On Jun 26, 3:29=A0am, green_kni...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(Catja
Pafort) wrote:
> Joyce Reynolds-Ward wrote:
> > I don't know how many now here remember Catja, from Great Britain (her
> > horse was Count Nosferatu, also known as Crumble).
>
> Count Notfaroutoe. After a Terry Pratchett character who was not quite a
> vampire, on account of needing a name for a horse who was not quite
> black.
>
> I'm not certain how he became 'Crumble', but that's the name he had.
>
> > She had Crumble put down today. =A0He'd been declining in soundness,
an=
d
> > was getting even worse instead of improving at the beginning of
> > summer, turning listless and not his usual self, showing signs of
> > being in pain. =A0He'd been pasture sound for the past year or so, but
> > that was failing. =A0The decline was getting bad over the past two
> > weeks, and he was not showing signs of taking it with grace.
>
> Thanks for posting this, Joyce. I am still in shock and getting teary
> (and that won't go away soon). Two months ago I had an elderly, slightly
> stiff, but overall sound horse. From there things went very quickly.
> Crumble's usual reaction to being in pain had always been hyperactivity
> - for many years I was able to tell whether he'd acquired even a small
> scratch by the fact that he would resemble a complete fire-spitting
> lunatic - but this time round, he just looked resigned.
>
> There were many small signs that things weren't right. Stiffness. The
> way he placed his legs. The way he did not even frown at the other
> gelding when he came over for a treat and a fuss.
>
> He made it easy for me, there was no doubt that I was making the right
> decision, no worrying that this was only a blip and he would get better
> (that's what I thought at the beginning of May, and he *did* get better,
> and he walked out sound again, and not exactly in a slouching fa****on,
> either) but no amount of bute or joint supplements in the world could
> have made him right again, only somewhat better. With all the threats on
> the horizon - moving to a steeper pasture, autumn mud, winter - it was
> pretty obvious that if he was not wholly comfortable now, it would only
> take a little catastrophe to make him entirely uncomfortable then. Once
> that decision was made, it was best made quickly.
>
> In the end, it was not =A0difficult decision at all. I loved my horse,
bu=
t
> I loved the alert and happy horse, the one that loved running across
> wide open spaces, not a horse that looked like him without behaving like
> him.
>
> And I am glad that I was in a position to *make* that decision, where
> someone else might have tried this and that, and wanted to let him stay
> on over the summer, and hoped that he might get better again... watching
> *that* would have been indefinitely worse.
>
> I was there. I hung out with him and a friend and his beloved mares in
> the morning, and led him out of the field, where the local huntsman did
> the deed quick and painless. I will not have to worry that he suffers in
> the field, and I do not have to worry that he suffered in his death.
>
> Bye, Mudball. You will be missed.
>
> Catja
> for the first time in ten years, .sigless
>
> And thanks for the good wishes and the salute; they are much
> appreciated.
So sorry to hear the news Catja. Hats off to a gallant horse.
Sally
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