The short version is, we said goodbye to one of our Wild Horse Outreach & Advocacy Ambassador Mustangs, 2yo DG Cedar, yesterday. We being Gus and Lacy, Tiny, Echo, Griffin, Tay Martin and I.
She spent her last day out grazing and running with her friends, thanks to pain meds and a boot, something that her treatment protocol would have never allowed.
She squealed at Taylor one more time and watched one last mountain sunset over the rim of a bucket full of grain.
We wanted to give her the best last day she could have, and I believe we accomplished that.
She was a Mustang with a personality larger than life, more fire than I’d ever seen in a horse, and more intensity than what her body could hold up to.
She ran, played, loved and tormented (usually Taylor or Lacy) for everything she was worth.
She hated every day of being penned up, was lame and obviously in pain. With poor odds for a full recovery we opted not to put her through that for the year or longer it would have taken to see this through.
It’s not just quantity of life that counts, quality matters too. Cedar would have never been happy with anything that wasn’t full throttle, all out, 100% freedom, strength and speed.
Life as a light riding horse or with restricted movement for her safety was no option for her. Nor was being a companion horse or pasture puff. It wasn’t who she was and it wouldn’t have been fair.
Cedar had a coffin bone fracture that involved the joint, P2 (the bone above it) was also fractured and possibly the navicular bone as well.
Several of you asked how the injury occurred. Cedar came in lame from pasture one day and the best guess we have based on what one of the vets suggested is that she was running and hit a rock just wrong with the front of the right hind that would have been in the air at the time.
I cried my eyes out last night, or my brain through my nose as I put it to Taylor so poetically. I’m normally the one who hands people cry towels. Yesterday I was on the receiving end.
I loved that little horse and sometimes loving means letting go.
See you on the other side Cedar, I’m thankful for the chance to know you 
Thanks to your support we were able to cover her vet bills and even had a bit left over for hay. Thank you to all who sent their love in one way or another.
