speedy learn-er-ing

Thank you everyone for your very kind words and messages about Murray. I spent a lot of time reading and re-reading peoples’ comments and memories about Murray here and on Facebook and Instagram. It really is comforting to know how many people laughed with us and appreciated Murray’s Murrayness. I also appreciated all of your messages about the timing and method of Murray’s euthanasia. They are important discussions to have, and I’m glad that so many people were open to having them.

Speedy has also been a huge comfort over the last few weeks. He’s a super cuddler and always up for a snuggle (especially if you rub his snoot at the same time). He’s very much a quiet-steady-loving presence that I haven’t really experienced before. It really is wonderful to have a horse who enjoys my company as much as I enjoy his.

Also, this little weasel is turning into the adventure buddy I didn’t know I needed.

Speedy has also been making just incredible progress under saddle. I’m just so impressed with how this little potato has been doing. Every week TrJ throws something new at us and every week we struggle, learn, rise to the challenge, and come out even better. And every week, a new challenge awaits and Speedy is right there for that one too.

I have so much riding strength to catch up on to keep up with this nugget. Also lolling at his butt dimple. Gotta watch the weight on this one.

There are so many puzzle pieces that have gotten us to this point — lessons (a crapload of them!), trainer rides, vet care, dentals, body work, bitting, off-campus adventures — but the piece that made both TrJ and I comment a few weeks ago is that Speedy is so much more receptive to learning. Or, as TrJ put it, “he doesn’t mind you training on him a bit.” (Lol trainer speak is funny sometimes.)

I love that he can just babysit himself for a few minutes on a stranger’s property.

I’m not going to say it’s all the clicker training, but that’s certainly a piece of it. At some point around the three-month mark, Speedy got comfortable with the idea that there were responses we wanted from him that wasn’t just zipping off. He also stopped trying to use speed as an evasion so much throughout a ride. He started trialing other responses, and realized that all the pats and good boys (and yes, treats) were us encouraging him to keep giving us those responses. Once we got some lateral aids on him and we could ask him to move his haunches and shoulders around a bit independently (though he’s still pretty sticky through the shoulders), we had some more movements we could put together to help him figure out even more things.

I used to think it was absurd to ride with your dog, but here we are. Speedy and Hazel both love it. Hazel thinks it’s the best game and just loves being in the same “room” as me. Speedy loves trying to catch Hazel and trying to boop her while she’s distracted. Several times during this ride he chose to “chase” Hazel as his treat after a click. I thought it was a great opportunity to work on working with distractions.

Speedy even seems more into solving puzzles under saddle. Often we’ll get to work and I’ll start clicking for correct responses or good posture and Speedy will start out eagerly stopping and reaching back for a treat. As we move on, he’ll more and more go for a walk and stretch break after his treat. And as I’ve been phasing out the clicking, or forgetting to click, or working hard in a lesson and not able to find a good place to click, he’s still really responsive to my verbal praise and neck scratches. He doesn’t throw on the brakes and look back at me or anything. But I will see his little ears flick back and forward, then he’ll double down on what he’s doing with a renewed effort. It is very cute.

I got myself some literal gold stars for Speedy’s journal, but at this rate I’ll need to put one on every ride.

We have a couple five crazy weeks coming up. Next weekend is our first HT (eeeeeeeeeee!!!! but also holy shit I’ve spent so much money lately), then my in laws visit for some farm stuff, then we have another HT, then I have a family reunion, then our third HT before long break for the summer. The weather (wet, wet, wet) has not made this spring easy on the farm, so it will be flat out in between every HT making sure I stay on top of things here at home and don’t get behind going into summer.

We have so much packed in to the next month or so. Even if we didn’t, I’d be excited for my next month with Speedy. He is just so fun, all the time. But we DO have adventures planned, and getting him out to meet all my friends and get some pro photos is going to be awesome too. (But I will need to stop riding like a potato to enjoy those photos. For real.)

potato riding quality hopefully soon to be upgraded — to french fry, maybe?

on hard decisions

We euthanized Murray on Wednesday.

sorry, it’s gonna be a media-heavy post

After Murray retired in 2018, he went to live at MIL’s house (where Speedy spent his first three months, I made them meet) in an irrigated pasture with an older retired horse buddy to keep him company. He was pretty delighted by the lottery he had won, and it was quite clear he was in heaven. Whenever I was home to visit I would bring him in, give him a good groom, brush all the tangles out of his mane and tail, and cry a little bit before he went back out.

in retirement

After a while, Murray decided that continued human management would not be for him. It started with refusing to stand for the farrier without drugs. Then he said no to the vet. Eventually, nobody at the ranch was allowed to catch him.

