Scary Weekend

 Ellen, Kevin and I all the 5:00 AM phone call on Saturday morning from the barn manager. Ranger wasn’t eating his breakfast and was acting like he was uncomfortable. No one wants to get that call. Ellen went out, and I just waited by the phone. I couldn’t go back to sleep—I was a wreck. I’m sure Ellen felt even worse. She called me a short time later—she was going to call the vet. Something was really wrong. I still waited at the phone. The vet was there and gone by 7:00 AM. It wasn’t colic! Hurray! It was a virus. He had a 102 degree fever and was feeling pretty bad. She gave him 3 shots, and gave Ellen all kinds of instructions.




I was supposed to take my niece out to ride that morning, and she called a few minutes later to cancel. I headed out to the barn to find Ranger looking mopey, but he was eating. After a while, he just broke out into a full body sweat. There was steam all over. He was eating, though. Ellen rode Dante in the arena while I walked Cruise. When we were done, Ranger seemed much better. I took Cole out on a ride with Kevin and Starry, and Ellen hiked along. The ride went well. We all went back to the barn. Ranger seemed pretty good—just tired.



Ellen went later in the evening to check on him. His temperature was normal, but he still seemed tired.



The next morning—you would never know anything was wrong at all! She took him with me on Cruiser’s walk—and he was friskier than Cruiser. Hard to believe he was the same horse. What a relief.

The river was still too high for Dante, but Ellen didn’t feel like riding in the arena. Instead, we did the hill twice. He is having some issues on the hill—multiple trips seem to bother horses until they understand the routine. There is nothing we can’t work out with practice—he is nowhere near as bad as Cole was for the first couple years. Cole was just a terror on the hill. Dante just wants to rush a little on the way home and not stop. When we got home, we didn’t take him into the barn, but led him to the back of the property—something he often does after an arena ride. Well, Dante threw a few temper tantrums because he didn’t go back to the barn. He gave us one more thing to work on.

I was able to take Cole on another fun ride with Kevin and Starry. The second river was pretty high, but it was clear. Since the park was so busy with people enjoying the beautiful fall weather, we opted to cross the river instead of using the road. Cole did so well! He took slow, careful and steady steps. I gave him peppermints. He deserved them!