A Horse Tale is in existence to give love and TLC to the horses that need and deserve it the most and although we can’t keep these horses with us forever, the time they spend with us is so precious and meaningful, that it really is the reason why our group exists.
This past Sunday at 3:45 pm we lost our most precious beautiful Dolly. Dolly was a 35 year old white Percheron and she was the icon of our charity. She was our first Caleche Horse to come to our farm with her best friend Balou.
The first time I ever met Dolly, she wasn’t working due to general age, the arthritis and pain in her legs. I wasn’t sure about her, she stared at me blankly while her friend Balou was full of life but nonetheless she was on her way to our farm for a journey we could never imagine. Not knowing her, we used a chain under her chin in the beginning when we walked due to her size and my lack of experience with Caleche Horses.
At first our walks would only consist of a few hundred feet before the pain in her legs was noticeable and we had to turn back. We put her on a senior diet to give her strength, with vitamins as well as anti-inflammatories, and arthritis relief rubs. We added wet timothy cubes to her beet pulp and grain each day to make sure she was getting the adequate nutrition and the extra water that a senior horse’s system needed.
We gave her so much TLC and love. She knew she was our Queen and we watched her come to life. She became the matriarch of our farm. She ruled all the other horses. She was alive with character and personality. Balou made sure to take care of her and be her “brawn” at all times.
Our walks went up to a ¼ mile down the road and then trips to Subway and then even to walking in the Hudson Christmas Parade. She went from having a chain on the first few walks to no lead at all walking around the property as I was doing our daily dinner feeds. She was able to enter the barn at night by herself at dinner time and even open the barn doors. OUR girl came to life.
Two weeks ago, our girl went down in her paddock. Now Dolly didn’t lie down ever, as she knew her legs were too weak to get back up so when our member, Kathy Sommerville, saw her laying down she knew something was wrong. Our group jumped into action and got her up out of the snow and into a warm stall with blankets and heaters and nursed her to health. It seemed to be a onetime event, but nonetheless we babied Dolly from there on. Making sure even on the mildest days she had her blanket and only went out for a few hours at a time.
Last Friday, February 13, 2014, Dolly had a normal day. She was out for 2 hours to stretch and came back in at 2 pm off her lead as always, opening our barn door and putting herself into her stall. Life was good, Dolly and I had members with us that day that got to see our daily routine and they were quite impressed. I said my goodbye to her and headed on my way, knowing that our barn manager, Alexis, was on her way at 6 pm.
When Alexis arrived, Dolly was down in her stall and couldn’t get up. That was the start of our baby girl’s end. After a visit from the vet concluding that it was indeed muscle weakness, 4 of our members were able to lift her up to get her to her feet as other teams were on their way to get her up, including her old owner. She was funny as she was trying to eat her hay as she was laying down, silly girl. But once we got her up we noticed our girl stopped eating and she wouldn’t drink either.
Our group jumped into action, over the next 48 hours Dolly had teams of groups with her around the clock. We had the weekend emergency vet, Dr Gilbert Halle out to our farm 5 times over the weekend. We had Dolly’s lifelong vet and her previous owner on the phone all weekend. Our girl seemed to have displaced something while she was trying to get up, perhaps her colon or maybe even had a tumour, which was prohibiting her system from working.
At one point Sunday morning she had a poop and a pee, we were ecstatic that our girl was going to be okay. As the day progressed we realized this was actually just a false hope, but we refused to give up. It wasn’t until she became tachycardiac, started respiratory distress and that she had fluid backing up into her stomach that we started to accept that this was the end. Dolly’s pain was becoming too extreme. The Vet assured us that even if she was a 10 year old he wasn’t sure she would even make it at St. Hyacinth.
At 2:30, we made the hardest decision of our lives; we decided to love our girl so much to let her go. As a nursing student, I learnt that there are 5 stages of mourning- Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. This week was one of the hardest weeks of our group’s existence and we went through every emotion.
We loved Dolly more than life itself and we know that with the horses we take in due to their age and condition that we will have to do this time and time again. I know I speak for myself and most of our group; I wouldn’t change anything for the world.
Dolly, we love you and will miss you forever, you have changed our lives and our hearts.
You are responsible for the A Horse Tale we are today. You have made us grow as a people and horse lovers. THANK YOU.
