Day 245 – The Death of My Horse Part 3 – The Journey to Life.

continuation of Day 242 - The Death of my Horse Titan Part 1
and – Day 243 and 244 – The Death of my horse Titan Part 2 The Journey to Life

Leila wrote a cool blog on the events of the day here – Day 146: Death of a Horse (Titan)
and continuation on her point here - Day  147 and 148 - Aftermath Death of a Horse

Also to see the process of horses here with us and their process stuff in general, check out the interviews from Eqafe, really cool.

Birthing a new Life through the Eyes of a Horse - Part 1
Birthing a new Life through the Eyes of a Horse - Part 2
Birthing a new Life through the Eyes of a Horse - Part 3

So within the next couple of months of getting Titan it was quite a new experience for me, taking care of another being, now I wasn’t taking care of him as you would take care of a baby where you are with the baby all the time, No all I had to do was the basic points he could not do himself.

Because Horses aren’t designed to live in stables and to actually be with humans, we have created ALL of this extra work, we have taken the horse out of his natural life where Nature naturally took care of everything and we have divided those points into separate things that now require a human to do them, this is providing the horse with grass/hay/food and with Water and to give them a place to sleep that is save so that they do not get stolen and abused and we have to keep it all clean, the water buckets and the stables such as picking up poo and taking out the dirty bedding and replacing it.

And also the other important points of having a horse if not some of the most important points, their hoofs and their teeth, see in nature there are certain terrains/environments that naturally take care of the horses hoofs and teeth, now they have none of that, so we have to spend money to get their hoofs done by a professional and we need to get a professional out to do their teeth, and the thing is these people aren’t even really professional, only some are, and we found a few people that seemed most trust worthy within what they do.

We check for these people within their general behavior and their behavior towards the horses, it shows a lot about a person, and then obviously the main point was, can this person do what they need to do such as trimming and shaping the hoofs of the horse effectively without harming the horse or having to use violence to get the horse to co-operate and if the person confident within what they do and the same goes for the dentist.

So I did not have to do the hoofs YET or the teeth, but the rest was a daily scheduled activity that took place, it happened in the morning and it happened in the evening, this was the most stable and consistent parts of my day, because no matter what happens I always knew that the stables is definite.

So Titan by now has integrated and he has made great friends with Grootman at this stage, they were placed next to each other in the top six stables because Grootman bullies the other horses but not Titan, I never got to know why this is. Maybe because Titan has been through so much and obviously the point of Titan just not reacting to the bites and the stuff that made Grootman respect him.

So I remember the first Time we got the dentist out to come and do the horses Teeth, I wasn’t sure what to expect, I mean I hardly had any real communication established with Titan in terms of working with him so how is a guy going to be working on his teeth.

We wanted to get the Dentist out so that we can see what was happening inside titans mouth, since he was being neglected and so on, and we started seeing signs of Titan doing weird things with his mouth which seemed like he has discomfort in his mouth with his teeth probably not fitting on top of each other, Because a horses teeth does not stop growing and just keep coming out it is dangerous to leave it to just grow and can kill a horse and lead to infections and all types of mouth shit.

The dentist came, this guy seemed what i would call shady, he looked poor and not well looked after himself with a shitty car and all the gear on the back, he started taking once he got there and I asked questions and so forth and he said he worked/studied in England for 5 years, I took that as a good thing.

He then started with the horses, we let him start with horses that already had training and discipline and so forth just to get things moving, by the time he Got to Titan we just told him he is new and we have no Idea what to expect, he said no problem I will get it done.

When a horse dentist wants to work on a horses Teeth they have this metal bit thing they place in the mouth and it then opens the mouth and locks, so that the horse cannot close their mouth at all, This guy could at first not get that thing around Titans face, he struggled and said that we are going to have to get a vet out to sedate Titan so that he can work on him, we called the vet and he came and he gave the sedation and then this guy started doing his job.

It sounded harsh and bad, I heard teeth grinding and chipping sounds as this guy was rasping away at Titan’s teethe, I stood next to Titan holding him and keeping him stable and calm, showing him that I am here for him and that this is currently best for him, they guy said he had a little bit of over grown teeth but not too bad, Titan did how ever have two sharp little teeth that needed to be cut with these little cutters.

I saw for the first Time a sedated horse and it looked bad to me, like the horse was dying within that state and wanting to fall over the whole time, holding a horse up and in place while the dentist grind away at the teeth wasn’t easy, I was sweaty and my wish the whole time was for it to end. I did not want to do that.

After the guy was done and Titan was still sedated he started playing with Titans tong to show us how they usually can do it without sedating a horse, where you take the tong and place it outside the mouth and hold it so that the horse does not bite down, and all I thought was man everything we have to work with animals is to cruel and brutal in nature and they tolerate it all.

The this dentist started looking closer at Titans Mouth and he said, wow that is quite a old guy, we looked at him and said, well the guy we bought him from said he is 8/9 years old, the dentist then laughs and said he must have lied, this guy is definitely not younger than 20 years, he is probably about 21/22 years old from looking at his teeth and gums.

It was quite a shock, but it also made more sense in terms of how Titan physically looked and behaved, this added a lot to what we thought we knew about Titan
To be continued.