hello there,
For anyone who ever thought horses are just dumb animals, this post is for you. For anyone who has ever lost a loved one, this post is for you. For anyone who has ever watched a loved one suffer, this post is for you. A few weeks ago, the farm where my horse lives experienced a sudden loss. The old pony, who had resided there long before my horse moved in, passed away. It was a devastating shock to everyone that knew her. Animal or human, to have something leave you that's been a part of your daily life, year after year for years, is never an easy experience. Although we rest assured that her elderly body no longer ales her, all of us mourned her loss, in our own way. For me, it was cuddles with my horse. Breathing in his aroma, knowing he's still with me and how blessed I am to have him. I tried to find the joy in his existence while coming to terms with the loss of hers.
But for him, it wasn't quite so easy. And that in itself took me off guard. The first two days following her passing, my horse appeared to be his normal self. Alert and attentive, enthusiastic and full of attitude, motivated and focused. By the third day, however, that all changed. He stopped eating his grain (anyone that know's my horses story, knows his overall health is managed solely on his grain). He wouldn't socialize with the other horses in the field. He had to get dragged into the barn at night. When I rode him it was as if every step, every movement, required the utmost effort. On the trails he hung his head instead of looking around. In his stall he would stand still instead of doing his usual rambunctious movement. In a matter of two days my horse had gone from my horse to something I didn't recognize.
Distraught and concerned, my mind went to a million and one places. Was something wrong with him? If so, what? Was this a matter that required veterinary attention? The questions went on and on. Every day, at least twice a day, I would drive up to the barn to check his vitals and overall disposition. Every time I checked however nothing appeared to be wrong. So, I quickly came to the only conclusion I could come up with:
My horse was depressed.
Now before you think I'm some crazy horse owner, that horses can't get depressed, let me explain. Firstly, yes. Horses can suffer from depression. I know this to be true because it's not the first time I've had to deal with it with my horse. However, it was the first time he had become depressed over the death of another friend. It's happened before when he was on stall rest but that situation was easier to understand. But this, this was a whole new experience. After eight years I can confidently say I know my horse extremely well, as do the people that live with him. And one thing was certain: He was depressed. Usually the social butterfly in the field, he was dejected and hid in the shelter. Typically the horse with jump in his step and his head held high, he was lethargic and his head just hung there. His eyes that are always filled with life (too much life, more often than not) were dull and unresponsive.
It took me off guard, to say the least. Perhaps that means I'm not as attentive as I like to think I am. At the time of the pony's death, it seemed like a non issue to me in terms of how he would react. It wasn't the first time he lost a herd member and the last time it happened it was a horse that he was much more attached to, but the loss never seemed to phase him. So when she, a pony he spent very little interactive time with, passed away, it never occurred to me he would be effected. But like the human I am, I was very wrong.
I battled long and hard with what to do. And after nights of lost sleep I knew the one thing I could do for him:
Just be there.
I couldn't bring the pony back from the dead. I certainly couldn't buy him a replacement pony. After all there was still three other horses in the field with him. I couldn't force feed him. I couldn't tell him it was going to be okay. I couldn't tell him she was in a better place. There was nothing I could for him, and obviously nothing I could say to him. So, all I could do was just be there for him.
Over the next few days we re arranged where the horses slept at night so there was a horse in the stall across from him that had been occupied by the pony for eight years prior. I continued to ride him as much as I thought felt appropriate given his energy levels and nutrient intake, in order to keep up his endorphins and maintain some form of regularity. Eventually he started eating dry grain and would join the others at the breakfast feed. Soon after, his pep came back to his step under saddle. The day he started pacing around his stall was the day I knew I had my horse back.
With things back to normal I started to dissect the situation, and as I always do, I tried to connect what I learn from the horses to my work with people. We'd be hard pressed to find someone that had never experience some form of loss in their life. And anyone that has ever experienced loss, of any kind, knows that there's just really nothing anyone can do to make it better. Sometimes we just can't fix the situation, we can't make it better. So what can we do? Well like I said, just be there.
I also started to think about how this relates to mental health. As much as we like to think we've come a long way in regards to the discourse around mental health, we still have strides to take. With physical ailments it's easy for us to conceptualize. We find a diagnosis, prognosis, and hopefully a treatment plan. But for mental health there's no black and white areas. Every individual deals with it in different ways. There's no one right answer. We struggle with understanding mental health because we can't define it. There's no right and wrong, or yes and no. It catches us off guard and like in the case with my horse, it can even scare us.
I, like many others, felt I had to find the solution to my horses suffering. It couldn't possibly be depression because if it was then I couldn't fix the problem. And I think it's part of our human nature to want to fix those we love when they appear "broken".
What I learned out of all of this is that there's no shame in not having the answers. It's okay that I can't always fix the problem. As hard as it is for me to not be able to say or do anything to make it better, it's okay that I can't. It's okay that I couldn't understand what he was feeling because I'm not him. We all experience and feel and cope in our own ways. I can't always have all the answers and I wouldn't be helping him at all if I pretended I did. But there's one thing that I can do. One thing that could perhaps be the most important thing I do when those I love are suffering;
Just be there.
-m.o
