Hug your horses often -RIP Duke

Sad end of our weekend at the Lazy H:
After doing some painting most of sunday afternoon I took a break and rode Grey. It was wonderful, he is so good with his leads using the LJ bareback pad. Then I was feeding everybody and when I got to the back paddocks where Duke and AJ live Duke was laying down and there was a circle of disturbed sand around him. So I told mom and dad since Duke is their horse. Got Duke haltered and up and he was obviously in distress, breathing hard etc so called Dr Mike. He was able to come out in 45 minutes, we walked Duke some, let him lie down some as he wanted but didn't let him roll till Dr Mike got here -- I felt we might be putting Duke down as we waited. That is the most distress I've ever seen a horse experiencing. Well when Dr Mike sedated Duke and did a rectal he could feel a twisted bowel and it was obviously very tender for Duke having the rectal done. He thinks Duke might have had a tumor that strangled the colon since the colic developed so quickly. Duke continued breathing hard after the exam and only 30 minutes after getting the pain killer so there was no question about the decision to put Duke down right then.

Duke started as my brothers horse . I had bought a QH stud colt when I was in HS, that we let breed E's appy cross mare before we had the colt gelded that fall. When E went off to college and was not into horses anymore and mom wanted to get into jumping she took some initial lessons on a school horse and then used Duke until she wanted to move to higher jumps than Duke could manage so mom bought AJ, and Duke went to mom's instructor on a care lease and was a school horse until he was 22 but mom and dad took him on the annual hunting trip every year and he was a solid packhorse and seemed to enjoy the change of scenery although he loffed teaching kiddos to jump. The picture is of Duke in retirement taken about 18 months ago. Duke was 25 this spring and except for getting just a bit fussy about stemmier hay which I had chalked up just to aging teeth had been doing real well, he was in a good weight and had taken to running and bucking when he thought I was tardy with breakfast. So a bit of shock losing him; but in a way its easier than watching a horse gradually decline and trying to decide when the quality of life has gotten too low and its time to say goodbye.