Spirit has been sick for about a week. It started on the evening of the national championship football game. I live near the home of one of the teams. It was not a night to try to call anyone. But not only was he refusing food, he started open mouth breathing. I called my horse vet (who I also work for occasionally).
I left a message that said that he didn’t attend the school in the game so he had to call me back. He called and told me that Spirit always looks like he’s dying and he’s never died yet. I said he was running a fever and I gave him some medicine. He said he’d call back in an hour and he’d bet that the fever would be down and Spirit would be feeling better. I went out and told Spirit that he now had a reputation for being a melodramatic wussy boy when sick so his vet doesn’t take him seriously. Someday when he is really dying he’ll be sorry for having a bad rep.
Long story short the horse pouted until Thursday when he laid down and refused to get up. This time the horse vet came out and took bloodwork and did an exam and still couldn’t find anything wrong but intermittent fevers. If it wasn’t for the fever I’d say the horse was just pouting. He would perk up some if he got to go graze in the lawn. No matter how bad he felt he’d go to a point in the lawn where Prize could see out her window that he was getting special treatment.
I left last weekend and he was still not eating well and just staring out his window. I left long directions for the homeopathic immune boosters he was on. The report after the weekend was that he was bad on Friday but on Saturday started to perk up and eat. I think I figured it out.
His sickness was inversely proportional to how much his caretaker loved him.
All week when I fed him – pouting and not eating
Friday when his normal pet sitter fed him – pouting but picking at food a bit
Saturday when the pet sitter’s husband fed him – perfectly fine and eating like nothing was ever wrong.
I don’t care if the medicine started to work and he felt better. I’m sticking to the pouting theory. I think the horse was just messing with me.
melodramatic wussy boy…hehehe…this post made me laugh.
Awww….poor Spirit.
*laughs* I think your horse is related to our Dachshunds. Our youngest healed from her spaying in record time. Withing about 4 days there wasn’t even a sign of an incision. And yet she continued for about 2 weeks whining and wanting us to help her on and off the sofa and up and down the steps. She kept it up until we just flat out refused to do it anymore. Then she went bounding up and down by herself with nary a sign of problems *laughs*.
Then there’s our oldest dachshund who yelps when the groomer picks up his paw to clip his nails. If he even *thinks* something is going to hurt, he yelps. To give him his due, he does have a bad back, but he makes it really hard to tell when he really is having problems with his back because he milks it for everything it’s worth.
Aww…Poor Spirit! I think you figured it out though! You always knew he was too smart for his own good. I still hope he feels better soon.
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