A Bad Day

I was outside yesterday getting some gardening done. The week had been way too hot for any type of outside activity so I was taking advantage of the cloudy weather. I had the pony out eating some grass as I always do and also had the dogs out just playing around, as I always do.

Over in the garden I was doing my thing, when all of a sudden I heard Dude attacking the pony. I ran over to Dude, who was already in submission mode because he knew he did something wrong. I yelled at him, telling him he was a bad dog and then ran over to the pony to make sure he was ok.

The way that the pony was shaking his head I thought that Dude had gotten his ear. I felt it and it was bloody. I was furious. I walked him into the barn and tried to cross tie him, which he’s not very welled trained with yet. When I was hooking up the cross ties I noticed his eye was rigorously bleeding. I freaked. My day had already been a mess and now I have to deal with this poor pony and the fact that his eye might be severely damaged. I was so upset and shaking. I knew what I needed to do and I usually can handle things like this well but everything was going wrong all at once and I just couldn’t handle it anymore.

The pony finally stood still enough for me to hook him up to the cross ties and I ran over to get something to wipe the blood away. His poor eye was all bloody and dilated and I feared that it was really damaged. I called my mom, because we share custody of him and told her the bad news and of course she freaked which made it even worse for me. But once again I calmed myself down and told her I would call the vet.

By the time I got the vet on the phone the bleeding wasn’t as bad but I still wanted to know what else I could do to help my little man. The vet said to keep pressure on it and once it stops bleeding to flush it out and then cold pack it and give him something to keep the swelling down like bute. I was so relieved! I thought that I would have to have the vet come out and that there was gong to be a huge bill and the pony was going to need some serious attention but it was all ok.

I really have the best pony ever! He was amazing. He just stood there and let me do what I had to do. I knew it had to hurt but he was doing his best at staying still. I took a look at his ear because I wanted to make sure that Dude didn’t get that too. It was bloody but not too bad so I checked the other one just to be sure. Come to find out it was dried blood from the terrible amount of flies that we have. I can’t find the proper fitting fly mask for him so unfortunately he gets eaten.

Once his eye looked alright I let him back out in the paddock. Usually something like that with my other horse I would have put her in a stall but the pony, he would do more damage in the stall than out in the paddock. I felt that he would be just fine in the paddock and he was. I walked up to the house and got a small ice pack and grabbed a towel.
When I got back down to the paddock he was standing in the lean to being a great boy. I placed the ice pack on his eye and that pony just stood there. He rested his nose on my shoulder, letting me do what needed to be done. After a couple of minutes he would move, I think it was getting a little too cold and he was like “ahh it’s cold!” But after a few minutes he let me do all over again.

Once everything that needed to be done was done I walked up to the house and flopped onto the couch and just took a big, deep breath. What a day! It’s a little swollen today but it’s nothing he can’t handle, he’s one tough little man!