Poor Mama Tess.

I knew she had some knowledge to impart to me… but I was presenting as incredibly dense.

I wasn’t getting it.

Sigh.  Poor MT, what’s a horse gotta do?…

If she could have cuffed me on the back of my head, she would have.

INSTEAD OF BOPPING ME ON THE BACK OF THE HEAD, SHE GAZED OUT HER WINDOW AND SIGHED HER BIG SIGH… A TRUE SIGN.

Tess has her favorite window.  She looks out of it and reminds herself why she is fighting this awful founder battle.

Or, at least that is how I see it.

Whenever she seems pensive or agitated or upset, she will go over to this one particular window and gaze out – fixated.

She stares outside to her pasture.  It is 3 acres of wooded hills.  She loves it.  And, I think she looks at it to remember why.

I can busily clean all around her while she is in this mood – even throw shavings out of that very window under her nose – and she won’t flinch.

She seems to be in a trance-like state.

To me, it as if she is gathering energy or fortitude or the strength to do whatever it is that she had to do next.

In this case, she had to figure out a way to get her message through to her obtuse human.

SO, WE SAT DOWN TOGETHER

I begged her to try again… I begged her to tell me what it was that she wanted.

I knew she was sore again.

I knew it was her left foot… but there was no obvious reason.  Nothing had changed.  Her food, meds, environment – everything – is at a constant.

What was the issue?

So we sat together.

When she pinned her ears and looked at the gate, I knew she wanted Scoutypants to leave the barn now!

Me:  OK, well, that was obvious.

MT:  No, it wasn’t obvious… you just heard me because you don’t have any emotion tied to my request to get rid of that annoying canine you like so much – ugh – for the life of me I will never understand what you see in those dogs but whatever…

Me:  No, it was obvious.  I know you hate the dogs.

MT:  How do you know?

Me:  Because you told me.

MT:  When?  Did I move my lips and say it to you like MR. Ed?

Me:  No, I just know.

MT:  Aha!  See there, you aren’t as dumb as you act!

 

Me:  What?

MT:  OK, listen closely.  Clear your mind.  Now, just sit here and be with me.

Me:  Clear my head?  How can I do

MT:  QUIET, HUMAN!  SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

Me:  ok.

So we sat together.

MY MIND STARTED TO WANDER BECAUSE I CANNOT MEDITATE OR DO YOGA OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT…

My mind started to wander.  I thought about a few things …  and then the idea came to me that the Koppertox was burning the soft new tissue on the underside of the huge hole in her foot.  And, I also got the notion that Koppertox is Copper which is a metal and I wondered if potentially, after time, this could be absorbed into her system at toxic levels.  After all, it is called, Kopper – TOX.

MT:  That’s it!!  You got it silly human!    If you were quiet more, you’d hear more!

I IMMEDIATELY RE-WRAPPED HER FEET.

On that notion, I unwrapped her left foot and craned my neck to shine my brightest headlamp into the dark caverns of the underside hole of her left foot – exactly in fatal kicking range – to see the new tissue covering her coffin bone.

Now, I’m just a lay person, but it did look a bit angry in there.

So, I flushed out all the remnants of Koppertox and put in a different anti-microbial lotion and THE BALM.

Then I rewrapped.

IS IT MY IMAGINATION, OR IS SHE HAPPIER?

Is it my imagination, or is she happier?

I’m not sure what happened there, but that was 5 days ago and she has seemed brighter and more whimsical since I quit the Koppertox altogether (against surgeon’s orders).

So far, so good.  No odor.  No infection.

And, she hasn’t gazed out her window, pensively, in my presence since that day.

I’m hoping she got her point across to her deaf and dumb human.

Poor Tess… my wonderful teacher who still has her moments of utter frustration with me.  ;)