I had a small (under 250 pound) 5-year old Shetland pony named Spooky who started having trouble walking. The vet said it was laminitis and gave him an injection of 10cc of phenylbutazone, then gave me a tube of bute paste and instructed me to give him 2 grams twice a day for two days, then 1 gram twice a day for three days. I followed these instructions to the letter.
On the fifth day Spooky had terrible watery diarrhea. I called the vet and he thought it was because of the grass outside and told me to keep him in the barn. The sixth day I noticed his urine was reddish and his breathing had become very loud. I called the vet again and he suggested I continue giving Spooky bute. I gave him only 1 dose, not two. The seventh day he was passing blood instead of urine, was having trouble getting up, his tongue was swollen, purple and covered with sores, and he was breathing so loudly it sounded like he was snoring. I called the vet again and he thought his feet were bothering him and wanted me to increase the dose to 2 grams twice a day. He also suggested I administer penicillin, 10cc per day. I decided that afternoon to call another vet, but when I went to check on him again, Spooky had passed away.
Looking the drug up in my copy of the Merck Veterinary Manual (wish I'd done that to begin with), it says the normal dosage of phenylbutazone for horses is 4.4 mg/kg b.i.d. for 1 day, then 2.2 mg/kg b.i.d. for 4 days, then 2.2 mg/kg q24hr or every other day. Spooky was a pretty small pony, 30 inches tall, and the vet said he probably weighed less than 250 pounds, or 113 kg. That comes to under 1 gram of bute total for the first day, then 1/2 gram for the next 4 days, for a grand total of 3.5 grams for 6 days. The vet had me giving Spooky 4 grams for 2 days, then 2 grams per day after that (I only gave 1 gram on the 6th day). That's a total of 15 grams of bute paste in six days, plus a 10cc (2 gram equivalent) injection.
Is that too much for such a small pony? Do the symptoms of NSAID overdose match what happened? (Diarrhea, bloody urine, swollen purple tongue, loud breathing)
Did the vet kill my pony?
Anyone know more about this horse? He was my grandfather's prize quarter horse, but I never really got to learn about it. Any info on it would be really interesting.
Let me know if this is true for anyone else.
I can't choose a pony that I think is better than all the others. I have a few I am particularly fond of, but I can't put one personality as definitely superior over the others.
My "Best Pony," even when it was a different pony than I have today, has always been the one that has been closest to my own personality - or at least the personality I aspire to be.
Or the personality that I would become the quickest friends with.
Is this a common "best pony" reason? Do any of you have different reasons to choose the pony you consider "best?"
