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Isobel jumped up and grabbed Beauty’s halter from a hook right outside the stall. She slipped it over Beauty’s head, buckled it, then attached a lead to the halter.
“Come on, girl. Up.” She tugged on the lead rope with all her might. “Up you go.”
Beauty pulled against her. Isobel dug in and tugged hard. And finally, after a few more tense moments, Beauty climbed to her feet. She immediately yanked against Isobel’s hold though, twisting her head toward her flank and dancing back and forth.
Then she reared back, kicking at her own stomach with her forelegs.
“Whoa, girl!” Isobel cried, letting out more slack on the lead and flattening her back against the stall door as Beauty came back down again.
Crap. Having a twelve-hundred-pound horse rear right in front of you was never a comfortable feeling but Isobel knew showing how freaked she was would only make Beauty more tense.
“Shhh, shhhh,” Isobel tried to quiet the horse down. She drew the lead rope back in and stepped close to Beauty’s nose. “Shhh, that’s right, girl. I’m going to figure out what’s wrong and make you feel better, okay sweetheart?”
Maybe it was just her imagination but she thought Beauty calmed a little at her voice.
“That’s right, that’s right,” Isobel soothed.
She ran to grab some equipment and then hurried back so she could take the rest of Beauty’s vitals. Her temperature was okay but her heart rate was almost double what was normal.
Not good. Not good at all.
Then Isobel did an internal examination. Was it just gas? That was the best-case scenario. Or was there a twisted intestine causing the blockage? That was the worst-case scenario because it required surgery.
What she discovered instead was the middle possibility. There was an impaction—a thick section of intestine that was hard with what was most likely undigested feed that had gotten all clumped up in a six-inch section.
“Okay,” Isobel whispered. “Okay, okay, okay.”
She withdrew her hand and peeled off the glove, taking both it and the thermometer out of the stall. She rushed back over to the sink, throwing out the plastic glove and scrubbing both the thermometer and her hands.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself. “You can do this. This is going to be your job.” But somehow it felt like there was less at stake with other people’s animals. And Hunter was always there if she screwed up.
She paused mid-scrub. She could go call him. Get a second opinion.
But no. She’d felt the impaction. She knew what to do next. And she’d just helped him with that other colic case the other day.
Yes, that one had been a little different. They’d suspected it was a twisted intestine but the owner hadn’t wanted to pay for surgery—understandable since it could cost more than the horse was worth.
When Hunter had called later to follow up on the case, the owner told him the horse hadn’t lasted the night.
Isobel squeezed her eyes shut against the possibility. No. That wouldn’t happen to Beauty. Beauty had already survived so much—a cruel owner who had held her to an impossible standard, pushing her past her limits even when she was injured.
Now Beauty was finally getting the life she deserved. She was getting her happily ever after here on this horse farm with owners who cared about her and were happy to just let her be herself.
Then to have that all threatened now, right when her legs were barely even healing up so she could actually enjoy her new home?
It was cruel. It was wrong.
Isobel wouldn’t let it happen. She set her jaw before getting to work.
First she gave Beauty some oral pain reliever. Then she started trying to flush her system with the mineral oil.
“Come on, girl. You can do it.”
An hour later, Isobel was still trying. She was damp with sweat and the mineral oil/water mix that had sloshed out all over her.
Beauty was slightly sluggish from the medication and not jerking around as violently. Isobel was glad Beauty wasn’t in as much pain, but she also wasn’t sure if that meant the mare’s gut would keep working the way it needed to in order to pass the gummed up food.
“Okay,” Isobel whispered to herself, looking around the stable. She wished one of the guys was around to ask them their opinion. She’d run out to check the compost shed, but all she saw were the missing four-wheelers.
