I'd like to share with you a story about my beloved horse Buck. I hope it will touch your hearts, as having him in my life touched mine. The photos in the album will give you an idea on what a great animal he was.

More than a year has gone by since our 12-year old Appaloosa gelding Buck, choked. It was Memorial Day Monday in 1996 when my husband and I brought our horses from the pasture for their evening feed, just like any normal day. But the day turned instantly to a nightmare when Buck choked on his second bite of grain. Within seconds, he started to cough. Then desperately, he fought to swallow his food. Green mucous flowed through his mouth and nostrils. Buck never bolted his grain and always chewed his food thoroughly, so when he struggled and could do nothing but gasp for air, we panicked along with him. My husband, John, gently massaged Buck's throat, while I grabbed the cellular phone and dialed the Vet with shaky fingers. The 10 minutes it took the Vet to reach the stables seemed like forever. We were helpless to do anything more while Buck labored for each breath. The Vet, Dr. John Pallaoro, Golden Co., informed us that he would have to push the blockage through with a nasogastric tube. Buck was given a shot of Rompum, a tranquilizer used to sedate and lower the head to prevent aspiration pneumonia, and Banamine to relieve inflammation and prevent stress endotoxemia. We suffered along with Buck as the tube was inserted through his nostril and down into his throat. Buck stood patiently as a water solution was pumped through the tube to loosen the obstruction. Fortunately it unblocked easily, but the Vet warned us Buck's throat would be extremely sore. We were advised to keep Buck in a stall that night, to make sure he would not eat anything that might aggravate his throat. The Doc said we could try feeding Buck a wet mixture of food the next morning. We had Purina Equine Senior (a completely balanced feed product) on hand, and by adding warm water, we made a mash liquid mixture for him to eat. As a note of caution, Doc John added that once a horse chokes, he is likely to choke again. We realized we would always have to take careful measure in order to minimize the risk to Buck. It seemed a small price to pay for having our horse back with us. The next morning, I fed Buck by hand after pre-soaking the feed. He was back to his old self, frisky, lovable, and hungry. Being overly cautious, though, we kept him in the stall another day. Since Buck was eating fine by the second day, I put him back in the pasture. Relief mixed with worry as I watched him, hoping there wouldn't be any complications. Only an hour later we returned to the stables for the nightly feeding and couln't believe our eyes: Buck was choking again! It was all we could do to get him from the pasture while we waited for Doc John, and the nightmare repeated as, once again, the tubing procedure had to be performed. Once the crisis had passed, Doc recommended we keep Buck in the stall for a week, feeding him the watered-down mixture of Equine Senior we had used before. The mash (8 to 10 pounds, twice a day) was to be as thin as possible so he could swallow. He could eat nothing else, since it would only irritate his throat. Buck had never been a stall horse, so the confinement was not a happy one for him or us. We took comfort in knowing that in a couple of weeks he would be able to run once again with his friends. Those 2 weeks demanded a lot of time and energy, time we willingly gave. To prevent Buck from eating too fast and getting food lodged in his throat, we hand fed him the liquid mash. We also tried feeding him more frequently and adding large rocks to his bucket. But no matter what we tried, food would still get lodged. Each time this happened we would gently flush his mouth with water, using the hose at the wash rack. He would then start to cough up the food that was lodged, the reaciton causing him to regurgitate his food and making it flow through his mouth and nostrils. This process would be repeated until his throat was clear. Feeding Buck sometimes took hours, and many days we left the stable wearing more food than Buck actually ate! Now that he was confined to a stall, we needed to figure out how to exercise him. If he ran loose in the arena, he would eat everything is sight, causing him to choke and sending us back to the wash rack. The only thing we could do was walk or longe him. Too much activity made him cough, and exhaustion came very quickly. As the second week was ending, we realized that despite all our efforts, Buck was slowly getting worse. We discussed this with Doc., and decided to do a series of X-rays. The prognosis was not good. The obstruction in Buck's throat had caused his esophagus to stretch and form a pocket where the food would stop. This is what was causing him to choke. Buck's future looked bleak. He would never get to roam free in the pasture again, and he'd have to exist on a liquid mash diet the rest of his life. We would have to watch him carefully, even the mash in the liquid diet could get caught in the pocket. Unable to accept this for the horse I loved so much, I started reading everything I could on choke and talked to everyone I knew who also owned horses. Choke articles didn't tell me anything different from what Doc., had said, and no one else had experienced a choke this bad. Some well-meaning people even advised us to put the horse down. My husband and I were determined that as long as Buck could eat something, we would do every- thing in our power to keep him alive. But as the weeks dragged into the heat of the