There have been no sugarlumps, in fact the greedy pony has been on a bit of a diet.
And the sunset hacks have been curtailed due to broken arms and dented confidence.
It’s definitely not been a smooth ride, in fact it’s more akin to the thrills and spills of a rodeo.
Our latest drama resulted in a vet callout, lots of hand wringing and a blood splatted stable after the pony suffered an episode of Choke – probably due to the aforementioned greediness. After an alarming couple of hours of her wheezing, hacking and sweating, we realised she was not going to clear the blockage herself and veterinary intervention was needed.
You’re maybe familiar with the term ‘wonky donkey’, well that pretty much sums up the effect of the sedation on HoneyB. She stayed upright but swayed alarmingly round the stable, like she had imbibed a shandy too many.
Luckily, we’ve got strong stomachs as the intubation up her nose set off a big nose bleed, complete with clots . . . which the dog wolfed down before we could clean them up! (At least someone was pleased.)
Half an hour later it was all over – the stall resembled a crime scene and the vet was covered in mucus and blood, no doubt a hazard of the job.
Meanwhile, the pony was coming round and wondering what the heck just happened.
The ‘fun and games’ continued over the subsequent days as we tried all which ways to get antibiotics into her.
She’s surprisingly wily, it turns out, and can’t be hoodwinked by an apple filled with powder and can detect medicine in her beet at 100 paces.
Thankfully, her recovery has been remarkably quick and there’s now only a blood stain on the wall, some more frayed nerves on my part, and the promise of our first vet’s bill to show that it ever happened.
