Animals have a terrific sense of humour. Mine have just co-ordinated a mass outbreak of malingering.
Every single last one of them has gone down with a complicated illness or injury.
It all started a few weeks ago when Tara the chestnut mare ripped her lower eyelid open. The vet who came to stitch it then discovered that she was also lame, and had suspected Cushing’s disease.
She took a blood sample and it came back with a slight positive, too ambiguous to merit treatment. ‘It could just be because she is overweight,’ said the vet.
‘Then let’s go with that,’ I said, because I know full well that if a test comes back saying your horse might be dying but then again she might be being a bit fat and lazy and fancying a few weeks rest in a stable and so is somehow managing metabolically to mimic the symptoms of a growth on the pituitary gland, then it is probably the latter.
We put Tara on box rest, treated the eye with antibiotic drops four times a day, and started to reduce her hay intake until she was pretty much on starvation rations.
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