A little less colorful

Spot   2/4/1985 - 1/20/2013

Life is just a little less colorful . Brian gave me Spot as Valentines gift in 1988 , he has been with me more than 1/2 my life .  Spot was a joyful spirit that never let the pain he had effect his life . We first knew he had arthritis in 1988 by 1989 his hocks had fused but he had arthritic changes in his knees. He was able to be a riding horse comfortably until he was @17 . I retired him at that point  he was not lame but I had other younger horses to ride and he earned his retirement  . In the last year or two he started showing some discomfort so he was on the drug Adequan which helped . In October of last year he bowed a tendon . He loved to run and we kept him in a large pen so he could run as much as he wanted . It was a bad bow that healed slowly but was finally stable and he seemed sound on it . On Saturday I let him out and he ran,  while I watched him he blew out the tendon again and was barely weight bearing . I quickly medicated and iced it . Within a couple hours he was worse I had the Vet come x-ray to rule out a break . No broken bones but the tendon was swelling fast his knee was also swelling . The Vet thought he would be fine with aggressive treament and if he wasn't we could do injections etc.. At about 9:00 pm he went down he was on the largest dose of medication I could safely give him . I spoke with the Vet and she said if he was comfortable let him rest . By 10:30 I knew it was terribly bad it was already below 0 out and he could barely lift his head . I brought him warm water and tried to get him to eat some mash , he did both and it seemed to revive him a bit . I called the Vet again but something was wrong with their service and she never got my message . I stayed with him most of the night only going in when I was too cold to stay out . It was -5 and I kneeled by his head praying for him and praying for me to have the strength to make the right decision . At 5:00 am I gave him another dose of medication , treated his knee with the topical medication and unwrapped his leg . I wanted to give him a chance in case the rest overnight and the medication helped , it did not . I slept an hour Brian went to check him and he was standing , I did not wake Brian through the night I thought one of us should sleep . I told Brian what was going on he was stunned,  I called the Vet . She was also stunned at the level of his pain and gave some choices that were not truly possible including transporting him over an hour to the clinic for IV morphine , he couldn't stand at this point . In the end the kindest thing I could do was let him go , be pain free .

I don't remember what I did last week

January 21 - We ran 7 miles to try and run from our pain .

January 22- Another lameness another Vet call

January 23 - I walked the dogs @1/2 mile at Hidden Valley

January 24 - I ran 4 on the treamill 42:52 . I ran the last 1/4 pretty hard and nearly started crying thinking of Spot running Saturday morning before everything changed

I did not check the spelling or grammer and I may never , sorry