Last year at this time, my Dad was in the hospital. He had just finished a stint (not to be confused with a "stent" which is something completely different) in the short-term rehab unit at the nursing home that I couldn't bring myself to call a nursing home at that time and had lasted a whole not-even-24-hours at home before he landed back in the hospital again due to general weakness (a/k/a he wouldn't/couldn't get out of his chair).
Last year at this time, I had a dog. He was an awesome dog, but he was getting older and with that, was starting to have some issues. He wasn't running and jumping and playing nearly as much as he used to. He was sleeping more. He was having more accidents of the urinary incontinental type (it should be a word, really, it should). But he was still healthy and full of life and love and the thought of life without him brought instant tears to my eyes.
Last year at this time, I also had two horses. One of them had just turned 30, and the other was 26. The previous winter had been hard on both of them, especially the 30yo. She had always been an easy keeper, which for you non-horse-people means that she could just stand downwind from a flake of hay and gain weight, but for the last few winters she hadn't been keeping weight on over the winter like she had when she was younger. And that particular winter, she actually lost a bit of weight, so much that I was really worried about losing her for a while in the early spring. But we got through it and she was starting to fill out again and was acting like her old self again and I was starting to breathe a little easier.
It struck me at one point that it was super bad timing that my Dad, my dog, and horse were all aging and approaching the finish line at the same time. It felt like they were all competing to see who could keep me the most worried. As if one of them had to be creeping closer to the edge at all times just to keep me awake at night. Damn them! Damn them all to Hell! But not really! I cried. I obviously didn't plan it; that's just the way it worked out.
Well!
Here we are a year later.
My Dad is on hospice at the nursing home that I now can call a nursing home without even a second thought. He can barely talk some days. He doesn't seem to understand anything anymore. He needs someone to feed him or he wouldn't eat. He needs someone to help him drink or he wouldn't do that, either. He needs someone to dress him, wash him up, put him in his Broda chair, push said chair to where they want him to be, put him in bed, cover him with blankets. He can barely make his needs or wants known anymore. He is at the mercy of everyone else. I don't know if he even knows who I am. I believe he recognizes that I'm someone he knows, but I don't know if he knows who I am. A few weeks ago, he looked at my son and basically asked him who he was. I don't know if he even knows he is alive anymore.
We don't have a dog anymore. Max died last November. I wrote about it in here. I still have nightmares about it. I'm not used to being a no-dog household yet.
And now, we have one horse. She's 27 years old. She's a miniature horse, black and white tobiano, and her name is Shasta. I don't know if she's broke to ride or drive, and come to think of it, I've never actually measured her to see how tall she really is, but she's much too small for anyone in my family to have ever ridden. We've had her for about 18 years. We got her as a companion for my other horse, Nicker, who died about a month ago at the age of 31.
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I started writing that yesterday, just to get a quick update started.
I've had a horse die on me before -- we had a shetland pony named Wiggles for a short time, a rescue that I adopted who was a lot older than we were told she was and who unfortunately passed away her first winter with us. That sucked, but I knew this was going to be different, because Nicker was my girl. She was my first horse. My heart horse. I hate to say "I had her" because, like all of my pets, she was more like family than a pet, so I say that she was in our family for 22 years.
Even though she was 31 years old and I knew this day was coming sooner rather than later, it was still rather unexpected. She had been doing well for a 31yo horse lately, I thought. Since last winter, I'd been giving her senior feed all year round instead of just in the winter to put/keep weight on her, as well as supplemental hay all year (back in the day she could be on fresh grass all summer and hay/feed in the winter and be just fine). The day before she died, she was acting a little off. I couldn't quite figure it out; she was moving around just fine, drinking and acting normal, but she wouldn't eat much which was weird for her. And she was standing with her left hind leg crooked. I'd seen her rolling earlier (which was not unusual for her, either - she loved rolling in the mud) so I thought maybe she'd pulled a muscle while getting up or something, even though she wasn't lame. She wasn't sweating. She relaxed when I scratched her back and rubbed her muscles, so I worried but not more than usual.
The next morning, we planned to go fishing. We got up early and I went out to check on her. She didn't answer when I called her. She was standing in her stall, looking like she didn't feel good but not like she was close to death. Otherwise I wouldn't have gone fishing. I've replayed this almost every day since then. She wasn't sweating. She hadn't eaten her food from the night before. She was breathing a little faster than normal. I kissed her and told her to be good and in my head I was thinking "...and don't die". Then we went fishing. And I worried about her the whole time.
Which I was right to do.
The fishing was sub-par. It was windy. I caught a small baby bass and a nice-sized crappie before the wind picked up and we decided to leave. The hubby could tell I was distracted and asked if I was going to call the vet when we got home and I said Yeah, I probably would, if she wasn't any better.
So as soon as we got home, I went to her stall. It was empty. I called to her, and there was no answer. I went to the gate and looked, and there she was, on her side, next to the barn. Lifeless.
I don't want to relive all that right now. Long story short is that we (and by "we" I mean the hubby) ended up digging a hole in the pasture and burying her that day. I cut the hair off her tail and mane to save, I'd like to make a bracelet or something out of it. There's enough I could make something more, and I've found some cool things on Pinterest to make. But for now, it's in a bag on my "pet memorial" shelf.
So! That's what's been going on. So many people have been like, "Oh my gosh, you've been through so much these past few months..." but it really doesn't feel like it. Maybe if Max and Nicker had been young and died suddenly and unexpectedly, but they both lived long, well-loved lives. Don't get me wrong, I miss them both and their actual deaths were traumatic to me. Max's especially. Watching him deteriorate for months and then those last few hours, well, I don't want to talk about that right now either, but it was horrible. I'm glad Nicker went pretty quickly. I hate watching deterioration and suffering.
We haven't entertained the idea of getting another dog yet. We work a lot. I already felt bad for Max because we were gone so much at the end of his life. There's no way I can do that to a puppy or even a new adult dog right now. I'm not gonna lie, I do watch videos online of Boxer dogs (sometimes even my own) and reminisce about how goofy and fun they are, but I don't feel the pull to get one. I wan to find someone who has one so I can pet it and smoosher it's face and hug it and love it, but I don't want to be responsible for it. Ha ha ha.
I'm not going to get another horse. I still have Shasta, for one thing. But another riding horse? No, I don't think so. Maybe when we retire.
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