My other baby, my horse, who truely is only a baby in the horse world has been laid up now for nearly a month with a sore foot (in the horse world, known as a hoof). His name is Tee and he is truely my other child. He became lame about a month ago just prior to a show we were to compete at (of course) and we called the vet....long story short this vet misdiagnosed my poor horse and he had to suffer more than he needed....he had an abcess in his hoof - quite a regular thing for a horse to get, however, the vet first decided he did have an abcess and put a poultice on his foot to try and draw it out. After 2 weeks this did not work and he was still lame and in pain. I was getting very worried. So we had xrays done. The vet said nothing was there. That he just had a sore foot and we should put him on painkillers and anti-inflamatory drugs for 5 days and put a special shoe on (put on with glue rather than nails) and he should be good to go..........NOT. 5 days later my poor horse could not walk. Seriously. I was in my kitchen crying. I mean he is a huge bay thoroughbred, gorgeous and gentle, and standing there holding his front foot up....looking at me as if to say "help mummy"....So enough was enough. I called in a specialist. He got there 2 hours later. First thing he did was pull off that stupid glue on shoe. This was an enormous pain in the butt to do.....but this vet was AWESOME. Finally he pried this thing off and a huge spurt of black gunk came out of the bottom of my horses foot - not kidding. Completely disgusting. Needless to say this vet fixed my horses foot and he is now on the road to recovery. My horse will be fine and we will be back at work and showing on May 22nd. But this whole process is yet again a learning curve for me. My horse has no words to communicate with me, it is all thru touching, the looks, the behavior, the understanding that comes when you listen without your ears.....Our babies are the same - yes?? They have no words, they are unable to express themselves our way. They have to express themselves without words.......
There was this wonderful moment with my son and my horse......I swear my son, who is 6 months old, knew that Tee was in trouble. We were sitting on a chair beside Tee while the (good) vet and his assistant worked on him to fix his problems.....My son was so quiet, he sat on my lap, never took his eyes off Tee, and gently patted my leg every now and then - as if to say to me - "It is OK mummy, he will be OK"........it was so sweet and so genuine. This huge horse and this little boy, communicating.
