Today I’m having a day that makes me truly question the sanity of a person who owns horses.
This morning I had to take Prize back to the breeder. It is 3 hours round trip and in order to make it to work on time I have to be home and showered by 1:00 pm. So of course she refuses to stay in the trailer. She finally is settled 1 hour later than I wanted to leave (had to wait for the husband to help) and I’m frazzled.
Get her there and get home just in time to take a shower and leave for work. Get a call from the breeder this evening saying that she is definately NOT in heat. We know this because she is trying to kill the stallion. Great. Long technical explanation of why this may be but the bottom line is take her back in 2 weeks.
Then I get home late from a meeting after work and go to turn Spirit out. He’s down in his stall and refuses to get up. Down Spirit = sick Spirit. It is 10:00 PM. After a physical he has a low temperature, a fairly normal heart rate but he is breathing hard. Call horse vet with reinforcement drugs. As soon as I hang up from leaving a message, Spirit gets up and heads outside to graze. Acts like he doesn’t have a care in the world. I watch him graze for a while loose in the yard. Then he suddenly turns and heads back into his stall.
What is this about? He tends to feel more comfortable in his stall when he is sick. Is he really sick? He goes into his stall and checks his grain bucket. When he confirms that I have not in fact snuck some grain into his bucket while he was outside, he shoots me a nasty glare and comes back outside to graze. In fact he heads briskly off to the front yard causing me to have to chase after him and head him towards the back pasture instead. I stick Spirit in the pasture. I have to work at 8:00 AM for the reinforcement vet so if I have to pull him out of bed because Spirit decides to get sick again at 2:00 AM, everyone in the office is going to be cranky tomorrow!
