Red Falcon Ranch

You know those once-in-a-lifetime horses that someone else owns and are never for
sale? Dakota was one of those horses. He was magnificent!

Dakota unexpectedly developed the symptoms of colic on a Tuesday afternoon. I gave
him a shot of banamine. Two hours later he still hadn't improved so I called the vet. He
was given mineral oil by tube to help loosen the material in his digestive tract. Todd
walked him for hours, we took shifts with him all night. He was getting progressively
worse. I called the vet again early in the morning. The vet came out at 10:00 and the
situation was grave. We had two choices: take him to the University Vet Hospital in St.
Paul, or euthanize him. The U charges $5,000 to $15,000 for colic surgery. How do you
put a price on an animal that holds the strings of your heart?

We decided to take him to Shirley Kittleson, a remarkable veterinarian in Sherburn, MN.
It was a two-hour trip and I didn't know if he would make it, but I couldn't give up on
him. In hind-sight, we should have loaded him up the day before when the banamine
didn't work. By the time we got to Shirley, he was so dehydrated that she could not
stabilize his vital signs. Shirley gave him ten gallons of fluid through an IV in his neck.
She had me massage the blockage. The blockage did move and his gut sounds kicked in.
But it was too late. How can you expect anything to move on a dry river bed? How can
you expect the heart to keep beating when there are no fluids left to beat? How can you
expect anything to function when the electrolytes are so out of balance? Dakota actually
made it through the colic episode with no surgery. He died of heart failure from
dehydration.

The "if-onlys" repeat through my mind. We have never experienced colic before. We will
never take a wait and see approach ever again in a colic situation. We will treat it as an
emergency. If Dakota had been treated as an emergency, he most likely would still be
out in the pasture right now.

My heart is broken in a thousand pieces. I told him we still had so many more trails to
explore, but his heart just couldn't do it. I know to some people he was just a horse, but
to me he was everything. I remember the first time I saw him, standing with his head
raised and his beautiful, thick, black mane and tail floating in the wind, his beautiful
mahogany coat was gleaming in the setting summer sun. You could see the kindness in
his eye and yet know he was capable of incredible strength and speed.

He was the perfect horse - so well-behaved, so intuitive. He had no faults. I could ride
him with body language. I knew if I touched him here he would do that, and if I did this
he would do that. He knew what I wanted and I knew what he needed.

Horses like him are few and far between. He was powerful, beautiful, gentle, graceful,
fearless, commanding....and he was mine to love and care for. There will never be
another like him. He will be waiting for me at the gates of heaven. I can just see him
shake his head at me and stomp his foot, impatient to be off. I am thankful for the years I
had with him. I am so sad he died in the prime of his life. It would have been so much
easier if he would have died from natural causes as an old horse. This was just so
unexpected and so tragic.

I write this in memory of my dear Dakota. I pray that whoever reads this will learn from
our mistakes. Do not be satisfied with minimal care or the wait and see approach. Colic
is a medical emergency--find a veterinarian who will treat it as such. Your faithful steed
depends on you.