In the dark of night

I feel sorry for horse owners sometimes.

Several of them seem to live in a near-constant fear of colic happening to their horse, and fair enough too. Colic can be scary when it happens. Suddenly, for no clear reason, the horse which that person loves (or is worth a ridiculous amount of money) is gripped by pain. Pain that they can’t treat, can’t reach and could be caused by any number of things.

The fear of colic gets worse as the day goes on. The pain can keep up all night, even in a ‘good’ colic. The painkillers wear off and the cause is still there, so it comes back a few hours later. I don’t think there’s any other situation in the world where four people will stand around a horse for hours and burst into cheers when it poos. Even if it’s not a very big poo.

And that, my friends, is more or less why I spent an hour with my good work shoes covered in mud at the bottom of a muddy, slippery hill after discovering the electric fence was not as ‘off’ as previously claimed. The reason I mention the shoes is not to be vain, but because they don’t have steel caps in them. They’re also not as watertight as they used to be, and not the safest set of footware to be around a horse in. They’ve also got buggerall grip as I discovered part way down the slippery hill.

Dear Horse owners: Please invest in a big light and an extension cord for those nights you live in fear of. It will decrease the likelihood of the vet falling on their backside.

Examining a horse in pitch darkness isn’t that much fun. It’s dark, cold, the owners are tired from dealing with this colic for the last 12 hours and you’re trying to see a horse you can’t actually see. There’s very little light when you’re trying to get a vein and you lose one of your checks when you try to stick a stomach tube down. Usually you can physically see the tube to double check its in the right place before pouring five or so litres into the horse’s lungs.

The brain’s also not working so well at ten minutes to midnight. You’re torn between wanting it to stay simple and your imagination is reading of a long list of all the worse things it could be. I’m also inclinced to warn the owners at this point that it could be worse than it looks, that the horse might not recover, and that they might be doing this for another day. It may be the doom speach, but surgery is often not an option and when the owners are exhausted I think it’s more important to be honest and not give them false hope.

It’s a long, drawn out, emotional rollercoaster of an event, filled with fear and hope and (often) dissapointment. At least I get paid to do that, but I feel sorry for the horse owners.