Farewell my friend . . .

It's been a rough past two days. My dad and I took my horse Guy, and his horse Misty to the vet to get their teeth floated yesterday. Guy has gotten extremely thin over the past few months. He always gets a little ribby in the winter time because of his bad teeth and that's usually when he's due to get them floated (ground down so that he can chew evenly). But he has looked way thinner than he ever has before. I was hoping his weight loss was just due to his teeth and needing worming, but deep down I had a feeling it was more than that. When my dad saw him he told me to be prepared that the vet may have some bad news. As soon as we pulled up to the vet's and unloaded him the vet had us bring him in and he pulled out his stethoscope and started checking him over. After this past year and the problems Ridge and I had I've gotten pretty good at being able to tell when a doctor is trying to tell me bad news without completely freaking me out. That's exactly what the vet started doing. He explained that Guy was in heart failure, his heart was only pumping 50%, his pulse was weak, he had bad circulation, and basically he could kill over any day now. He said best case scenario he may possibly live another year, but his quality of life would be miserable. He checked Guy's teeth and estimated him to be older than we originally thought he was. Between 23-27. Which in human years is equivalent to late 80's. So he's lived a long good life and it's time for him to move on to the "eternal pasture." This is the hardest part of having animals. I get so attached...I'll sure miss you Guy. Out of all the horses I've ever had Guy's my absolute favorite. I completely trust him. I would trust putting my kids on him, he's a gentle giant. He will be greatly missed.