How Seamus Said Goodbye to Dani

This is hopefully the last really sad post about Dani's passing.  I just had to post about how emotional and sentient horses are.  Seamus's reaction to Dani's passing is much like my own and I believe he and I mourn together in our different ways.  Two species, sharing the pain together.  I'm so fortunate that I have another horse who I have a great bond with in Seamus.  Its not the same as I had with Dani and since she was my first horse, there is also that aspect.  None the less, Seamus is helping me heal. His goodbye and reaction to her being gone really spoke to me.  Horses are amazing creatures.

Dani passed and there were several hours before her remains would be picked up.  Sadly, another horse an hour away had passed and the company that we were working with had to finish up that pick up before they could come to our place.  It felt like forever. My pet sitter had helped me put up a tent to shade Dani since the heat index was over 105. I stayed inside most of the time while waiting but didn't know what to do myself. I put the TV on to have sound. I have no idea what happened in any shows I watched.  I cried a lot that's for sure.

After Dani's passing, I wanted the boys to see her, Seamus had been watching on the other side of the fence when the vet was there and I'm positive was by her side during the early stages of the colic during the night, so he knew something was going on and it wasn't good.  I let him into the barnyard to say goodbye to her.  He kept trying to put his nose on her like he always did, like a security blanket or a teddy bear to snuggle.  He pawed at the ground some, he sniffed again.  Chance began to approach but then stood stock still staring at Dani.  

I moved away from the boys and mucked the stalls, Dani's stall, the one she usually stood in during hot days to stay under the fans, was a mess. Manure was trampled everywhere. I silently worked on the barn cleaning tasks while the boys could absorb what had transpired.  Chance eventually nibbled on some grass in the barnyard and glanced at Dani a couple times.  He eventually left the area having not closely approached Dani's remains; I get it old man.  Seamus later followed suit and walked out of the barnyard.  I took that as a cue to let them into the other field for the afternoon.  It would make it easier to have them out of the barnyard when the pick-up arrived. Horses sometimes don't pass on in the easiest location and often there isn't a choice.  The company knew what they were doing at least.  I won't go into detail once they arrived and were shown where Dani lay, I retreated inside. I didn't need to be there for that.

  

After the truck and trailer had left, I brought the horses back into the barnyard while I prepped the boys evening feeding; I watched Seamus.  Seamus followed the path Dani's body had been moved on the "sled", inch by inch, from the gate where the trailer had parked, back up to the area she had lain in her last moments. 

He pawed at dirt and sniffed and pawed some more.  He was processing.  He knew she was gone.  He came over to me and pushed his soft nose into my hands.  I stroked his nose and neck, "I know sweet boy, she's gone.  I know..." 

The days that have passed since then have been hard.  The first week back to work, I had to take a couple days off and then work from home some....I wasn't very productive in any sense of that word.  My closest co-workers hugged me while I cried; they have my back.  This has been a hard year.  We lost Armani our 17 year old cat in May. The heart ache doesn't get easier but I would never make the choice of not knowing these wonderful souls.  

Seamus helps me each day, I have cried pretty much every feeding time.  Missing her nickers and her soft muzzle, her mane decorated in mud or hay bits. Seamus is there with his soft muzzle to comfort me.  Chance is there with his as well.  Having these beautiful souls to care for is comforting as I mourn my mare.  She's gone but will never be forgotten.

Heartbreak in a little Box

Dani's mane...

and Dani's tail...

The physical remains of this beautiful creature I called friend arrived today. I cried.

They were cleaned of the mud and muck and hay that had matted them in Dani's last hours as she rolled in pain.  The hair is probably cleaner than they have been most of her life.  I loved to groom her and bathe her (when she tolerated it!) but that mare loved the dirt. Any clean part of her body would very shortly be dusted with sand or silt, and then a full body shake with a grunt showed me Dani was very satisfied "ruining" my work.  That was my girl. That's horses in general if we are honest, but some more than others!

I loved stroking her mane on a calm evening and listening to her munch on hay. Holding the cuts of mane in my hand without my mare feels so alien and so final.  

I miss her so much.  Her presence is VERY absent at the barn, the quiet is deafening. Sure, Seamus says hi, trying to reach his muzzle out to place it on my arm but he's not Dani.  I love him though; we are both grieving. I'm sure Chance feels the change, but he hadn't been around Dani as much the past few years as he's needed more food and grass to keep him from losing weight so management had kept them away from each other for a lot of time.

