26/12/2020
Hi everyone,
This is going to be a very difficult post and I don’t really know what to say, so I’ll just start from the beginning. Yesterday evening we lost my wonderful Biscotti.
If you read my previous post you will know about the recent issues we’ve had with her left stifle locking. It’s always released after 20mins, but on the 23rd December I went to feed the girls to find Scotti’s left hind leg completely locked underneath her. She was in a lot of pain and completely immobile. I immediately called the emergency vet out and within two minutes of looking at her, we rushed her into the RVC.
Whilst the vets were shocked at her condition, they said she will just have a little surgery to cut the stifle ligament and then she will be able to come home the next morning. We then received a phonecall that evening asking us to come back in and discuss her X-rays. All we knew at that point was it didn’t look good.
It turned out her left hip was completely dislocated. We have no explanation as to why this happened, it just did. No one could have known or prevented it either. They said mini horses tend to have shallower hip sockets, which is also genetic, but they can’t tell from scans alone. We discussed our surgery options and was basically told every option is incredibly risky with a very high fail rate. We only bothered to discuss these options as Scotti is the size of a big dog, if it was a full sized horse there wouldn’t have been any hope of treatment at all. They emailed the small animal hospital and we were sent home to wait it out. They made sure she had painkillers that night to keep her comfortable in the mean time.
The next morning came and after realising getting a response from any surgeons was going to be a struggle with Christmas to contend with, the vets decided to buy us more time by taking her into surgery to have her hip put back in place and to cut the stifle ligament. This would drastically reduce her pain levels making it possible to wait a bit longer for treatment. My mum and I tried to visit her before she went into surgery, but they didn’t tell us she was going in so early and we missed her by 10mins. It was the first time in over a year of owning her that I didn’t see her for a full day. I hated every minute of that day. Saffy was also so upset about Scotti being taken away that she had to be sedated whilst she was gone. We went home after some love with Saffy, who was unfortunately too d***y to realise we were actually there and waited for the vets to update us.
We were eventually told in the evening that Scotti was doing well and the hip was in place still. She had also had an epidural to keep her comfortable over night. She was being kept in a stock type pen propped up by bales of shavings with a vet student sat with her 24/7, just incase she tried to move. Saffy had been separated behind a solid metal barrier, so was even more upset now that she knew Scotti was there, but couldn’t see her.
Christmas morning came and as I was getting ready to visit them both, we got a phone call to say Scotti wasn’t doing very well and was in a lot of pain. She wasn’t eating and she may need a feeding tube. They had put a Fentanyl patch on to try and help, but it was barely cutting through the pain. I quickly made my way there and spent some time sitting with her in her little pen. She ate a load of apples and carrots for me and seemed quite chirpy. She was stamping her back legs every now and then though, so she was clearly still in pain even though she was really excited to see me. I went home very anxious and spent the rest of Christmas day in bed waiting for the next update.
It was about 5:30pm when we next heard from the vets. Scotti’s hip had dislocated again and it wasn’t looking good for her. There were no more options left, as she was in so much pain that she couldn’t wait for a surgery, especially one that didn’t even have a high chance of success. The thought of putting her through surgery with a painful recovery, just for it to end up not working anyway was horrific. I wasn’t going to do that to her. We were told we could wait until morning to make a decision, but I didn’t want to let her suffer anymore. We immediately made our way back to the vets.
She had been let out of her pen to be with Saffy and all her bandages were taken off. We spent lots of time feeding her her favourite treats, Cavalor Fruties and just giving her lots of love. After the adrenaline of us being there wore off, she started to hide in the corner looking very sad. She just couldn’t settle, so we decided it was time. I won’t go through the rest, as it’s traumatic no matter how nicely I write it. All I can say is she was heavily sedated beforehand and slipped away peacefully without any complications. Saffy was also in there with her to keep her calm and was heavily sedated too. After enough time passed for Saffy to wake up, we all said our extremely sad final goodbyes to Scotti and went home.
Today was hard with Saffy. She was searching for Scotti everywhere and I was trying to be strong looking into Scotti’s empty stable, so I didn’t worry her anymore than she already was. I hand fed her breakfast like I used to when she was sick last year and I spent lots of time with her until she would eat some hay. She spent most of today standing where she used to with Scotti looking very depressed. This evening I spent ages with her and she was unbelievably sweet. All her baby nibbling and playfulness had calmed down and she just wanted me to hold her head and hug her. I don’t know what I’d do without this precious girl with me at home.
So, to my beautiful Scotti Totti. I love you more than words can express and I will spend the rest of my life missing you. Life is very cruel to take away such a young innocent animal like this and I don’t know if I will ever be okay again. It was only 3 months until you turned 2... you were still just a baby. The only comfort I have is that you aren’t in pain anymore.
In memory of Pinetree’s UK SH I’m a Firefly - “Biscotti”. The tiny horse with a big heart that gave me my life back again.
Gone, but never forgotten. 💜
