I’m sorry to tell you Chuck has broken his .....crackle, wind noise...

[KBC]

I has a message sent to call the barn this morning, they know that I do not use the phone unless i have to, so I’m already concerned.

Phone and catch BO out feeding horses, and with the reception and wind noise just heat, “Sorry to tell you Chuck has broken…”

AGHHHHHHH “I can’t hear, what are you saying”

BO moves to better spot “blanket, he just broke both buckles of the front of his blanket”

Never been so relieved to hear that a horse has broken a blanket. Thinking about it, the blanket he has on is only two years old, but due to its last owner, my blanket destroying red mare, the front was actually off an older than the hills blanket, that I bought used about 10 years ago! It got transplanted onto the new blanket, when another gelding of mine destroyed it while it was drying on a fence!

Seeing we have just swung from TShirt weather last Friday, to 4” of snow, freezing temps and even freezinger wind chills, I’m heading to the barn, with all his winter layers and I guess bringing Fly sheet and rain sheet home. I guess it will be into the spares box and see how to repair the damage…

[islgrl]

I hate seeing a call from the barn… I stop breathing for just a minute every time.

[Edre]

“Hi edre, horse is fine but” is always how my trainer has always had to call me (or leave voice mails leading with that). If it’s not significant (not requiring a vet) or unrelated to health (calling about feed or a clinic schedule for example) this is how she’s learned to lead off due to my complete panicked silence when I’m trying to figure out what went wrong. :lol: Now I only have a heart attack when she DOESN’T say it (which is generally situation appropriate).

[downen]

LOL, that reminds me of a call I got from a friend who was working, at the time, for our small town fire department.

Her: “Did you know your barn was on fire?”
Me: WHAT???
Her: “Yeah, I’m sitting here looking at old pictures and they have some of when your barn was on fire.”

So yes, our barn caught fire years before we bought it, there is still some charring on some of the beams, and we were told about it when we bought the place (kids started it, messing around in the loft). But geez, ya think she could have phrased that a little better so as not to give me a heart attack?

@KBC glad your boy is not broke. RIP blanket buckles.

[terasa]

Text from barn owner:

“Just so you know we put your horse down…”

what felt like an eternity later

“in the bottom field”

Sitting at work and my mind went from “pony is somehow dead?!” to “oh, thanks for moving her to the nice pasture”

:lol:

[MissAriel]

Phone call from trainer, around feeding time. I’m thinking I am almost out of supplement or something like that, although she usually will just text.

Trainer: Now, don’t panic.
Me: (immediately panicking) :eek::eek::eek:

It was nearly a panic worthy call. Horse got bit by something - significant swelling of face, with hives over the front half of his body. Trainer initially thought rattlesnake, but we never found puncture wounds and vet thought it was more likely a scorpion, spider or millipede. Either way, emergency vet call, Banamine, dex, SMZs and he was right as rain in a few days.

[chestnutmarebeware]

@islgrl

I hate seeing a call from the barn… I stop breathing for just a minute every time.

Me, too! It’s never for the BO to say, “I just wanted to tell you how great the girls look and how easy they are to take care of, and oh, by the way, I’m reducing your board bill by half every month!” :lol:

[Arelle]

On a heavier note, I do remember my trainer calling me about an hour after I left the barn several years ago:

Trainer: Hey, we have a problem.
Me: Okay, what is it?
Trainer: Uh…(eternity…)… Dobbin just died.

:nonchalance: Now that it’s been a few years, I can kind of laugh about it - because I immediately remembered thinking “this isn’t a problem… we can fix a problem! this is a catastrophe!”

Horse dropped dead in the round pen. No pain. No suffering. No one got hurt, thank god. But, man - there’s never a good way to get bad news and phone calls from barn owners, or elderly parents, or distant relatives always freak me out when they show up on caller ID.

[KBC]

@terasa

Text from barn owner:

“Just so you know we put your horse down…”

what felt like an eternity later

“in the bottom field”

Sitting at work and my mind went from “pony is somehow dead?!” to “oh, thanks for moving her to the nice pasture”

:lol:

They may have had to jump start me after that one!

[x-halt-salute]

A few years back I turned on my phone after a plane I was on touched down in a city far, far away from the barn … and saw tens of missed calls from my trainer while I was en route and incommunicado … followed by a series of rather alarmed texts coming through en masse as the phone connected to the network. Worst possible welcome to receive while traveling.

Horse had a severe systemic reaction to a routine vaccination while in trainer’s care. Situation had been gotten under control by the time I was able to make contact, but multiple human heart attacks were narrowly averted that day.

Barn manager at a different place moved heaven and earth to get my horse to the vet hospital in a few dire emergencies, and when her number flashed on my phone I always got a little jolt of adrenaline. When a message comes through that starts “I don’t want to alarm you, but…” I panic. Huge sighs of relief when it’s an update to barn quarantine policies and not an “I am hooking up the trailer so we can get your horse directly to the hospital a.s.a.p.” message.

