It might seem that a veterinarian should slip right into being a horse mom when her own daughters adore horses and want to ride. As I type, my dishwasher is filled with stirrup irons and there’s a very hairy thing called a girth in my washing machine, but my transition to horse mom has been filled with rapid heart rates (mine), hesitation (mine), and downright fear (mine again). Born and raised in Philly, the only horses I ever saw were the mounted police during the parades in the city. Most of the time they weren’t just standing quietly, they were prancing around somewhat nervous themselves from all the activity. When it was time to squeeze behind them to move through the crowds, my mom’s advice was, “don’t walk behind them, they’ll kick you and kill you.” And so it began.
Somehow my vision of becoming a veterinarian did not require me to ever touch a horse. I imagined only small, furry, licking and wagging pets who I adored and vice versa. Then vet school large animal rotation happened. In a stroke of genius, our team captain for large animal medicine and surgery decided to put all the “horsey folk” on one team and all of us “small animal folks” on another. What that meant was us small animal folks had to flounder about and figure things out on our own.  As I walked up to the stall that housed my first equine patients, the paper on the outside announced, “CAUTION!  FOAL STRIKES.  MARE BITES.”  I understood what “mare bites” meant–biting is a universal thing that all vet students know to watch out for around our patients– but what was up with “strikes”?  So I asked because isn’t that what a student should do? After a bit of giggling from the nurses and other staff, they interpreted the sign.  It meant the foal kicks.  There it was in black and white, the truth that I had known since childhood, horses were just standing in wait to kick and kill me.  Now there were two of them and they were my first large animal patients.

Let’s just say that one should NOT enter a stall alone, plagued by fear while all your classmates and knowledgeable staff scurry off to their duties.  Despite my calm self-talk and gentle murmuring out loud of “it’s okay horsies, i’m here to help” to assure my patients, disaster struck.  The foal, likely in an effort to get its legs into position to make contact with me, ran circles around his momma and tangled his IV line (the plastic tubing that runs from the foal’s neck veins to a bag of fluids so the foal could be on meds) all around his mom.  This more or less lassoed the two of them together, but put a great deal of strain on that plastic tubing so that on the foal’s next move, the tubing sprung from his neck.  The tube had been sitting peacefully in a blood vessel, but not any more.  Now the blood flowed freely from the foal’s neck out onto, well everything.  All three of us, momma, foal, and I, were clearly terrified.  Thankfully there was an intercom in the barn and within seconds of my announcing an emergency, farmhands who I didn’t even know existed rushed in to work their magic and restore the situation.  Everyone was super supportive, providing some much-needed advice on how to approach the pair next time.  Next time?  I didn’t really want there to be a next time for either my sake or the sake of the horses, but part of becoming a vet was going to require me to move beyond this.  I just wasn’t sure how.

For the next few weeks of large animal medicine, I primarily chose ruminants–sheep, goats, and cows– for patients and strategically avoided horses whenever possible.  With the ruminants, I had no pre-conceived notions of their aims to destroy humans by “striking” and felt completely at ease, even peaceful around them.  They were calm, smelled good (to me), some even licked like dogs, and one super awesome 4H show cow patient was amenable to being walked around much like a dog on a leash.  I was happy to oblige her with walks and was so proud of myself, a city girl completely at ease helping a large, cud-chewing cow to feel better.  This was fun and fulfilling and why I wanted to be a veterinarian!  But that was not and could not be the end of my vet school relationship with horses.  There was still large animal surgery to get through and, notably, most of the surgery patients were horses, not ruminants.  No happy cows to distract me from my greatest challenge–caring for horses.

Large animal surgery is a story for another day, but from this rough start around horses as a child and a less-than stellar performance as a vet student with my first horse patients, I’m now a vet with 3 horses in my own back yard and their hairy, poo-containing equipment in my home appliances.  Do I wish my daughters would have asked to show goats and sheep over horses? Sometimes.  Especially since I still sometimes have to do the calming self-talk before entering one of our own stalls more than 15 years after that first incident. But the thing with horses is they teach you a lot about your own state of mind.  That momma and foal were letting me know I was a stressed out mess of a vet student with a ton of childhood baggage about horses.  They were absolutely right!  Each horse since has helped me unpack my own baggage a bit and helped me become more trusting.  For that, horses have earned my utmost respect and I now truly understand the incredible connection that can develop between a horse and a human.  They see you for who you really are–you can’t fake anything about yourself around them.  My hope now is that my daughters become stronger and more self-confident when they see themselves through the eyes of their own horses. Their horses see them as I do–gentle and beautiful to the core and capable of absolutely anything.  This is what horses do for my girls and why I help foster this relationship even if it means my dishwasher and washing machine are full of hairy horse supplies.