A Close Call With A Dear Friend

I grew up with my horse, Rembrandt, aka: Rudy and have owned him since he was a yearling. Yesterday he had colic. Colic is probably the number one killer of horses. I have never had the vet out for colic before. For a 29 year old horse, Rudy is amazingly healthy and quite nicely well preserved. I spent over five hours yesterday and last night lunging and walking him. I pleaded with him not to leave me now. "We still have lots of good years ahead", I told him. At midnight I called my vet because Rembrandt seemed in pretty bad pain. There wasn't much more they could do for him except surgery, Dan Keenan said. "Just keep walking him and hopefully he'll pull through." I walked him until his pain seemed lessened. At 2:00 am I went inside, mentally and physically exhausted. I dozed for an hour. I went out and checked on him three times during the early morning hours. He was down more than he was up, but he seemed to be resting quietly. By 6:30, he had regained his interest in food when he quickly went to check out his feed bucket when I fed Rita. "Sorry, no food until later, vet's orders", I said. By 8:00 am he seemed more like his old self and has been eating small quantities of timothy hay that I soaked in water and drained before feeding. Knock on wood, so far so good. We have to be very careful with his diet over the next couple of weeks so he can have a full recovery from the ordeal. Here is a photo I took of him tonight. Sometimes we don't realize how much somebody means to us until they might be lost.