Well I had just found myself emerging from a nearly 2 week funk when I think I'm thrown back in again. What sent me in was a horse. A horse we only had for 4 days. Two weeks ago, Mollie and I were outside all day. The 4-H boys had come over with their mom that morning to see the horses and everyone was fine. Later in the afternoon, when Mollie and I were walking down the driveway I noticed my horse come running down the field and snorting. I then looked over to see Prince (Jerry's horse) roll and then go to stand up, though it is no uncommon for them to roll, I did notice he had a tough time getting back up. He was sitting on his rear with his front legs out in front of him quivering. He got stood up walked 15 to 20 feet and fell over. I ran in the field, screaming over him to hopefully get him up while dialing the vet (line busy), friend vet (no answer), every horse friend I could think of (no answer),then Jerry to tell him to get home. Mollie was crying and I couldn't do anything to help this horse. This is a feeling I think I hate more than anything in the world. Helplessness. Such a vulnerable feeling. I then ran to the house and looked up the vet's other number, called and left a message and when I got back to Prince, Jerry was coming in the field and Prince was dead. We only had this horse 4 days but it really knocked the wind out of my sails. To see such a grand animal go down is heart breaking. I've always felt the larger the animal the harder the fall. When a chicken dies it doesn't have the same impact. The part that was the toughest for me was that my daughter watched it all. This 4 year old has had so much death in her young life, sometimes we worry what kind of an impact it will have. My little girl sat and cried with that dead horse for 30 minutes while my heart broke.
Well upon emerging from that gloom, our dog put us back in. Tinkerbell, our Great Dane, has been doing poorly for a while now. She had lost so much weight in the past 3 months and looked horrible. She was eating normally and getting around pretty well but in the past 3 days she started to just stand there and stare off in space at times. Yesterday afternoon she got really bad and acted like it was too uncomfortable to lay down. We watched her slowly head to the barn. Jerry went down a while later to check on her and found that she had fallen and was lying in the doorway of the stall. The decision was made, we couldn't let her continue to suffer. I feel for my husband, even though he's "a guy" it was hard to put put his dog down. I hate death.
Tinkerbell will always have a special place in our heart, from the funny story of going to look at her where Jerry looked at me with his puppy dog eyes and said "she's precious" to the dog that had the reputation as the smelliest dog in the world. We even nicknamed her "Tinkersmell". She was the most mellow puppy in the world, she never chewed anything up. She was hardly a puppy when we got her, she weighed 35 pounds at 9 weeks. We always joked that she was our "watch dog". If anyone drove up, she'd just watch! However if she was up she could look you straight in the eye through your car window. We had many a visitor that wouldn't get out of the vehicle because of her size. She was 125 lbs. in her prime, a mere 75 to 80 at the end.
How many tears have I cried for animals? These animals that bring us such joy come with a mighty price. I guess it's worth it though... "I could have missed the pain but I'd of had to miss the dance."
