CHF

Forgot to mention this last night.

I went out and fed my horses yesterday! YAAAAAY! I was so busy with moving, working, and housepets that I didn't go feed the horses since Friday. My friends were feeding for me so the herd wasn't actually neglected... but I really missed them. I was really glad to see them last night.

Champ whinneyed when he saw me, came up and got a big deep sniff of my face, then turned and ignored me. He's mad, of course. Champ hates to be neglected. Quinn and Poppy were much more interested in eating than anything else. And sweet old Silky was delighted to see me.

My friend-in-nursing-school was out feeding her horses, and she happened to have her stethoscope. We decided to listen to Silky's heart.

Back in late July 07, Silky choked on her pelleted feed and had to stay for two days at the vet's. One of the examining vets said that he thought her heart sounded a bit muffled, like she was in the early stages of congestive heart failure. It was unrelated to the choke and there's very little to be done for it anyway, so I didn't worry too much about it at the time. But my friend has a nice stethoscope, so we thought we'd see if we could hear a difference in her heart last night.

Yeah, I think the vet was right. Her heartbeat is very very quiet and it sounds ... watery? It sounds like waves crashing. I can't describe it very well, but it's definitely muffled.

Anyway, I stayed for an extra 30 minutes brushing and loving on Silky. I'm always amazed at how loving she is. She's had such a long horrible life, but for some reason she trusts me and she'd rather be brushed and loved on than eat food. I'm so glad she's happy, and I'm really going to miss her one of these days.

I'm looking around for possible treatment options, although I probably won't treat her with drugs. I will figure out what changes I should make in my management - probably a little more light exercise, but nothing too hard.