I usually go to bed around 9 or 9:30. I turn off my phone.
I usually get up around 5:30 and turn on my phone.
Well, this morning at 5:30, I saw a bunch of texts and phone calls from Gillian, who is Dalton’s trainer.
Uh oh. That kind of wake-up scares the crap out of me… I read all the texts carefully and ran out the door with my colic cure.
The. Longest. Drive. Ever.
It takes me 90 minutes to get there. All the while, Gillian is emailing me his condition. He isn’t rolling, he isn’t sweating. His vitals are good yet he isn’t himself and he hasn’t pooped since last night.
Crap crap crap.
I get there, screech to a halt, fly out of my car and run to him. He looks pretty good for a horse who hasn’t pooped in 12 hours, but he doesn’t look like himself. He is slightly uncomfortable.
I whip out the SAY WHOA TO COLIC and dose him with a water chaser.
From previous experience, I know it takes 30-60 minutes to work. Usually 45 minutes.
To see if he was wiling to move, I walked him around… and he walked freely. A good sign.
Now we wait – while we call the vet and make a plan.
We called a local vet, a neighbor vet tech, another local vet… then we switched to hospitals… the first equine hospital (30 minutes away) couldn’t see him until 1 – it was 8 am. Then we called Alamo Pintado and they said they could take him immediately. Yay! We ran to see if he had passed any manure… no. Argh. We again discussed his condition. No sweat, no rolling… we heard some gut sounds and much more gut sounds since we dosed him… but no poop.
We decided to get him to the hospital because he had to poop soon or it would be really bad.
So, as we were walking to his paddock, Gillian’s mother said, “I SEE POOP!”
It was 40 minutes after he had been dosed. Poop.
Thank you, horsegods, for making sure I had the cure on my shelf, for getting me there safely, for not allowing it to be worse, and for letting Dalton poop before we had to go to the hospital.
I sat there with him for another 5 hours until he pooped again. Here are some pics.
After he had pooped, we have him a yummy but sloppy mash which he put on my head.
During our 5 hours of hanging out (after the first poop), he and I took a few walks. He was very interested in his surroundings and seemed normal.
He did look intently for green grass bits, so we hunted those and I let him eat all he could find.
His second pile was right on top of his first pile! (I wish he was that clean at home!) He seemed back to his normal self.
HOW TO GET COLIC CURE FOR YOURSELF?!
This won’t work on twisted gut, but my experience with Say Whoa to Colic has shown me that it works very well on gas, stress and sand colic – or an impaction. I have always administered it early during the first signs of colic. For me, it has worked every single time. I give it to them, chase it with a syringe of water, and then call the vet. By the time the vet arrives, the colic has passed.
Over the years, I’ve used this on Slick (sand colic), Dodger (change of paddock colic), Tess (laminitis stress colic) and now Dalton (gas colic). It has been 8 years since I’ve learned of Say Whoa to Colic and have been very happy. I always have 2 tubes on my shelf.
If you use the coupon code “HMFund” upon checkout, she will give you $10 off your order!
THANK YOU, HORSEGODS!
Thank you for this post — and thank horse gods Dalton is recovering. There is a serious problem with heat stress colics now in the Pacific NW and while I do vigilantly manage heat issues where I am located and so far my horses haven’t heat-colicked, this post about the Say Whoa to Colic remedy for me was a good reminder to keep it on hand. Ordering today (right after I order those emergency horse ID tags, we are all on fire over here and the latest new fire is only 30 miles distant.
PS hope your mom is also doing better!