summer, we recognized Buck was getting worse. He choked every time we fed him for the whole month of August, and he was beginning to hate the wash rack. Doc., came out during some of the feeding, and tried an injection of Novin to help relax his muscles, but it had the opposite effect, causing an instant choke reaction. We discussed surgery, but this was likely to leave a stricture, meaning we ran the risk of actually making the esophagus worse. Nothing seemed to be working! Buck's weight continued to drop and now each feeding was by the handful. Even when he walked, he started coughing. Not only were we dealing with this pocket, but also a very raw throat. Painfully, we realized the time had come to discuss having Buck euthanized. HOPE ARRIVES: At this time, a catalog from Springtime Inc., Natural Supplements arrived in the mail. Information about C-Pollen Complex sounded encouraging. The catalog stated that one function of vitamin C is to help form and maintain collagen, the basis of connective tissue, which is found in skin, ligament, cartilage, vertebral disc, joint lining, bones, and teeth. Collagen is also necessary to help wounds heal. Lastly, it builds the immune system, helping the body to fight off infection and disease. Since Buck couldn't graze anymore, the Bee Pollen would provide the pollen he would normally consume while grazing. The product gave us our first glimmer of real hope. Maybe Buck could heal from the inside out! I talked with Doc., about C-Pollen Complex, and although he didn't know anyone who had tried it, he agreed that right now it couldn't hurt. We ordered the product and started giving Buck 1 ounce with each feeding. For the pollen to get into his system before he could choke, we mixed it with the mash that he ate first. The consistency of the mash was once again the soupy mixture--we were starting back at the beginning! After a week of feeding C-Pollen Complex, Buck actually went a couple of days without choking. Our hopes began to rise--he was eating again! Around the fourth day, Buck stopped eating midstream and our hearts sank. Then he raised his head and stretched out his neck. We could hardly believe it when the food passed down through! Buck repeated this process every time the food looked like it would lodge in his throat, working it out himself. We continued the soupy mixture with the C-Pollen Complex, and after 3 weeks without choking at all, we felt we were finally making progress. It had been a long 3 months and yet we knew, with the shortening days, that the biggest challenge of all sill loomed--WINTER! A lot of problems faced us. We wondered how we would deal with wet food during the extreme cold. We worried about Buck's health, about him getting sick with the changing weather. His weight was still down, and would it be possible for his immune system to keep him healthy? With this in mind, and knowing Colorado winters could be bad, we moved our horses to a closer boarding stable. We moved in September, and Buck took to the change well. We made improvements to his run area by putting up hog fence between the other horses, so he wouldn't eat their manure. He still hadn't choked, so we began to make the mixture thicker. Each time he had a problem, he worked the food down on his own. Together we met the test of the cold. We had started to experience relief when, at the end of April 1997, I got this unsettled feeling when the wind howled through the trees, that I needed to go check on Buck. If I hadn't, he might not be here today. Another horse's hay had blown into Buck's stall, and when he ate it, he experienced the worst choke ever. Buck collapsed as we waited for Doc., and it was all I could do to get him back up. Frantically I tried to loosen the blockage with water, but then he went down a second time. We had made it this far only for Buck to gasp in distress fighting for each breath. The tubing wasn't easy this time. We struggled to get the tube in the nostril with the blockage being packed tight. Finally the blockage broke loose, and we made some progress. I kept praying Buck wouldn't have to start at the begining again! The next day, Buck seemed like his old self, but I fed him the liquid mixture to avoid problems. Each time I tried to water the food down, he pushed the water jug away so I could not add more. I let him try the thick mixture, and fortunately he had no problems. His throat was not sore this time, like it had been in the past. When I think about it, it's difficult to believe we had made it this far. But I'm thankful we did. Buck gained weight and stayed healthy despite the cold weather. Buck still gets fed a thick mash mixture that resembles oatmeal, (the Equine Senior and C-Pollen Complex), and we recently took another X-ray and discovered the pocket is half its orginal size. Buck now runs with our other two horses in the arena. His energy level is up, and there's no trace of the cough he used to have. We're hopeful he will continue to improve and that someday he'll be able to eat more than wet mash. It's been a long year, but seeing Buck up and around makes every moment worthwhile. I wrote this story in October 1997, and Western Horseman published it in their December 1997 issue. Since the article was written, Buck's health improved, and we were able to move to some property where we were able to set up a huge area for Buck (last photo in the album). He was still on the mash mixture, and he went without a choke for several years. Unfortunately in early 2000, he ate something that we could not get unlodged, and we lost him. He was such a part of our lives, and he will be missed. Donna