This message is from: "jaimie benoit" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Hello Everybody,
Tessa is now 34 years old. She looks pretty good. In fact, nobody would believe her age. Even I have a hard time believing it and I see her everyday. She has plenty of flesh on her ribs, and her back is almost as straight as it ever was. No discernible sway. Her hearings a bit off, but she's not deaf. Tessa has always been a loner. When out in the big pasture, she preferred to keep by herself. Recently, we've had two incidents with Tessa that have made us acknowledge that the old dear is getting very old. -- We had her alone in a small grassy paddock near the barn. It has a little hill in it. -- One day a few weeks ago, I went to get Tessa in for the night, and found her down and unable to get up. She was on the hillside and the footing was slippery. She just couldn't get herself up. -- However, with a little help from me, she managed OK. -- when she got to her feet, it was as if one hind leg was "asleep". She hobbled on it a bit. -- Otherwise, she was fine. It was at that time when we were forced to realize her increasing infermity that we decided to put her in the backyard where there was particularly nice grass. When she first went into her special turnout area, she was happy enough munching grass, but so often every day we'd see her out there just standing with her head hanging down. -- It was sad. She looked as if she were really declining. We always took her in at night into her special stall we'd made out of three straight stalls. But, one morning we found her down in the stall unable to get up. -- Luckily, Dave and I were able to get her on her feet, and when we did, we could see she had the same sort of problem with the hind leg she'd been lying on. Then we decided we couldn't put her in the stall anymore for fear she'd get "cast" again. -- So, Carol and Arthur, and I conferred about darling Tessa, and we decided we were going to turn her out on one of our smaller pastures, and turn her out with her oldest buddy, BDF Toril, now 24 years old. -- Well, if this move didn't rejuvenate Tessa. She's almost unrecognizable from the infirm senior citizen she was earlier in the week. She even travels up and down this really steep hill --- And I mean this is an Olympic steep hill. She takes her time, but she does navigate the hill. Now at night after a day out with Toril climbing hills, Tessa goes into the Nursery Paddock. This is a very spacious run-in shed with all the amenities any horse could ask for. -- Tessa's delighted with the new system. Arthur couldn't help but notice the change in her when he went out to do the evening chores last night. He said she was MUCH more alert and active than she'd been. *The lesson we learned from Tessa is* -- never give up on a horse, and I'm afraid we were doing that. We thought she'd begun her final downward slide, but we were mistaken. All she needed was a change of scenery and a little help from her old friends. What she didn't need was isolation no matter how luxurious it was. The people who do studies on longevity always site Nova Scotia as one of the places where people live particularly long lives, and they say the reason is the great sense of community found here. Well, Tessa just pointed that out to us, and it's a good lesson to have learned. Kind regards, Jaimie Benoit- BDF Manager and Head trainer PS It's very important to "listen" to your horse. Most of the time they will let you know what the problem is if you are willing to take the time to understand them. The FjordHorse List archives can be found at: http://tinyurl.com/rcepw
