A Tail from Joey’s Ark

My big boy, Lincoln, was sick this week and it shook me, for two reasons.

Firstly, when I accidentally bought him at auction, he’d endured long-term starvation. He didn’t look like he does now. He even had fluid sacs around his abdomen, which is (in short terms), very bad. But, he survived. His mane (which had mostly fallen out, or been chewed off by fellow starving horse friends), grew back, thick long, and soft. What remained of his coat (small, gingerish-brown, twists of brittle nothing) fell out, and he surprised me with a gleaming, jet-black summer coat. He ate… and ate… and ate… and in just seven weeks, he had transformed (physically, anyway… his mental and emotional scars took a bit longer). But, I guess, I always think of him as a survivor. Tough as nails.

Secondly, after that initial rehab, he has had precisely ZERO problems. 14 years of complete stability. He’s not needed a vet for anything other than routine annual dental work and Hendra vaccines. I’ve often thought that Lincoln must have used up all his suffering and bad luck/karma in the first 8-ish years of his life and it would be easy sailing for him now. True, two years ago, he lost Tansy (the love of his life) and I’ve never felt that he’s ever completely bounced back. But on the whole, he’s had a charmed life with me since that fateful day I accidentally brought him into our lives.

Over the weekend, though, he stopped eating, and I’m pretty sure my own heart stopped for a moment too. There’s not much sadder then a horse that won’t eat! And, it’s dangerous. As grazers, they need a pretty constant rate of food going through that enormously long intestinal tract, and things can flip from ‘okay’ to ‘life threatening emergency’ pretty quickly. (Horses really aren’t for the faint-hearted.) He wasn’t showing any signs of colic. (That was good.) But he wouldn’t eat. (That’s bad.) Still, he looked stable, it was late, and I checked on him overnight – still no colic. In the morning, he was the same. I took his temperature and he was running a fever over 39 degrees. (Not good.) Anytime I’ve had a horse that’s off its food and running a fever, it has either turned to colic or it turned out to be pneumonia. So, I called the vet. (It was a Sunday, of course, because you can set your watch on it that if a horse is going to get sick or injured it will happen after hours.) It was not colic, nor pneumonia, nor laminitis and nothing else that could be seen. On-the-spot blood test (in the back of the vet’s truck) showed he had quite high levels of inflammation, but that was all we got.

The short end to this story is that he got IV painkillers and started eating about ten minutes later. I kept him on painkillers for a few days and he’s been fine since. The bloods were sent off for more thorough analysis but other than one random anomaly, there was nothing to go on. I’d had him tested for Cushings only a few months ago (I now do this will all older horses after the mammoth week-long colic nightmare I had with Yum Yum six months ago) and it was negative. His vaccinations are up to date. There are no horses on our boundaries. None of my other horses are ill. The whole thing is a mystery.

And it’s shaken me. I’m an emotional wobble board most of the time and excessively so if something is wrong with any of my animals. But with Lincoln, I have a bonus layer of panic thrown in. I think, having had a glimpse of how much he suffered prior to coming to me, his clearly unusual background (that’s another story but suffice to say, Lincoln is ‘different’) and the rather odd way he came into my life, has made me extra protective of him. He was clearly ‘meant’ for me. I never want him to suffer ever again. He went through too much before he got to me. Plus, he’s rather hilarious, a huge personality, and very cuddly, all of which makes him a favourite with everyone who meets him.

This unexpected and mysterious illness makes me realise that he’s not my 8-year-old boy anymore. He’s 22… we’ve turned a corner, and the clock is counting down.

[Image ID] A wide shot of a black horse standing behind a half wall in a garage-turned-stable. He is turned towards the camera, waiting for food. His eye isn’t entirely relaxed. Something is bothering him.