Remembering Roxy

In 3 days it will be the 6 year anniversary of the day that I had to make the heartbreaking decision to have Roxy put down. Not a day goes by that I don't think about her, so I wanted to share her story.

I was suffering from a terrible loss of confidence and was looking for a very safe, very calm, quiet horse that could help me regain my confidence. After much searching I found an ad for someone who had a number of horses to sell, so I contacted them and told them what I was looking for. They told me they thought they had just the horse for me, so we scheduled a time to go out and meet her. When we arrived the guy took us over to an overcrowded pen where all the horses were standing in slop. He went into the pen and pulled out this very thin gray mare. She had marks all over her from where the other horses in the pen had picked on her, and part of her mane was chewed off. He hopped on her bareback and rode her over to the barn to tack her up. All I could think about was how thin she was! I also kept thinking that she wasn't the prettiest horse I'd ever seen. I figured that, since we were there, I might as well go ahead and take her for a short test ride.  When I got on her she refused to move.  The guy told me to kick her (which I hate to do).  She still didn't move, so he told me to kick her harder.    She finally started walking and I rode her into the arena.  I rode her around at a walk and trot a little bit, and then got off.  (The idea of riding her too much in the condition she was in was making me cringe.)  She did really well once I finally got her moving.  After I got off I just stood there with her for a bit while my husband and the seller were talking.  I couldn't get past the sad, defeated look in her eye.  She looked like she had just given up on life.  My husband and I told the seller that we needed to talk it over, so the seller took her away and unsaddled her while we talked.  Long story short, I couldn't walk away from her.  I felt sorry for her, and felt that she needed to get out of that place as soon as possible, and she had done well enough with me, so we bought her.  The seller told me that he didn't know much about her except that she was an Appendix, 16h, she had a lip tattoo, and they called her Roxy.

Once she arrived at our place we turned her out in the dry lot, with Zena in the pasture, so they could spend some time getting to know each other over the fence and Roxy could stretch her legs a bit.  She started perking up almost immediately when she saw that she actually had room to move, and there was grass on the other side of the fence!  These pictures are of Roxy the day we bought her.

Roxy and Zena got along great right off the bat, and I think Roxy thought she had died and gone to heaven when I turned her out to pasture!  She still had a sad look in her eyes, but she didn't look so defeated anymore.  The spark of life was slowly starting to return to her eyes.  These next 2 pictures were taken 2 weeks after she came to live with us, and you can already see how much she had improved, just having grass to graze, good food, good care, and lots of love.

One thing I quickly learned about Roxy was that she was a real babysitter type of horse.  If she felt that I was nervous, she would stand perfectly still until I relaxed (I'm guessing that's why she refused to move that day that I test rode her - I was a bundle of nerves!)  As she and I continued to bond, she responded to lighter and lighter cues from me.  It turned out that she was exactly what I had been looking for - a real confidence builder!

This picture was taken 2 months after we bought her.

One day when the equine dentist was out to do the girls' teeth, I asked them if they could hold Roxy's lip up so I could get some good pictures of her lip tattoo.  Until that point I'd never been able to get a good look at it.  I could make out most of the letters and numbers ok, but there were a couple that were hard to read.  I had the vet that was there with the dentist look at it, and he read it as best he could.  I then took the information I had and started searching lip tattoos on the internet.  I eventually found that she was not an Appendix at all, but a Thoroughbred, and she was born in 2000, which meant that she was 7 years old when I bought her.

Over time she continued to thrive.  I quickly forgot about the sad, defeated, ugly duckling I'd seen the day I bought her, because now when I looked at her I saw a beautiful, happy horse, with a sparkle in her eye, and I loved her with all my heart.  The seller randomly stopped by one day to see how she and I were getting along, and when he saw her he was shocked!  He actually asked if he could buy her back and I told him there wasn't enough money in the world for me to sell her to him or anyone!

This picture was taken 11 months after we bought her.  She looks like a completely different horse!

Unfortunately she started colicking frequently.  It got to the point where I could recognize the signs from across the pasture, and if she saw me coming and she wasn't feeling well, she would immediately walk over to me, and start pointing her nose to her side.  It also got to the point where she was colicking so often that I could tell the difference between a mild colic (I could give her banamine and rest and she'd be better by morning), and a more serious colic (call the vet, have her tubed, etc.).

One day, 15 months after I bought her, she started to colic again.  This was a bad one.  I called the vet, he gave her banamine and tubed her and we waited.  The next morning she was still hurting.  Over the next 5 days my vet was out almost daily, and we tried everything the vet could think of to try to help Roxy, but she just wasn't getting better, in fact she was getting worse.  She even began fighting me when I tried to give her her medicine (which was so out of character for her).  The vet told me that we could try surgery, but it was expensive, I had no way to get her there, and he said there was no guarantee that the surgery would save her, so I had to say no to the surgery.  On that 5th day (September 17, 2008), I came home from work to find Roxy rolling violently on the floor of her stall.  By the look of her, she'd been doing it most of the day.  She'd also been chewing on the wood boards in her stall (not like her at all).  I immediately ran and called the vet and then went back to the barn and sat beside her.  She laid her head in my lap and had such a look of pain in her eyes that I knew it was time.  As much as it killed me, I had to let her go.  I couldn't allow her to continue suffering like that.  When the vet arrived I had tears pouring down my face as I told him of my decision.  He examined her (when she wasn't rolling again), and he agreed that it was time.  I put her halter on her for the last time, and I led her out to pasture.  We allowed her to nibble at the grass a bit, and then she started rolling again, so we got her up and she and I stood looking at the beautiful sunset as we said our goodbyes.  She is buried in my pasture where I can visit her grave, and where she will always be with me, although her spirit now runs, pain free, at the Rainbow Bridge.

RIP my beautiful Roxy.  I loved you with all of my heart, and you will never be forgotten.

2000 - September 17, 2008