It’s raining today, which is appropriate.

Last night I made the decision to euthanize Penny, who has been my faithful friend for the past three years. Tomorrow I will make all the arrangements.

This will probably be a surprise to those of you who have been following my entries on Penny’s Laminitis. Her prospects, initially, for recovery were very good. The vet, after taking X-rays three weeks ago, indicated that with proper care and hoof trimming she should be back to normal within six months. That same night, Penny escaped her stall and spent an unknown amount of time grazing in the lush, green pastures of the small farm where she is kept. By the following morning, when I found her in the pasture, the damage was done. She relapsed almost immediately.

Once she began recovering well from that relapse, I tried to slowly transition her back to pasture, believing that it might be possible, since the initial trigger for her Laminitis was not the grass, but an overload of sweet feed. Not to be. After two efforts at transitioning her to the pasture, I found that any quantity of grass in her diet immediately brought back the symptoms of Laminitis. I resigned myself to keeping her in a stall and hand-feeding her until she was well enough to begin to ride again, at which time I would find her a new home.

This past week I was encouraged at her progress. Although she was still tender, she was able to walk with me around the pasture, and would do so willingly. I had noticed she was dropping weight rather quickly, so I did some research to find a supplemental feed that might be tolerable for her in her current state. I came upon Timothy hay pellets, which, according to my reading, as well as the labels on the bag, contains no more than 8% sugars, which is well below other kinds of feed. As I have been mixing Penny’s Bute dosages with about 1 pound of alfalfa pellets, I thought it would be safe to replace the alfalfa pellets with the Timothy pellets, further reducing her sugars intake.

I started with one pound of Timothy pellets, moistened, and mixed with the Bute, morning and evening. After two days she seemed to be ok, although I noticed that she may have been slightly more sore on her rear hooves the second night. On the third night I increased the Timothy pellets to two pounds. That was last Thursday evening. On Friday morning her her rear fetlocks were very swollen and she was obviously hurting. By Friday evening, once again, she was in full-blown Laminitis and her fetlocks were swollen tight as balloons. I soaked her rear hooves in cool water to try to ease the swelling and the pain.

I immediately discontinued the Timothy pellets and tried to administer Penny’s Bute dosage orally. She was in such pain that I suppose it really didn’t matter much to her any more, and she took the Bute orally without resistance. I thought I would let her go until Monday and decide then whether to call the vet again, for an evaluation and to decide then whether to start treatments again or look at “other alternatives”.

Yesterday morning, I found that Penny’s swelling had reduced substantially. I saw that she had lain down during the night, which must have helped. I was greatly encouraged, until I saw that she had not finished her hay from the night before, had not drunk any water during the night, and was having a difficult time standing. I went back out to check her at noon and found her down in her stall.

I called the vet.

The vet arrived about 5:30 pm or so. After examining Penny, the vet spoke with me and very carefully gave me her prognosis: Penny has very little chance of ever recovering to the point of leading a pain-free and productive life. There is the slight chance of recovery to the point of soundness…as in, “it has happened before”…but it would take at least a full year of very strict and very expensive veterinary and farrier care, all based on the slight hope of more than a partial recovery.

Penny and I have lost the battle against Laminitis.

With her prognosis now being very poor, with little chance she could ever recover to the point of being sound, euthanasia is my only choice. Within nine months I will be moving two thousand miles across the country. She could never stand the trip. Not being sound, I would never be able to find a home for her. Her sensitivity to pasture grass is such that she could not even become a “pasture buddy” for another horse. Even if I got her to the point that she was comfortable, and were able to find new owners who were willing to take her on, the care required to keep her so would be a heavy work and financial burden, and it would only be a matter of time before her end would be the same: more pain, more suffering, and euthanasia…or a slaughter house. The only humane decision I can make is to put her down. I can do her this one last kindness.

As a young boy, I remember once becoming disoriented and lost while riding my horse on remote trails near the stables where we kept our horses. After trying to find my way for a while and getting nowhere that I recognized, I remembered what my father had taught me, that if I would “give the horse her head,” she would lead me home.

Tomorrow I will give Penny her head.