Farewell Sterling

The news did not improve throughout the day. There was more string in there and it just wasn't coming out. It is called a lateral foreign object and common culprits are string, yarn, dental floss, ribbon, anything long and stringy. It happens a lot to cats as they tend to be attracted to items like this. What happens is the long stringy thing is in the intestines and the intestines start moving like an accordian, trying to move it along. The item gets taut and as the intestines are moving back and forth against it, the taut item rubs and rubs and can rupture the intestine. This is not good. This is what happened to Sterling. We made the decision to have him put to sleep. He really damaged himself by unraveling and eating the edge of this rug.

If you have a dog, or cat, I encourage you to read a little about this. I was not familiar at all and didn't realize how damaging it could be. A dog eating anything he isn't supposed to is bad and cause an obstruction but these items like string, floss, ribbon, etc are most dangerous due to the way they get stuck and can perforate and rupture the intestines. I found information at the American College of Veterinary Medicine website..

We are telling the kids tonight. We have reasons we waited, a lot of things happening this weekend that we wanted to get through. They all know he's at the Animal Hospital and that things don't look good. I dread telling them that he is gone. They will miss him so, so much.

Farewell Sterling.....

On a brighter note, when you have some clouds in your life you do need to seek some brightness, we had a horse show this morning. C did the Intro B test and K did Intro A. It was K's first time not being in a leadline group. Once you are 8 you can no longer be in leadline which is when someone is holding your horse. So she was on her own. She competed against two other older kids, I would say they were 13 or so. Normally someone on the side calls the test, meaning calls out what they were supposed to do. For example: Walk down Center Line to X, Halt and Salute or
Free Walk at K-H-F with loose reigns (that is so not the right thing but I don't know them all, it is a jumble of letters to me! LOL!). Anyway she said she didn't want anyone to call her test. My heart leaped out of my body. What?? She felt that she had the test memorized and didn't need it. I was shocked and so proud of her. No one else we saw ride did the test without a caller. And she did great! She got first place and I think her gumption and risk taking helped with that. She did it just as it was, not messing up and doing something in the wrong order. I likened her to David Cook today, taking the risk, stepping out of the box. And like David Cook, it paid off. I am so proud and so amazed. Amazed at how each year she blossoms a little more out of her shell and shows the world what a cool and unique person she is. She loves riding so much that she made sure to memorize this test. She rides it on her bike in the driveway. She is a horse girl for sure.

And not to leave out C, she was in a group competing against 5 other kids. They were all about her age so a level playing field. She also came in first. I was really proud of her too. She really focuses and concentrates on these tests. So it was a successful day at the farm for the sisters.

So while there is a cloud of sadness over our house at the moment we also have some things that we can be pretty happy about to help us along.