Sick horse...poor Bishop

Now he has a kidney infection. He is on antibiotics. The vet was at the stable to see some other horses. The vet took some blood samples.

Bishop is not too happy. He is not interested in eating his grain. I fed him some carrots - he ate them all.

He was taken outside to eat some grass and he liked that. He needs to move a bit. I took him for a short walk. (That was Thursday)


Friday - I took him for a walk this morning and he was not too reluctant. He had eaten his dinner last night. He ate some of his breakfast this morning. He did eat the carrots I gave him.

He did not try to steal a bite of hay from the cart as it went by him. The barn staff said - oh that is not like him - he always tries to get a bite.He looks somewhat better. I left him all wrapped up in a blanket.


*****


So I started to think about his health issues. He has numerous problems in the 13 years that I have owned him. My first horse had very few.

He had a serious growth on his nose that had to be removed by the vet. It could have interfered with his breathing.

When he was younger he had colic (a sore tummy) but it was never too serious. I watch him eat often and it seems that he inhales his grain which would lead anyone (horse or person) to get an upset tummy.

He injured a leg and had to be bandaged and the leg rubbed with various liniments.

He got an eye infection and needed to have eye drops. He was not too happy about getting them applied.

In 2000 he started to have Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) which is a lung disease that resembles human asthma. He has had some real struggles with this over the years. He has been on a number of different medications.

When this first started, Bishop lost a lot of weight. This was in the fall and so he was offered more food which he did not refuse. Some months later when the barn owner returned from his winter vacation, I was riding Bishop and stopped to say hello. He wanted to know how Bishop was doing and then poked his tummy! Bishop had gotten rather fat because his food rations had never been readjusted. Guess what happened next - Weight Watchers for horses!

He was never overly fond of having the vet visit him. Now he is much more relaxed just because he has had to have so many injections.

He was stabled in an outside stall with better ventilation for some time. There was to be built a new extension to the barn but with the red tape, things got held up. He was quite happy to live outside and the vet said that was the best place for him. When the extension was finally ready, he did get a stall there -there is good ventilation and he is close to a door.

*****

He has always gotten excellent care from the barn owner and from the barn staff.