Texas Equine Veterinary Association

www.texasequineva.com • Page 22 BO BROCK, DVM, DABVP After 26 years I can tell you a few things about horse ownership. One is, some people just don't need a horse. Two is, it seems the better care you take of your horse, the more likely bad things will happen to it. Three is, if the owner habitually talks baby talk to their horse, it is more likely to kick me. The second item on this list of three is the one I want to discuss in this story. Seems that it is not always the case that horses that graze in a junk yard never get hurt. It had been my theory up until this case entered my world. This appaloosa critter belonged to a family of people that fed round bales. You know what I am talking about, terrible grass hay rolled in to a thousand pound, pressurized, mold growing buffet that will colic nearly any horse. But this app rascal had eaten these things all of its life and never colicked once...until today. Seems the owners would just roll out a new bale of hay every now and then and just leave the string on it. I had warned them about it, but as usual, they gave me the old excuse of, "ah doc, we've been doing it for years and never had a problem one!" The pasture was covered with piles of orange binder twine that had accumulated over the years and they were right, the critter had never colicked once. But today, that all changed. Myrtle was colicked and rolling all over the place. I informed them that I wasn't coming out to their place, they had to bring the horse in. I knew there was no way I was going to be able to treat whatever was stuck in that rascal at the farm and I told them that while the horse was at the clinic, they had to clean up that pasture and get every strand of string out of it or I was gonna charge them double. After a few paragraphs of argument, they finally conceded that it would be better to bring him in and assured me he was in bad shape and they would be there soon. He arrived down and totally upside down, facing the back of the 1957, decayed wood floored trailer with mostly missing, faded green paint and rust. I looked in from the back gait and scratched my head with disgust and wonder. I managed to get a halter on the beast and coax him into getting up. It was then that I noticed it...about three feet of orange string hanging out of the fanny. Just one single strand, but who knows what it was hooked to upstream a ways. I managed to get Myrtle out of the trailer and in to the stocks for a proper examination. I lightly pulled on the string and discovered it was firmly anchored to something. I put on a sleeve and lubed it up good, reached in the fanny and discovered the string was stuck fast to something that was farther in than I could reach. What to do now? I told the owners of the situation and recommended surgery to remove it. They asked how much it would cost and I gave them a very low estimate because I knew they were tight wads and I didn't want this rascal suffering because they didn't want to part with some of their "hard earned money". When I told them how much I anticipated the bill to be, they went it to what I call the "money hoarding owner" dance. Binder Twine I have seen this dance for years. The person looks down at the ground and starts making noises that resemble the ones your grandmaw made when you had told her something ridiculous. It starts with a laugh that sort of morphs in to a hum. The hum then gradually changes back in to a sarcastic laugh, which is then followed by an abrupt facial expression change as they look up, that seems to attempt to shift the onus of emotion back to you...only when the emotion comes back to you, it is laden with inflections that it is somehow all my fault. I am too old for that game. There is no way I am going to give a price that low to a person that has plenty of money, while working on their horse that is full of twine because they are too lazy to pick it up, and feel guilty. No way. They could tell by the look on my face that I wasn't going to buy the guilt trip they were attempting, and they settled for a rattling off a million excuses why they "just couldn't see" putting that much money in an old horse. I told them I would do what I could medically, but I wasn't gonna watch this horse suffer for days and then die. I mustered up my best elementary school principle stern voice and reminded them that I had told them this was gonna happen and wasn't one bit happy that this critter was suffering now. We doctored Myrtle with laxatives and oils to lube up the gut and gave high doses of pain meds and fluids to attempt to set things free inside. It didn't work, the poor app rascal just laid next to the fence and moaned and strained. This is one of those moments as a veterinarian that I just don't know what to do. I don't want to kill a creature that might actually pass the ball of twine and be okay, but I hate to see it suffer for days and then have to die. A day passed and still nothing. By now some of the local citizens that loiter around the clinic everyday had noticed the horse and the peculiar string hanging out from behind and had began asking questions. There are about five of these old men that are bored retired fellas that have nothing better to do than come to the clinic and tell me everything I am doing wrong each day. The old men were totally appalled by the situation. I didn't stifle them much, because I was too. They spent the entire morning standing there looking at the horse and discussing what needed to be done to relieve the terrible predicament. I would come by periodically to check on the critter and they would still be standing there harping about the owners and telling me I needed to call the human society. I told them to just leave the horse alone, I would keep it pain free and pray that what ever ball of mess was in there would pass. After three days with no success I called up the owners and told them it had gone far enough. The horse had been given all the medical treatment that was possible and it wasn't working and I wasn't going to watch it suffer any more. I was hoping this would spark them in to action to do surgery, but no, they just told me to euthanize it and they would come get him and bury him in the pasture full of binder twine.

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