Good Bye Jaime

On May 1, 2009 Jaime died.  She was 38 years old.  Catherine found her lying on her side with her legs tucked against the wall.  She was awake and alert.  She tried to get up, but couldn't.  With the help of four strong men from Astro Crane Company next door (I so appreciate the strength of men), we managed to pull her away from the wall and roll her onto her other side.  That didn't help.  She still couldn't get up.

I don't believe she had been down for long.  Her stall wasn't torn up.  All of her feed from the previous night was gone and there was a normal amount of poop.  I took her temperature.  It was 98.2, which is too low.  When the vet arrived we tried again to get her up.  By then there were six of us there to help her.  After a dose of stimulant (for Jaime, not us, though we all could have used one by then), she thrashed around but still couldn't rise.  It was then we collectively decided she was dying and euthanasia was our only option.  At this point she was thrashing around between episodes of deep sleep.  She was never going to get up again.

I held her nose in my hands and said to her, "You are the only horse that has ever beaten me, the only one who never gave in.  In all our years together everything between us was a fight.  You win, you tough old mare, you win."

And so, surrounded by loving friends, including her best friend Mary O., we sent her on her way.

She was beautiful and fat and slick.  You would never know we was that old.  Without a great deal of fuss, her life ended.