The Trip to the Vet

Part 1


By late Saturday evening we were already seeing some response from the antibiotics and banamine that had been administered to Solidare's colt. He was moving around more and seemed to be showing some interest in food. By morning the colt was actually putting a little weight on that leg and was definitely serious about his chow.

The vet called first thing in the morning checking on his patient. He had a surgery scheduled for that morning and another emergency looming. Once he was done with that, the plan was to examine this colt again and run more tests so we hung out just waiting for his call.

When it came, I tried to load the colt into the trailer but he was having none of it. I could get his front feet in but no way were the back ones following. This colt has had very little work done with him on leading so that can make loading tough. I decided it would be much easier to take Dare along with us down to the vet.

Dare always loads like a champ but she wasn't sure what to think about being tied in the trailer with the colt still outside. She yelled in Dave's ear protesting being tied but I didn't want to ask the colt to load until the partition for Dare was locked into place. Poor Dave had his hands full as Dare tried to push his hand away from snapping the trailer tie onto her halter. She was clearly trying to get him to see she needed her baby.

Once the panel was closed on Dare I asked Solidare's colt to go into the trailer again. He wasn't really sure what to think until Dare called him. Then he put his front feet up and looked at me before looking back at her and jumping the rest of the way into the trailer.

Since I've not worked much on leading with the colt, he's not all that comfortable with giving to pressure yet. Sometimes he fights it and other times he gives. With a combination like that I didn't want to even think about tying him. Instead I rode in the back of the horse trailer with him holding him and helping him along the bumpy ride.

I have ridden in the back of horse trailers before but never in mine. I rode with the twins all the way to Pilchuck Equine Hospital in Snohomish which was close to a two hour trip. This trip was only about five minutes down the road but a bumpy 5 minutes and a very noisy one. I couldn't believe the difference in noise in my steel slant load over the aluminum trailer we'd made the trip to Snohomish in.

Mental note to self: if the horse market ever does get turned around and I get some horses sold, it's time to invest in an aluminum trailer. I can't believe my poor horses have to put of with that much noise to ride in my horse trailer. YUCK!

The trip to the vet's from here might be short but it's steep. Webster hill is much like the twisting windy climbs of some mountain passes I've hauled on. I'd given Dave instructions on how to navigate that hill because I didn't want this colt falling because of a rocky ride.

I braced myself against the wall for the worst part of the trip. The colt with his four legs fared much better than me. Even with all the clatter he stayed calm and even softened his eye and licked his lips after just getting onto the road. As long as Dare wasn't complaining, neither was he.

I know that Dave was nervous about hauling the horses. He hauls the trailer sometimes to get hay but really avoids doing anything with horses inside. Now he was dealing with me riding in the back too and I know he was really stressing but he got us there safely despite a near miss of the vet's mailbox.

When the horse trailer door opened at the vet's office, the first thing I did was remind Dave about taking wide turns with my rig. Dave was focused on unloading the colt but I wanted to be sure the ride home was going to be safe and I knew I'd forget if I didn't get things said now. The sight of that mailbox so close to my trailer fender was still fresh in my mind and I wanted to be sure Dave knew it had happened.

Once I was sure he understood what I was saying, I walked up to the door with Solidare's colt. The little guy didn't even hesitate to get out even though he's never seen asphalt before. As we walked away from the trailer Dare screamed for "her" baby and the colt put on the brakes, but only for an instant, he moved on forward when I asked him leaving Dare frantically calling to him.

To be continued...................

Examining the Hock

Visit Blog Village and vote daily for this blog Here They are now measuring the rankings by votes out, so if you find my blog on the site, please click that link too to improve my rankings. TY