Ambers Echo
Still wittering on
I wanted to update as people were kind enough to respond with ideas and also with reassurance that PTS was a reasonable option.
I have been so focused on getting her sound that I just never stood back and looked at her holistically. It took my daughter to do that. I am humbled by her perceptiveness and courage.
In the end we went through a decision tree:
I decided I needed the vet for that. He has known her all along and I trust him. I compiled a long email pulling together the ideas I had been given from here and elsewhere. He called me back and although that conversation is now a bit of a blur and I can’t really remember exactly what he said I do know that by the end of the conversation I was clear that he did not think there were any ways forward that gave a reasonable chance of a good outcome. Balanced against that was that any further investigations would in themselves be traumatic in a pony who is intensely needle shy and found being touched aversive.
All this was discussed openly with my daughter. Ginny was her pony and her view mattered a lot.
She did not want to pursue new options given the limited hope the vet was able to offer. So we made the decision to call it a day. We double dosed her with Domesedan first as she is needle shy, so she knew nothing about it at the end. Thank-you for everyone who offered ideas. I did appreciate it very much. Run free little pony.
X
I have been so focused on getting her sound that I just never stood back and looked at her holistically. It took my daughter to do that. I am humbled by her perceptiveness and courage.
In the end we went through a decision tree:
- Was Ginny suffering? Yes. We don’t know what was wrong but she was anxious, tense, guarded, unhappy, reluctant to move etc.=
- Was she improving? No. She may have been sound but in herself she was worse than ever. She no longer enjoyed her inhand walks – she would drag her feet and plant. She was less and less willing to be groomed or touched. She was more defensive. She no longer played in the field. I asked the YO, YM and my daughter how they felt she was doing overall and all agreed she was a lot more miserable than in the summer even though in the summer was when she was lame all over with a really sore back.
- Could we alter her management so she was content, eg turn away? No. She did not like cold, wet, muddy weather, she was already gate hanging (last winter she was always the first to ask to come in). And we didn’t know what was wrong with her so we could not know how to manage her in a way that would make her feel better. For all we knew, being colder or getting wet could exacerbate her issues.
- Were there avenues still to explore that had a reasonable chance of leading to a good outcome? This was the hardest to answer. Because there are always new avenues to explore. From complementary or alternative approaches, to diet, to management, to animal communicators, to medication trials of various types, to new scopes etc etc etc
I decided I needed the vet for that. He has known her all along and I trust him. I compiled a long email pulling together the ideas I had been given from here and elsewhere. He called me back and although that conversation is now a bit of a blur and I can’t really remember exactly what he said I do know that by the end of the conversation I was clear that he did not think there were any ways forward that gave a reasonable chance of a good outcome. Balanced against that was that any further investigations would in themselves be traumatic in a pony who is intensely needle shy and found being touched aversive.
All this was discussed openly with my daughter. Ginny was her pony and her view mattered a lot.
She did not want to pursue new options given the limited hope the vet was able to offer. So we made the decision to call it a day. We double dosed her with Domesedan first as she is needle shy, so she knew nothing about it at the end. Thank-you for everyone who offered ideas. I did appreciate it very much. Run free little pony.
X
