond stocking up.  I knew something was wrong.  There were no obvious cuts, marks, sores, etc. but, Belle had something similar happen a few months ago when her front leg completely swelled up.  Vet came out, diagnosed it as cellulitis and put her on an antibiotic.  Within 24 hours, her leg was back to normal.  So, I was hoping it was the same situation here.  We decided to wait until morning to call the vet so I hosed her leg down with cold water, gave her bute, put an ice wrap on her leg, did everything I could to try and resolve it on my own. 

Monday morning, Belle was out in the pasture grazing (which was a good sign, I thought).  But as I watched her limp into the stall for breakfast, I realized she was the same.  So, even though I thought it was another case of cellulitis, I didn't want her to founder her good leg because she was putting all her weight on it.  I called my wonderful vet, Dr. Lampe who luckily, was nearby and at my barn within a few hours.  Upon examination, he noticed Belle seemed quite tender to the touch on the upper part of her leg.  He decided to take some x-rays to rule out a fractured leg.

That is Dr. Lampe holding the x-ray 'gun' on the left and my horse chiropractor, Kathy Lyons on the right holding the film that captures the image.  I had her appointment booked to work on Tommy and the gray thoroughbred for a few months and it happened to coincide with this event!  The great thing about Dr. Lampe is he is completely portable so I didn't have to trailer Belle into a vet's office for the x-rays, he did it right then and there!

Well, to my surprise, turns out Belle has a fractured tibia!  We have no idea how she did it; she was in a stall and turnout all by herself so we know no other horses were involved. And unfortunately, Belle is not telling us how she did it!  I guess the only good thing is she was down in weight a bit when this happened.  I was going to start upping her grain to get some fat on her for the coming winter but now I'm holding off a bit because the decrease in weight is actually better for her joints and especially for the back left leg (the good leg) which she is standing on all the time now.  The good news, my vet informed me, is that it could have been much worse.  There is no casting involved - just stall rest with some antibiotics and anti-inflammatory drugs.  The bad news is that stall rest is for 6 weeks.  And oh yeah, she can't lay down for fear that when she goes to stand up, she'll completely snap the bone.  Fun times.

So, to give her some mobility but keep her from laying down, we rigged this cable up in her stall and tied her now padded halter (to prevent chaffing and rubbing) to it.  She can walk around but can't get her head low enough to lay down.

Which sounds all nice and good except that she's pulled the cable down each night.  I'm not sure if she's been laying down or just trying to get to the far corner of her stall where there is another water source but I am now awake at night, worrying that she is laying down and that one of these times, she's going to stand up, snap her leg and I'm going to have to put her down! *sigh*  Oh Belle, could you puhleeze not break the cable anymore and just resign yourself to having to stand?  I would really like some more sleep ;-)

I talked with Dr. Lampe again yesterday to update him on Belle's condition and it seems she's coming along fine.  He did give me the go ahead to hand walk her to the pasture and let her graze.  This is a huge mental break for her.  So I did this as soon as we got off the phone and I was happy to see she's walking MUCH better and putting more weight on the bad leg.  This is important because on Monday, the farrier is coming to put a shoe and pad on the bad leg to help give her more cushion and support.  In order to do this, Belle obviously has to put all her weight on the bad leg so he can lift up the good leg to attach the pad and shoe.  We're not out of the woods yet but so far, so good!

Until next time...