I could still get him, without deception or difficulty. More often than not, Murray would come sauntering up to me for a good scratch and let me put a little swat on his midline or pick out his feet without a halter on. But it did get harder and slower over time, and the last time I was home he galloped away from me. He came back later, but it was the first time he had viewed me with that much suspicion.

As you might imagine, a horse who can’t be caught is a horse who can’t be managed. And there is only so long a horse, even a Murray, can go without seeing a veterinarian or farrier. While I wish I could point at his rotating club foot or a clear and growing lameness or colic or a disease process, it was nothing so simple. Watching him become more and more feral — and not in the “fat happy retired horse” way — I knew that Murray’s time would be limited.

This year MIL renewed her efforts to halter Murray, so he could be brought in for a trim. About a month ago he kicked her as he fled. And so she called me and said she thought it might be time. His behavior was clearly deteriorating, and even if we couldn’t see head-bobbing lameness from the outside, we both suspected that was pain related. Rather than let Murray get so painful that he couldn’t run from us — or hurt himself more trying to do so — we decided it was best to euthanize him.

working on our camel act

Why am I writing so many words about the decision to euthanize my retired horse? Because it was hard. And I hope that other people who might be struggling with the decision or who may have to cross this road in the future might see this option and know that it is a decision to be made with love and kindness. There’s a lot of pushback in our culture about euthanizing apparently healthy animals. Apparently being the key word there, because there’s a lot of vectors that make up “healthy,” much more than just “alive and breathing”.

Murray was 13 and physically sound-adjacent. I “could have” found a retirement or rescue situation for him that would have understood his very, very special needs better and been able to manage him and impoverished myself paying for the rest of his life. I could have built $10k in fencing on the 6 acres behind my house, converted a lean-to into a barn, found a pasture-buddy, and turned my life inside out to bring him home to retire in Oregon. (If we could have gotten him onto a trailer. Also a pretty hard Murray-No.) It would have trashed my life. I would probably have needed to sell Speedy. It would probably have caused a divorce. I could have done that. But I wouldn’t.

In the end, the people who knew Murray and me best agreed that this was the right call. Murray was making it clear that he couldn’t be around people any more. It would not be kind to force him to be around new, different people just for the sake of a few thousand more heartbeats. It would not be kind to stuff him on a trailer to live in the mud for the sake of a few thousand more breaths. And if, as we suspect, his behavior change was caused by increasing pain in his body — though we won’t know, as I didn’t get a necropsy — it would not be kind to insist he keep living in that shell.

Murray was, to be direct (and he was always direct), a pain in the ass. He hated almost everyone, and his distrust of humanity ran deep. Pretty much none of those “good horse manners” came easily to him, nor did they stick around the second things got rough. He was uniquely confident in his own judgment, and intensely unpredictable in whether that judgment would line up with reality or not. He was persistent beyond all mortal ken, a riddle wrapped inside a mystery stuffed into an enigmatically-cute horse suit.

He was my first horse, and I loved him fiercely.

What is there to say about this horse who was so formative in my life? That nothing for us came easy at first, that all our lessons were hard-won, that he was never good for a cuddle?

I think more about the sense of humor, the laughter, the ridiculousness. Murray did not let me take myself too seriously. Which was probably desperately needed.

I think about the way we thought out of the box, got creative, and stuck to our guns.

I think about the times he showed up for me, all the adventures we had with our friends, and the memories we made.

I think about his bangin’ forelock, his incredible shiny body, his baby-forever face.

Murray delivered experience in spades. Not carefully or thoughtfully or delicately, but shoveling it onto you so you had no choice but to adapt lest you drown in chaos.

I will always remember what we learned together. Laugh always. Find the itchy spots. Don’t take yourself too seriously. Get creative. Scream as needed. Fight for what you believe in.

Content warning — euthanasia details below.

If you want to know how you euthanize a horse who can’t be touched, it’s with a bullet. MIL found a cowboy confident in and comfortable with the process. Cowboy grained Murray at the gate for a while to habituate him. The morning they pulled the trigger, Murray dropped instantly, mouth full of grain. I know it’s a controversial method. I feel that if it is kind enough for me to use on my food animals, it is kind enough for me to use with my horse. As much as I wish we could have filled Murray with enough sedatives and painkillers to render him insensate, the process of being caught and injected would have been incredibly stressful to him, and he was a heavyweight at the best of times. I felt this would be swiftest, which is kindest.