[2DogsFarm]

My Heartstopper came from Trainer/Friend calling me at work.
First words out of his mouth:
“Your horses are fine.”
Next:
“We had a fire.”
:eek:

Turned out fire was in the quarantine/hay barn.
3 fancy imports got out, with 3rd degree burns to Trainer who got them out
FD got there in 20min, but metal structure had melted to the ground.
Barn help.later mentioned “something smelled rotten” in the barn for days before.
Hay put up wet had combusted.

[Renn_aissance]

Calls from the barn are like my mother sending a text that says “Everything’s fine, but call me when you can please.” (In my family that means “someone died.”)

[OverandOnward]

Had a past BO who had worked for many years in a school administration office. She always started a phone call "This is BO Name, your horse is fine. I’m calling because … " She said it was a holdover from phone calls to parents as a school administrator. :winkgrin:

Re the “real” issues, every boarder needs to provide the BO/BM with a piece of paper "In case I can’t be reached in an emergency … " Templates of such a paper have been provided by various posters on the COTH forum, although I don’t remember where and I think it’s been a few years. But you can probably google them as well. Write down your basic principals for care decisions, such as: surgery or no; how much can be spent; insurance information; etc. There are some basic parameters for authorized euthanasia when you can’t be reached, based on pain, no hope, etc. Every horse needs one of these with whoever is providing care. Even if the horse lives at home with you, it is far easier to think through these decisions when not in the moment of crisis (and you can change your mind during the crisis on a case-by-case basis).

[KBC]

@OverandOnward

Re the “real” issues, every boarder needs to provide the BO/BM with a piece of paper "In case I can’t be reached in an emergency … " Templates of such a paper have been provided by various posters on the COTH forum, although I don’t remember where and I think it’s been a few years. But you can probably google them as well. Write down your basic principals for care decisions, such as: surgery or no; how much can be spent; insurance information; etc. There are some basic parameters for authorized euthanasia when you can’t be reached, based on pain, no hope, etc. Every horse needs one of these with whoever is providing care. Even if the horse lives at home with you, it is far easier to think through these decisions when not in the moment of crisis (and you can change your mind during the crisis on a case-by-case basis).

We have new barn owners, and I’m going to be away for 2 months, I have gone through everything with them, left copies of my insurance policy in my locker. I have spoken to my vet and ensured she knows my views and wishes, Also contacted the Insurance company, to give them the names of the decision makers while I am away.

They are now formalizing getting that info from everyone.

[OverandOnward]

@KBC

We have new barn owners, and I’m going to be away for 2 months, I have gone through everything with them, left copies of my insurance policy in my locker. I have spoken to my vet and ensured she knows my views and wishes, Also contacted the Insurance company, to give them the names of the decision makers while I am away.

They are now formalizing getting that info from everyone.

Good plan. If I were a barn owner, I’d have a standard template, and every new boarder would have to either fill that in and sign it, or else provide their own version, before they moved in.

There are many sad, terrible stories on COTH of BO’s who had tragic decisions to make about boarder’s horses when a boarder just could not be reached in a critical situation.

[Gamma]

My large vet service ALWAYS starts routine follow up calls with “Do you have time to talk about your horse’s test results?” and then after I die a little bit, “So, everything looks fine…”

I haven’t been able to train them out of it yet.

[HenryisBlaisin]

I got that from my vet when my horse had his eye removed. “This is the Doctor’s office, please call us back as soon as you can.”

Of course I got the message on my way to work, so now I’m at work freaking out. I’m the manager on duty that night, so can’t really leave, but call back, fearing the worst. “We just wanted to let you know the surgery went fine, it was done standing, and he can go home tomorrow.”

When I could finally breathe again, I wondered why, exactly, they couldn’t have put that part in the message in the first place and save me the heart attack…

[Maythehorsebewithme]

I got a voice mail at work from my vet’s wife giving me sincere condolences upon the loss of my horse. “You did the right thing, he would have suffered, blah, blah, blah…”

So after the initial heart stopping moment, I thought, “My horse was fine last I heard, my trainer would have called me right away if something was wrong, I made no decision…”

Turns out my name and the name of the poor woman who did lose her horse were adjacent contacts in the caller’s cell phone, and she called the wrong person.

[KBC]

@Maythehorsebewithme

I got a voice mail at work from my vet’s wife giving me sincere condolences upon the loss of my horse. “You did the right thing, he would have suffered, blah, blah, blah…”

So after the initial heart stopping moment, I thought, “My horse was fine last I heard, my trainer would have called me right away if something was wrong, I made no decision…”

Turns out my name and the name of the poor woman who did lose her horse were adjacent contacts in the caller’s cell phone, and she called the wrong person.

Oh Jeez, worst one yet

[TheJenners]

@terasa

Text from barn owner:

“Just so you know we put your horse down…”

what felt like an eternity later

“in the bottom field”

Sitting at work and my mind went from “pony is somehow dead?!” to “oh, thanks for moving her to the nice pasture”

:lol:

My bio-mother, drama queen extraordinaire, once called me with something similar: “Ed [dad] just shot himself…infinite pause while I think, who wouldn’t, married to you, but dear gawd… in the wrist…more pause… with a nail gun.” :lol: