Beloved horse remembered
Mickey touched many lives in his eight years at North Country Stables
Joseph Tunny
Northern News Services
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
Riders and staff at North Country Stables said goodbye to a beloved horse named Mickey on June 4. After eight years at the stables, the horse was put down after complications from colic.
He was 17-years old.
Mickey, a 17-year-old horse that died on June 4, suffered from colic for much of his life. - photo courtesy of Caitlin Cleveland
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"It was tough for all of us," said Tom Pisz, owner of North Country Stables. "I didn't have any other choice."
Mickey was described by many at the stable as an important part of life there. He was one of the stables' school horses, used for new riders to learn.
Shaya Basnett, a riding instructor at the stables, described Mickey as one of the easiest horses to work with, saying many horses are stubborn about what type of work they're willing to do. Not Mickey.
"You could trust him with anyone, of any size" Basnett said. "Mickey was very sweet and very kind . He was never a quitter."
She said school horses need patience due to their size relative to the riders' and Mickey had just that.
She said life at the stables is a little more strained now that Mickey is gone.
Mickey was a horse that most of the riders at the stables would have had time with, meaning in one way or another, he touched everybody's life at the stables.
Ten-year-old Emily Hazenberg mainly rode Mickey and recently took him to a competition down south. She said he had been acting differently during the trip.
"It's pretty sad," she said.
While Basnett describes the downturn Mickey had in health as sudden, it wasn't out of the blue. Mickey was constantly plagued by illness.
"We all knew colic would take him," she said.
Both Basnett and Pisz said Mickey developed colic because he wasn't good with change. When Pisz first brought the horse to Yellowknife, he refused to drink water inside. Mickey was used to drinking water outside, as he was formerly a trail horse in Alberta.
"He never drank enough and I could never break him from it," said Pisz.
He said because of this, Mickey developed colic, which although can normally be cured in humans by vomiting, is much more dangerous in horses due to their long intestines.
While there is a surgery to help with colic in horses, according to Basnett, there are only two hospitals in western Canada that offer it, which for Pisz was just not a viable option.
A week before he was put down, Mickey suffered a bout of pain. While he seemed to recover for another few days, his health worsened.
Pisz, seeing that it was time, took Mickey behind the stables and gave him a lethal injection.
Mickey was dead after a minute.
"He's an irreplaceable horse," Basnett said.
