Two of my oldest friends got into horses a few years ago – they live in Ontario, I live in BC. I have no idea under what conditions they keep their horses but they have lost FOUR horses in three years. And by lost, I mean the horses died of random, bizarre, freak health complications.
Both my friends are good animal people and I have never had real reason to believe that they care for their animals badly – although I am starting to doubt myself and I feel awful about it but I don’t know what else to think. About 4 years ago, they gave up their cats after bringing a fourth dog into the house who they claimed couldn’t get along with the cats. I’ll admit that I judged them for that. It just wouldn’t have happened like that in my world.
3 years ago they bought two mares, a mare and her adult filly. Both mares were pregnant. The older mare colicked and died only a few months after they got her, shortly after she’d foaled. The younger mare; I don’t know for sure what happened to her – i think they may actually have sold her, I really don’t know – some part of me thinks she died too but I don’t remember the specifics. Both colts seemed fine. They sold one last year. They bought a quarter horse gelding who died just two weeks after they got him (I don’t know how, they said it was random, unpreventable; “a freak accident”). The remaining colt from the original pair of mares just died last week of an “aortic haemorrhage”.....does that just happen? I asked what caused it and they said they didn’t know....”a freak accident.” Anyone know any more about it?
It’s possible, I suppose, that this is all coincidence and they’ve had truly terrible luck....but it just seems insane to me that one could lose three, maybe four horses in less than three years to such a crazy set of random, freak accidents.
I just have this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. One of the friends is an MD...maybe trying to doctor the horses herself? I don’t know. They are dear, dear friends and I don’t want to judge them, I just wanted to vent about it because it’s so awful. And I feel weird having no way of knowing what’s going on. They currently have four new horses. So weird.
