Special Entry: February 7, 2004

Saturday February 7, 2004

I tried to get out early to feed this morning but couldn't get any truck to start in the –3 temperature. So at the usual 8am I headed out, John rode along with me ‘cause he wanted to walk back from the T Bar Valley feeder.

It was a bright but cold day, the sun glistened on the hillside snow, hardly a bit of wind.

I got home about 11am and Lyndsey and I headed to town, there was a gun show we wanted to attend. Mostly I went to try and sell an old gun I have, bills are piling up and it should have helped pay a few if I got what it was worth. It's a Winchester model 1894 made in 1904, the gun that won the west.

It was a rinky-dink show and I was not even offered half of what I knew it was worth so I still own it. We stayed there about 45 minutes then got the mail, had a quick lunch and headed home. We got home about 5pm; the roads being clogged with snow made it a long trip.

A few minutes after getting in the house Lyndsey came by to tell me Doc was colicing. You long log time readers and guests to the ranch know Doc is my pride and joy, the most amazing horse I have ever ridden. I ride him all day in the open country with just a halter and lead rope, and cut cattle in the pens with nothing but a piece of baling string.

I rushed out and sure enough he had been down rolling, he was covered in mud and had no spark in his eyes. I quick gave him some Banamine and we started walking him. Up and down the drive way to the shipping pens. The sunset and it got cold but the drugs seemed to be working and he was feeling better. I put a blanket on him and kept walking till 11pm, he was showing no signs of wanting to roll, was drinking well and had two small runny poops. For the rest of the night Lyndsey and I traded off checking him every hour, all night he was on his feet but with a low look to him, head down just standing there.

In the morning he was the same, better than the evening before but still not right. I called my vet friend John and he said it sounded like an impaction and to go ahead and tube him and bring him into the clinic four hours away in Silver City.

I had plugged my hard to start truck in, the F350, it's the only truck that could pull the trailer through the snow. It took till afternoon before the truck finally started; the whole time we waited we walked Doc getting a couple more small runny dark poops. The dark part worried me, made me think there was blood in his bowels somewhere. Finally I got on the road mid afternoon, John who was headed home to N.C. followed me out to the pavement making sure I made it through the deep snow.

I got to Silver City and met John the vet at the clinic. I told him it didn't seem like a normal colic to me, there was something else going on but that Doc was better than he had been.

He did a rectal palpation agreeing the manure was a bit dark, but other than that and his listlessness he seemed like he was ok. We put him in a stall and when I left he being the friendly guy he is was already playing Nip and duck with a little buckskin pony in the stall next to him. John told me to go get a hotel room and not lose any sleep over him, he was going to do some blood work in the morning and to stop by about 10am and he'd have the results.

I checked into a fleabag motel, I think 10,000 cowboys had stretched out on that bed before me. Even as tired as I was I slept little, what with the saggy bed and worry of my best buddy.

Of course in the morning my truck wouldn't start, I had to borrow an extension cord from the motel and plug it in. Finally about 10am it started, I stopped by the saddle shop and picked up a rifle scabbard that Maggie had made for me for Christmas, swung in the grocery while I didn't have a trailer hooked up and then headed to the Vets clinic.

John came out the barn door as I pulled up and I didn't like the look in his eyes. “How's my horse?” I asked. “Doc died ten minuets ago,” he told me. I reeled with shock.

John had gotten to the barn at 6am, he found Doc down and in bad pain, he tried all he could and to ease it and checked him over. He was confounded as to what the problem was, called the university and talked it over with a friend and got some ideas but no help.

At 11am 6-year-old Doc lied down and rolled over dead. He told me he was going to do a post mortem but he thought it was some condition I had never heard of and in my shock can't remember, but essentially the small intestine gets pinched in ligament and slowly kills it. It generally shows up in horses between five to eight years old and only in one in a hundred thousand, maybe more but often it's just written off as colic. He will call tomorrow with the results of the post mortem.

I really don't remember the first part of the drive home, but about half way I was passing the Moon ranch and looked over at some mares in the sun. There was a black mare standing over a newborn gray foal. “One leaves, another arrives” I thought,” I bet he'll be a good one”.

I like to think that Johnny Cash got upstairs and went and told the Lord he needed the best cowhorse there was to ride herd on heavens range.

The best cowhorse just wasn't there yet.