Rothenburger — Playing personal servant to a horse with bad teeth

COLUMN — Bradley takes a lot more than he gives. For the most part, he couldn’t care less whether I’m around, except at feeding time. Then I get the appreciative “huh-huh-huh” horsey sound.

He’s always been stand-offish, just as he’s always accepted that his role in life is to be the alpha horse. Tanner, our other boy, accepts this, retreating from the hay or the supplement treats whenever Brad noses him out of the way.

This summer, Brad developed a weight problem. In all of his 27 years, he’s been a tub. One of his nicknames is Barrel-butt. Look at him from the back and you’d swear you were looking at a giant rain barrel. From the side, he’s built like a pot-bellied stove.

This year, though, it’s different. He’s never been an easy keeper in winter but the green grass of spring has always gotten him into prime corpulant shape, and his coat positively glistens.

Unfortunately, his teeth are going. A look into his yawp reveals brown, worn-down or missing molars and incisors. He can no longer chew his food properly, dropping about half of it on the ground in a variation of what is known as quidding — the grass bunches up into slobbery gobs as he chews but he can’t get it to the point where he can get it all down.

At his spring checkup, the vet filed Bradley’s teeth and recommended letting him eat longer in the pasture and adding more alfalfa hay to his diet, and Brad did gain for awhile but when the grass started going dormant he dropped to well under 1,000 pounds and got ribby.

This time, he was put on a high-fat regimen of soaked alfalfa cubes, extruded supplement, and as much grass and high-percentage alfalfa hay as he wants. This requires quite a rigamarole of preparation. First thing in the morning he gets his supplement, four times as much as he used to get. While he’s chewing that, the alfalfa cubes are soaking for a couple of hours into a pleasant-smelling bucket of sludge.

Then he gets the alfalfa brew, then he’s let out to pasture for the day, with plenty of hay in addition. In the afternoon he gets another treat and then the morning menu is repeated at night. The vet describes the purpose of the hay and grass as being “for something to do,” since his real nutrition is now coming from the replacements.

Bradley thinks he’s died and gone to heaven. Tanner is getting the benefit of Bradley’s bad teeth, too, since I have to feed him some of the same diet to keep him happy, and he’s looking really good.

As for Brad, he gained 16 pounds the first week, leveled off, and is gaining again, slowly. The goal is to get some good insulation on him by the time the cold part of winter arrives.

I don’t resent the fact most of my pension now seems to be going to special horse feed or the two or three extra hours I now must spend every day feeding a cranky old bugger who takes me completely for granted. In fact, I’m getting to know him again, like during the years when we used to ride in the hills together.

There’s no more pleasant feeling of solitude than being on your horse miles from home, feeling the freedom of the outdoors, trusting each other’s judgment. Brad has always had attitude, but we both enjoyed those times.

Those days are gone for Bradley and me. I don’t know how much longer he’s got, but I’ll make every single one of the days he has left as happy and safe as I can.

armchairmayor@gmail.com