Trial by fire

During college, I took a class called Equine Management Practicum, a requirement for Equestrian Studies and equine Administration students. We were responsible for all daily care of the horses and even most of their vet care, due to the fact that our nearest vet was almost 30 minutes away. Toward the end of my senior year, we had a situation that no one could ever think would happen.

In the beginning of February of my senior year the Equestrian Department was getting ready for our spring horse show, but we never got a chance to hold our show that year. The night before the horse show, two of our dressage horses started to show signs of laminitis. Our dressage instructor thought that she recognized a faint smell coming from the shavings. She also thought the situation was strange because dressage horses don’t receive the same concussion that jumping horses do, so she thought the shavings might be the problem, and started stripping stalls. By the next day with 110 horses on campus over half were showing signs of laminitis. The culprit was black walnut shavings.

With over half of the 110 horses on the facility in danger, all equestrian students quickly became vet techs. We ran fluids, DMSO, iced feet, administered medications and wrapped feet. Our little campus became a hospital for more than two months. Luckily, by the end of March and the start of spring break, all horses were starting their slow recovery. Our little campus slowly began to return to normal, except for the faint smell of DMSO.

I was one of a hundred students that helped nurse 110 horses through months of medications and rehabilitation. I learned a lot about veterinary medicine in those few months and was able to add that to my equine education. Now that I am a vet tech, it also makes me appreciate those few months of education even more and the veterinarians and vet techs that helped us through a very difficult situation.