Not long after Dani entered into my life, I had trimmed a piece of her tail to have it made into a bracelet.  It was from the underside of her tail and pretty dark; it's very pretty and I've love it.  With her shiny chestnut mane though I think I need another bracelet that truly shows how gorgeous this little red headed mare was.

I'm still teetering between denial and bargaining (or better known as coulda, woulda, shoulda, and what if...) in the grief stages.  I can't believe she's gone.  In an instant, with no warning, I'm still questioning if there was anything I could have or should have done.  I see her halter, I touch it.  I now have her mane and tail, I touch those.  It's not pony butt, it's not Dani. She's gone.

I am very fortunate to have Seamus in my life.  I can cry and hug him; I can bury my face in his mane.  He seems to understand the grief; he seems to have felt it too. We are both lost without our mare.

No horse should go across the rainbow bridge with their tail.  And Dani was the best pony this horse crazy girl could ever have dreamed up.  I will cherish her forever.

The Best Horses in Heaven, They Have No Tail

by Miska Carlberg Paget

The best horses in Heaven

they have no tail.

This is a rule they all know

without fail.

For when a new horse arrives

with a short cut bob,

they all know that this horse

did a very good job.

His owner could not bear

to part with her friend

so she saved his tail,

wrapped in ribbons

and in braids,

to hold with his memory

in a very loving way.

To enter Heaven

without a tail

is an honor,

a message,

that without fail

announces to everyone,

far and wide

that this horse

was more than a wonderful ride.

But

this horse was loved and cherished by one

and when his time serving on this Earth was done

he left behind

a broken heart

and a soul

from which he never will part.

My Dear Dani

I lost my beautiful mare Daenerys on July 26^th.  It’s a shock still to even think those word. I keep hoping to hear her soft nickers greeting me every morning and every evening. I keep expecting her to "put Seamus in his place" when he got too pushy.  The barn is quiet even with two geldings to feed. I think they feel just as lost without her as I do.

I know there will be posts to come with memories and thoughts, but here is what happened, very unexpectedly.

Steve and I were in Raleigh starting Wednesday for Galaxycon and had our pet sitter taking care of the animals as usual.  Dani has been doing really well, lost some weight from being on the track system through early spring until the spring grass took over and I had to keep her and Seamus in the wormhole area since she’s a continued laminitis risk.  Chance has been doing well too, keeping weight on.  Dani developed a cough this spring, vets said it was allergies and nothing had really been helping her but her cough was occasional, and she did not have the heavy breathing like Chance and the heaves he has been dealing with the past couple years.  As the weather got hotter we’d been worried about keeping all the horses cool.  I'd been hosing them off when needed and keeping up with the skin issues from the constant sweating. Considering the weather we'd all been coping really well.

Chance received a terrible shave job by us, but that helped a lot with his sweating and seems to keep him cooler despite looking like he was attacked by Edward Scissorhands.  Chance and Dani both have cushings, but he’s the one that has the long coat symptoms.  So going into this weekend being away I didn’t have many worries about the ponies.  Fresh water, good hay, fans in the barn…all the things to keep them cool and happy.

I received a call Saturday morning from my petsitter.  Dani was down and not wanting to get up.  There was a lot less manure on the ground as well.  I told Kris to call the vet and I would be on my way from Raleigh.  It’s a 50-minute drive.  I’d checked my cameras late the previous night while at the Con in Raleigh I'm that owner that has barn cams to check on horses even when there are pet sitters.  One had a spider web over it so I didn’t see much.  The barn cam didn’t show much either but generally the ponies sleep on the slope just past the barn view cam. I didn't really worry since Kris had checked them that evening to feed and all was well.  I had the pictures of each horse since she's awesome, being a horse owner herself she totally gets it!  Even in the morning, at 7am when I woke up in bed, I ran through my cameras to check on the ponies and didn’t see anything to worry about….then I got the call.

I drove home….that was a long drive but thankfully little traffic for a Saturday morning leaving the “big” city for my little hamlet of Bahama, NC.  I’ve had this type of call but the concern had always been Chance, my frail boy that I constantly worry about.  The last time the vet and my farrier saw Dani they were saying she was looking really good (just a few days ago for her recent pedicure even). I held onto hope, maybe we caught it early and it would work itself out.

