Sound horse, old dog

The treatments with epsom salts and betadyne apparently worked. I rode Bud Tuesday night and he didn't seem to have any lameness from his close encounter with the deck screw a few days earlier.
What a relief.

My goal when I started this blog was to write about horse-related items in the news as well as horses in history, rather than strictly personal stuff about me and my horses. I still hope to do that, but I am currently spending a great deal of time on another writing project (it's historical, but developed from my interest in horses) and haven't had the time for the research I want to do for this blog. I hope to have more time for that in coming weeks.
My first goal is to return to the question of hardware and horses.

Thanks to those of you who have left comments. I certainly appreciate knowing a few people are reading.

Back to personal pet stuff: I'm pretty depressed today because I just made arrangements today to have my old lab-boxer dog, Pepper, put to sleep tomorrow.

He's either 17 or 18 -- I got him from the pound when he was a year old, and I can't remember whether that was in 1989 or 1990. We can't find any pictures or vet records that would tell us for sure. But either way, its been a pretty long life for a dog of his size. And he's been a great one, going with me on countless trail rides, camping trips, truck rides and guarding the old homestead as well. I've had more than a dozen dogs during my lifetime and he's one of the two smartest.
His only major problems were, when he was younger, a penchant for killing any cats that weren't part of his household (including the neighbor's on more than one occasion) and for killing skunks. Once, he even came trotting back home, proud as he could be, carrying a dead skunk in his mouth. A skunk episode usually meant a couple of baths and a week or so in my old stock trailer until the smell wore off. I never could break him of it, though, if he got wind of a skunk out in the pasture.

Now, however, he doesn't get wind of much of anything. He can't hear. His back end is barely functional and he can hardly walk. His incontinence seems to get worse each day, which is only a minor problem now since he spends most of his time in the garage. But, come winter, when it gets cold again, I couldn't make him stay in the garage. Also, we're going away next month, and I didn't want to leave him and his problems to the lady who comes to care for the rest of our animals.
It will be a sad day tomorrow. But it's time.