Nine Lives

Sometimes I swear Cody is part cat.  With the number of times she's nearly killed herself, she's got to be.  Though she's definitely used up some of her nine lives.

There was the back leg through the high tensile wire fence that she very nearly bled to death from, having ripped open her hock clear down to the bone and joint.  That was the injury that resulted in my taking ownership of her.  More on that story here.  She should have been broodmare sound at best if she survived, but by some miracle, she was rideable sound with only a small scar.

There was fillet o'knee, when she somehow managed to rip open a huge flap on the front of her left knee.  Amazingly that one healed with only a hairline scar.

Then there was the Friday October 13th phone call five years ago.  "Cody's hurt pretty bad.  The vets on the way right now.  How fast can you get here."  Of course I was an hour away, that was a long drive.  When I got there, there stood Cody in the cross ties, all four legs swollen twice the size they should be, all four legs cut and bleeding, some of the cuts nearly to the bone.  Apparently she had laid down in her stall and gotten cast or something and couldn't get up, and proceeded to fight and panic and turn herself into a pretzel until she finally got back up.  There was blood all over the stall, and the divider between her stall and Lady's (wasn't the most sturdy of stalls in this old barn cobbled together barn) had been shoved over so far in Cody's panic, that Lady was literally left with nothing but a standing stall that she couldn't turn around in.  We had to take down part of the wall to get Lady out, because Lady's stall door was now the second stall door in Cody's stall.  Thankfully Lady was unhurt and didn't panic, and Cody recovered with a few more battle scars.

And of course there was knee surgery last December.

So what's that, four out of nine?

Not to mention all her other bumps, bruises, scraps, cuts, near misses, and "Cody, what the hell now?"  When it comes to accident prone, she is the queen, and has the battle scars to prove it.

More than once she freaked out while tied, pulled back, broke the lead rope and flipped herself over backwards.  This was when I first got her and didn't know about this little panic attack bad habit of hers.  Thankfully we broke that habit and she's much better these days.

There was the back flip out of the trailer.  The barn owner was making two trips to haul a bunch of us up to the show at the fairgrounds.  Cody was going in the first trip along with the barn owners mare and foal and another horse.  After a battle (foals first time loading and mare wasn't very good at loading), mare and foal were in the trailer.  But just as Cody and I stepped in to the trailer, foal panicked, mare went berserk, and Cody tried to back out of there as fast as possible, rearing, slipping, and somersaulting right out the back of the trailer.  How she came away unharmed, I'll never know.  Needless to say, we waited for the second trip, and somehow loaded with little drama.  Though the whole affair was chaos with the barn owner who was about as nutty as her horse.  Someday I'll have my own trailer.

There was Lady and Cody vs the Gate, round 1.  But that's another story for another day.  And then Lady and Cody vs the Gate, round 2.  Again, another story for another day.

There was the cowboy that decided to hobble her front feet to teach her to stop pawing.  Can we say upside down pretzel.  How she didn't break a leg, I'll never know.  I was livid.

There was the hives attack, when she suddenly broke out in hives, that broke open into sores and got infected, all within a matter of hours.  Most bizzare thing I've ever seen.  Called the vet, vet came out, gave her antibiotics, said she could go back outside.  Put her back outside the next day, and suddenly the hives came back twice as bad, which broke open into more sores and got infected, all within a matter of hours.  Call the vet, put her back in the barn, hives went away, but nearly 50% of her body was covered in weeping sores and her eyes were nearly swollen shut.  Still no idea what caused that, and thankfully it's never happened again.  That definitely falls in the "what the hell" category.  Along with the worse case of scratches I've ever seen on all four legs.

There was the kicking a fly while standing next to the gate and slicing her leg open almost to the bone on the bottom of the gate that no one realized was sharp till she cut herself open on it.  The gelding that was determined to eat her alive, leaving her looking like an appy with all the spots of ointment all over her body.  And the gelding that left a nice hoof print scar on her butt from his steel shoe.  Come to think of it, that was the same gelding that just left a scar on my face with one of his steel shoes.  Guess Cody and I match now.

There was her attempt to slit her throat, thankfully it was on the opposite side of the juggler vein.  And her punctured and ripped open shoulder.  Old farm machinery in the pasture with Cody is a recipe for disaster, but try telling those old farmers that.

And there was the kick to the knee that resulted in knee surgery last year, and is now resulting in a second surgery to try to fix that knee.

Most recent boo boo, appears to be a scratched eye from scavenging around in the burrs and weeds in her pasture because the grass is dead and gone for the year.

I know there are many many more mishaps and close calls that Cody's had over these last 8 1/2 years.  Too many to remember or mention them all, but those are some of the highlights.

So she's definitely used up some of her nine lives, but here's hoping she's still got a few more in her, and praying for another miracle.  She goes in next Tuesday for knee surgery to try again to fix her knee.