[prairienights]

I've been meaning to start a thread like this for awhile, but after this weekend (my horse colicked for the second time), I really felt the need to comment.

This weekend I got a call at about 7am saying my horse was showing signs of colic. I drove the 20 minutes or so feeling like the weight of the world was on my shoulders. Calculating every little expense I could give up to afford big time vet care, wondering if my horse was ever going to be healthy again, and on top of it all I had an engineering physics test the next day (of course, lol). Well I get out there and there were four trucks parked out and a decent-sized little crowd gathered around the round pen. My colicky horse and, of all people, my farrier who I have only had a chance to use once was in the roundpen; he was keeping him moving so he wouldn't roll. A few local lifetime horse owners were there looking at the quality of his hay to see if that had anything to do with it. One of my university equine science professors was out waiting for my go-ahead to give him a banamine shot.

All of these people had gathered on an early Sunday morning to help out some college girl and her sick grade pony.

They all offered wonderful advice, gave me their personal phone numbers, and made me promise that I'd call if I needed anything. My farrier stayed with Keyenta and me for 6 hours that day, and he drove out to check on him once later that night and once each day after. He never asked for payment of any kind for his help. He never complained, and he was always positive. Saying things like "this horse would go to **** and back, I can tell, so I don't mind giving up an afternoon for him." It just made things better.

After the colic, I was (and am) bound and determined to do anything I can to decrease the chances of it happening again. Many members on HGS offered their experiences and educated advice; I appreciated and heeded all of it. I called various specialists, doctors, nutritionists, etc and with almost all of them I ended up having conversations about horse life in general. Again, they took the time out of their day to talk to a girl about her sick horse, and besides sharing their knowledge, they were truly interested about the horse industry in my parts and what kind of training methods I followed.

So I suppose I just wanted to post my experience with all of this to remind everyone how caring the horse community is. We have all been bitten by the horse bug, and it unites us. We may do things differently: different disciplines, diet plans, preferences in bloodlines, etc., but we're all horse people and we've been united by our love for these animals. I'm quite positive that I'd give up my Sunday afternoon to help any of you all or anybody with the passion for horses because I'm quite confident that they would do the same for me.

[Berlunz]

Thats wonderful. I have to agree that we may rabble and fight about training and fencing and who is the better rider but when it really comes down to it and a horse needs help its amazing how quickly everyone will pull together and help out. I know at our cities boarding facility we had a horse go down and the owner was not present. It freaked out a few people because it was a newer person and his horse and no one knew his number. My mom and I stayed there for about 3 hours keeping the horse on his feet in case it was colic and everyone else there was calling number after number trying to get ahold of the owner. We finally got ahold of him and he came down and said the horse had done this once before and called the vet to get a banamine shot and pulled out the horse to start walking it around. Another lady who had taken me in her car to the horse when something was wrong and she got freaked (huge facility long way from where we were to where the horses were kept) ended up checking up on the horse for almost a week after. Everyone involved also payed to get special hanging signs for all the stalls that could hold contact info, vet info and permission whether or not to treat the horse =). It really warms my heart sometimes to see how much we can fight but when something goes wrong just not care about the stupid little things anymore.

[MidnightStarr]

Thats awesome!!

I'm glad your horse is okay =]

Thank God for the wonderful people in the world!!

[Amber.Molly]

What a great story I love reading things like this!!

Its nice when people show up for you when you need it the most. Glad you had such strong support at such a scary time!

[equestsarah81]

First I want to say that I am glad everything is okay with your horse!
Second, I want to say that I am glad that there are many people that care for other horses and owners as you you experienced and if I was in your situation I would feel much better if there were people that wanted to help and be there for me too. I definitely try to be one of those people that would give all the advice, help and support that I could.

[chocchipcookie]

That's absolutely fantastic, honestly. Thank goodness for wonderful people.

[horseyfrk145]

Def. heartfelt, and oh so true!