I wasn't going to start your week, or mine, with a blog post about another loss, so I didn't want to share the news about Luna yesterday. But on Friday, we had to say goodbye to our blind mare Luna. She had reached the age where her teeth had literally worn out. We had first noticed late this summer that she had started to lose weight, even while on pasture 24/7. We asked our equine vet, Dr. Erin Taylor, to run CBC and chem panels to see if there was something else going on — kidney infection, other organ involvement, etc. — but her blood work looked great. During Erin's dental exam on Luna we could see how worn down her teeth were then … but we still hoped that with enough hay and grain this fall, we could turn her weight around. We figured she had to be about 30 years of age, and thus we knew the odds weren't great — but we wanted to try.
So for the past two months, we fed her as much as she could eat, but with little effect. It seemed like every week we could feel her ribs a bit more. We finally realized she was just beginning to waste away, and nothing we were doing was changing that. We didn't want her to go through the winter like this, getting thinner and thinner. Even with a heavy winter blanket, it's tough to stay warm if a horse has no body fat.
Thus we knew this day was coming, but it was still hard — and even harder than I thought it would be. I had trailered Luna into Missoula on Friday so Erin could euthanize her at the clinic, but even before I got out of the truck I was already in tears.
Our equine vets had always cautioned us that one year our numbers would catch up to us. What they meant was that given the average age of our herd — we estimated it was close to about 25 years, which is pretty old for a horse — we'd start losing a bunch of them. In other words, we'd have a "demographic wave" start crashing ashore. Well, they were right, and we began losing them over the past two years. Some had cancer, others we lost to things like colic and founder, others just began wasting away from worn-out teeth and bodies.
Luna was the latest — which is why this was even more emotionally difficult than it might otherwise have been. Hopefully she will be the last we lose for a quite a while. She was always one of our favorites, an old girl with real smarts and plenty of character. Whenever we'd go to put a halter on her, she'd turn her head towards our arm and move her mouth as if to bite … but most of the time it was what we called an "air-bite," like playing air guitar. Or else she'd gum our sleeve with lots of grass-green saliva. "Luna, I didn't need the slobber on my shirt, dear!"
Over the years we'd have the occasional employee tell us, "Hey, Luna tried to bite me today," and we'd say, "You know, if Luna wanted to bite you, she'd bite you. She knows exactly where you are. She's just foolin' with you."
We often let her follow us in from pasture by herself, while we led her pasture mate on a lead rope. Luna would just amble along behind, even walking through the gates unassisted. One time when Alayne was leading Luna's buddy into the corral next to Beauty's Barn, Luna decided to continue on into the barn on her own … she walked right down the aisle to the other end, went straight over to the Rubbermaid tub where we kept the equine senior feed, flipped the lid off with her nose, and settled in to eat. Alayne found her happily standing in the aisle enjoying her meal. We thought, "Holy moly, if this horse could see, we'd have real trouble on our hands!"
When she first arrived, her eyes were the worst we'd ever seen — completely rotted from years of untreated uveitis. We had to remove both of them as soon as she came, and what immense and immediate relief it gave her. We only had her for three years, yet at least she was pain-free.
When her last day with us finally came, it was a very sad goodbye.
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In positive news, our vet clinic reports that blind Helen is doing great!
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In The Final Week — Still No. 1 — But That Iowa Group Has Moved Up Fast!
Please keep voting for the ranch every
day in The Animal Rescue
Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge. Thanks
to your votes, we came in third nationwide and won $3,000 for the
animals in the previous contest earlier this year. Now we have a shot at No. 1 and the
$20,000 grand prize in the current contest! Enter
"Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana,
and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote. Please ask
your family and friends to vote, too.
You can see how fast the rankings can change, so we really need an
extra push in the last week of the contest to hold that No. 1
spot. It ends on December 20th, so we're in the home stretch — and $20,000 for the animals is in sight! Thank you!
Rolling Dog Farm Blog 
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