I headed back to the barn when I arrived to find the vet and my petsitter.  Dani was still lying down in pain, breathing heavily and grunting.  She moved slightly to get up when she heard me but could not and lay back down.  The prognosis was not good.  Her lactate was really high and from palpation the vet said she suspected strangulating lipomas. Pain meds and other treatments had little effect.  I had to research strangulating lipomas later that day but learned the "event" can happen quickly and there’s really no warning sign that there is a fatty tumor until a colic occurs.  The small intestine slips through a gap in the tumor that older horses develop and when the intestines are moving food, they can then become entangled and unable to move back to proper position.  The lactate being at 10 meant there was probably a good section cut off and potentially necrotic tissue.

Oh Dani, my dear girl.  I stroked her neck and talked to her about how wonderful a girl she was and how much I loved her.  The only solution was surgery but the prognosis for that was not good either, she was in so much pain I don’t think she would have made it even if I’d wanted to go that route. The recovery from any colic surgery is sketchy, she’s 26 and a laminitis risk post surgery. I was up against a wall in a horrible nightmare with my sweet Daenerys in pain.  I didn't feel like I had an option to wait and see. What a horrible place to be in but I needed to be there for her and made the decision to let her go and end her pain. 

I kneeled beside her while the vet met preparations and arrangements for Dani's  remains.  I stroked Dani's soft neck and thanked her being my mare, my first horse, my dream horse come true and told her how blessed I was to have the honor to love and care for her.  I hoped that if there is a continued existence, that she would be grazing green pastures again soon. I told her how she gave me the confidence to continue riding after I’d had so many falls right before I met her.  I instantly felt safe with her, she was a kind, soulful mare and our connection was immediate.  Nestling my face into her mane was one of the greatest joys I have ever experienced.  I loved riding her, she was brave and solid.  She was golden.  After her laminitis recovery, riding was less and less, but going out to love on her and groom her was a delight for both of us. Going out just to be with her was all I needed. The vet returned and we gave her the mercy of peace.  As Dani slowly slipped away, I stroked her neck and told her I loved her.  Her pain was over.

She is the most beautiful horse I have ever seen.  Her coat was a copper penny that shone warmly in the sun and sparkled like there was a light from within. Everyday, I would feed the horses and love on each one but I could not help myself but admire her and feel awed that I was so fortunate to have her in my life.  Her fine-featured face, soft eyes, unruly mane and tail, the cute white strip on her face that stopped short of her velvet gray muzzle.  I loved her three little socks and one solid leg and the left hind leg "parti hoof"; half white and half dark, the white sock on that leg having little dots of chestnut in it like the sock couldn’t make up its mind what color it should be. She was my little red mare so full of sass and love and with the best nuzzling muzzle I've ever known, always gently looking for treats (though sometimes not so gently!) and when I found that itchy spot her muzzle would often try to groom me back, I was in her herd. I always laughed at the unashamed face she made when I cleaned her itchy udder pure ecstasy!  I would enjoy going out to the field or barn and rest my arms and head on her back, breathing in her scent and enjoying a sunset lit evening while she munched hay quietly feeling the breeze wisp pieces of her mane across my arm. 

She is going to be missed.  I am heartbroken and devastated. She was the reason for this blog before I'd ever even met her.  She was the lifelong dream realized. She was the hope of a little girls begging question "Can I have a pony?"  She was the resounding answer, "YES!"

The barn, now with only two geldings, feels empty with her sudden disappearance.  I love you Daenerys, my Dani girl, my pony butt.  I hope you know how much I loved you. I tried to give you the best care I could through all our years together. You are my pony. You will never be forgotten and the dream of you will stay alive because you touched my heart so profoundly....I will never be the same. 

     

       

Be Gone Tiny Gnats!

Warm weather means flies and even the tiniest flies, grouped into humans' minds as gnats, can be a pain!  Seamus has a swarm circling his little black ears in the summer and when I'm working with him, he's constantly shaking his head and ears.  It seems really irritating!

Let's hope this ear bonnet does the trick! They make his ears look even bigger!  LOL.

Serene Sunday- Northern Lights from October 2024!!!!!

 I never posted about this event!  

Pictures are amazing, in real life it was still pretty cool, a moving reddish haze with some light greens.  Not quite the spectacle we saw with the naked eye in Iceland but seeing any aurora this far south is amazing!

