More news!

Did I tell everyone that I had found a vet!?!? I don't think I did.

So I found a vet in Ontario, she can't practice in Quebec (where I live), but she lives close enough for me to trailer my horse there. Anyways... I didn't have to trailer my horse at all. She gave me a medicine to clear Dandys lungs. It is a powerful expectorant made specially for horses. The only thing I had to do was to drive over to her place and get it on Saturday. Fortunately, she wasn't gone on any emergencies and gave me really good tips to help Dandy. So I put everything in practice this weekend. Starting with hay, I unrolled a complete round bale on the ground, in the fresh snow, this should help eliminate most of the dust found in it. The hay is not mouldy at all, it's still very green and smells terrific. It was baled during our only dry week of the summer and contains a bit of dust. Dandy has a habit of stuffing her face right in the middle of the bale, therefore gets a good amount of dust.

According to my vet, I did the right thing by giving Dandy penicilin (back when I did), because she did have an infection. It was clear to me that she did, since her nasal discharge was thick and white, her eyes were very cloudy and she had fever! After 5 days of antibiotic every 12 hours, Dandy seemed much better, but the cough remained. According to the vet, her lungs never completely cleared from mucus. I don't think the Cough Free helped, I think it only prevented her from coughing and releasing the mucus, but like the vet said, the mucus is really stuck there! So I give her her medication twice a day. Yesterday night was her fourth time getting the medicine and she blew her nose quite hard right on me (thanks!). There was about 1/2 tea spoon of mucus that came out. This morning, I was giving her medicine and grain and she coughed right in her bucket... there was about 2 tea spoons of mucus there... so good news... it works!

I am pretty excited about this... yes, I am excited about mucus coming out of my horse's lungs... but you have to understand, that after countless attemps to cure Dandy, then to look for a vet (quite unsuccessfully, my vet still hasn't called me back!), I was THRILLED to find someone that was willing to actually help me! I am officially changing my vet to her, she was nice and didn't make me trailer my horse for nothing! Plus it only cost me 80$ and my horse could be cured! If she is not, I will trailer her over, but it's even nicer if I don't have to! I officially called EVERY vet within a 2 hour radius from my house, most don't treat horses and the ones that do don't take new patients, and my vet is probably on vacation (it would've been nice to advise his clients and provide an alternative in case of emergency... but I guess he is affraid to lose business since his services are very expensive). So you see, in case of emergency, I might as well forget all hopes of ever saving them. This is why I had to learn to give shots, treat illnesses, abcesses, trim hooves (our farrier supply exceeds by little our vet supply) and monitor my horses health. Fortunately, they are easy keepers and in realtively good health, nothing I can't handle.

So asides from that, we've put Peg and Pearl in the same enclosure as Nabisco. We first walked them in with their halters to see how everyone would react... nothing... So I took Pearls halter off and she trotted towards the cow, the cow moved. Same for Peg, but Peg is hateful (I know, she is so sweet with humans, but so hateful to everything else). She saw the cow, took off running passed it with her ears back, nearly trampeled a cat, kicked towards the cat, thankfully missing it! Then looked over the fence at the large pasture. I think they thought they could go off running in the large pasture... surprise! Nobody is going out in the large pasture before the snow melts and the grass starts to grow. Plus the cow will calve in March-April, so we will keep her inside so that the calf doesn't get cold. Nabisco is getting very friendly and actually comes up to smell us, she eats grain from a bowl even if you are holding it and will follow us around given we are holding her grain bucket! LOL! We have never had to chase her, if we want her to move, we make her follow us with grain wherever we need her.

I have not yet uploaded my pics, but I will tonight. One of my great uncles passed this weekend and I haven't had time to play around computers (just like any other weekend!). I didn't take any new pictures this weekend since everyone was pretty sadened by the news. I will be attending another funeral within 6 months... the last one was of a friend that died from cancer back in September. I hope we will be done with funerals for a while. I don't like funerals, but I doubt anyone does... I have to go because it was my dad's uncle and they were very close. Also, I want to pay respect to him and the family. He helped us quite a bit this year, he sold us all of his hay at a very respectable price. It gave us a good boost! he was 81 years old and was active up until a few weeks ago. He plowed snow with his tractor just last Wednesday, but he was out of breath and weak. He checked in the hospital that Wednesday night and passed Sunday morning (yeaterday). I think he knew that he was going to go. He was so weak and insisted to plow snow and do at least one lenght of his farm's laneway. It was his last. He was a beef farmer only until a few years ago and always had chicken. He baled hay every year. He actually had very good quality of hay. Our family lost a good part by losing him, but he is in a better place now.

So keep your fingers crossed that everything will fall back in place for the family and the horses. I am tired, exhausted even, from all the comotion that's been going on lately.