An Empty Stall
(Fourth of July weekend, 2009, weeks after moving to Caribou)
Twenty-four hours ago, as my wife and I finished supper, I told her I wanted to change from my work clothes into my barn clothes and join her as she fed the horses their evening meal. We had spent a rainy but still relaxing three-day Fourth of July weekend, and by Monday night I was already missing our new barn and the horses.
Caleb and our newly adopted Arabian princess nickered as we entered with their grain mash. We watched them eat with obvious pleasure, said goodnight and returned to the house to make it an early night.
As I got in bed, my wife asked if I could hear a noise. There was a clanging and a thumping outside somewhere.
I stepped outside and immediately heard that the noise was coming from the barn. Caleb was down, thrashing around in his stall. I ran in to get my wife and we called the large-animal veterinarian and a neighbor up the road who also owns horses.
It looked like a case of colic, and we administered the Banamine after speaking to the veterinarian on his cell phone. We walked Caleb around his paddock. He went down a couple of times, but we managed to get him up each time.
By ten o’clock the vet was there and puzzled over the situation. He has been at it a few more years than the twenty-eight I have been in Family Medicine, but he is limited to the technology he can fit in his Dodge van.
We went over our options. Caleb looked like he had colic, but his pulse was slow and strong. He also had a long history of unexplained neurological and constitutional symptoms. Exploratory surgery three hundred or more miles down the road on a twenty-year-old horse isn’t undertaken lightly.
We listened to the vet as he shared his assessment. We agreed to treat Caleb’s pain and observe him for a while. The vet left, and we stayed with Caleb for several cold and windy hours in the pasture as a thunderstorm passed in the distance. Now and then he would get up and walk around, but there wasn’t much improvement in how he seemed to feel.
As the vet returned at dawn, we could see that Caleb was giving up. He lost his battle right there in his brand new pasture this morning as the first birds began to sing. I cut a few strands of hair from his mane for a keepsake, and we removed his leather halter.
It was only two weeks ago we all moved into our little red farmhouse with ten acres of land and a brand new Amish-built horse barn right outside the kitchen window. We left our house in the village partly so Caleb could be with us, instead of being boarded. We also adopted our little Arabian princess as a companion for Caleb.
After the cold, sleepless night out there in the pasture, we buried Caleb at the highest spot, overlooking our miniature farm. I stripped his stall and covered the orthopedic floor mat with new shavings.
As we stood there in his empty stall and walked through his empty paddock, we talked of what a big presence he was – a gregarious horse with a sense of humor and a taste for mischief, a thousand pound teddy bear, who loved to cuddle. It is humbling to have earned the affection of such an animal. In just a few hours we lost our biggest pet. We now have his empty stall right outside our kitchen window. We also have our new little Arabian princess, who just lost her new companion. We all feel a little lost.