Ice Ponies January 10th and Snow Ponies Feb. 19th

In January we had a couple icy days where it was mostly sleet or freezing rain.  This makes our driveway a perfect sledding hill!

Sledding on the driveway!  This time with a proper sled that I use to lug horse hay onto the track for the horses.

Now the virtual experience.....

The really cold weather and freezing precipitation makes picking up around the barn nearly impossible.  The poop is turned immediately to poopsicles.

The horses don't seem to mind, once the rain is done they can be naked again and go on about their routines.

February 19th we had a really nice snow.

There was no sleet or freezing rain so the snow was actually nice and fluffy!

Daenerys and Seamus....apparently shelter is not something they desire right now.

Chance doesn't seem to care about shelter either....

We didn't get to sled since it was pretty cold and we had also received 3 pallets of wood flooring we had to move into the house and garage.  We were exhausted.  I spent some breaks just watching the fluffy snow fall.

This snow made me think about Colorado and the beautiful snows at my parents house, even during the torrid times near the end of my dad's life (unbeknownst to us all)  My aunt Keri calls the big fluffy snows a "Jack snow".  She wanted to see him as much as she could in the hospital and was always worried a snow storm would prevent her from making it from Larkspur to Castlerock's hospital. The day after he died it snowed 14 inches, and was a big fluffy snow.  She called it a Jack snow since it had held out until she was back at the house safe and sound.

This snow today in North Carolina was a Jack (Dad) snow.  Made me think about my dad and my mom.  I miss Colorado but also realize, I've gotten used to the mild climate here in NC!  Not the summers yet though!

Still it's so nice to have the occasional snow like this to stay inside and think of how fortunate I am in this life.

Stay warm!!

Snow? Maybe? Some Winter Safety Reminders

As we prepare here in the south for Snowpocalypse.......erm....1-2"of snow....I think about some easily overlooked safety tips in caring for horses during winter.

Blanketing: Make sure they are familiar with the procedure before you have to blanket them.  You think dressing a 2 year old child is difficult....just you wait when a 1,000+lb creature decides it doesn't want to wear that "sweater"!

With multiple horses, a lot of us horse peeps blanket them in the field with no restraint, not even a halter....make sure you can do this with your horse and that you are safe! It's highly recommended to either halter and tie or cross-tie your horse but I just run out there with the blankets and get each horse set....uh, yeah.  Here's a great video of the proper, proper way to do it!

The safest way is to fasten all the connections from the front of the horse working towards the back, this is imperative if you don't have your equine in cross-ties or tied to a post.  Velcro and buckle the chest strap first!  If your horse moves or walks off they are less likely to then have a half secured blanket tangle in their legs if they decide to bolt.  Next work your way to under the belly and if there are two straps make sure they are crossed in the middle.  If there are three straps, the front and back straps should follow that same crossing pattern under the belly. Then to the tail end, some blankets have leg straps some just the tail strap.  For the tail strap DO NOT use a bungy one (yes Rambo's $400 horse blankets come with a bungy strap, these can get caught on something and then snap back hard and fast to injure your horses leg....ask me how I know!).  Then you are done!  Just watch as your beautiful, expensive horse blanket turns to the color of mud!

Stock tank heaters: Through the years I have gone through the various types.  I've settled on drop in heaters will a cage and have also learned to rig up a silly gelding proof PVC power cord protection device.  I'm not so concerned about chewing of the wires, since these heaters come with a good wrap but the fact that silly shadow pony (aka Seamus) likes to pull the heater completely out of the
water to play with! Not a safe toy in the least!

The cord for the water heater goes through the PVC pipe and then we also have the an extension cord plug keep that prevents water from coming into contact with the contacts, the extension cord and the water heater.

There is also another part of this set up, a grounding wire. It's important to make sure plastic stock tank water is grounded. Grounding Your Deicers We've attached a copper wire that wraps onto the heater cage a couple loops and then runs through the PVC tube and down to a lightning rod installed at least 2 feet into the ground.  Sometimes heaters can malfunction and charge the water or worse leak enough electricity to give your grounded horse a lethal dose of electricity.  I've never had this happen but every winter I have seen articles about this from various equestrian newsletters and post, so we've decided to be extra cautious. 

In the same theme of protecting my silly Seamus from himself, I have another PVC pole to cover up the lightning rod so he doesn't accidently gouge himself while trying to play with it on the other side of the fence.  

Oh that boy, he just looks for places to cause mischief!