ZAIN
Zain was a 16 yr old grey Arabian gelding. Upon being accepted to John Lyon's certification program, my son Nathan had to find two horses to have for going through the program. After
finding a couple of horses, a friend of mine, wanting to have a horse of their own, decided to help out by buying Zain for Nathan to use in John's program. Once Nathan had completed the program, my friend was then able to have Zain to ride as their own. After nearly 13 years, my friend decided that they needed to find a new home for Zaino We had always said that if they
ever came to that, to let us know first as we had always figured we'd be glad to have Zain back.
Immediately after having Zain back, he was doing great and looking really good, but a few months later, he slowly started to lose weight. As this continued, he became thinner in both the hindquarters as well as the shoulder area, but his stomach would continue to stay rather large and distended. Of course, this deteriorated till he would lose his appetite, and getting him to eat became very difficult, and he even seemed to be more prone to colicing. Obviously, I didn't waste much time in taking Zain to Dr. Anders. It was a bit of difficult diagnosis, as there were certain aspects that were unclear as to what exactly was going on. Regardless ofthese
uncertainties, Dr. Anders was able to help Zain maintain a level of comfort even as we struggled to make any improvement. He continued at this level of health for a small amount of time, and during this, deep down, my feeling was that there was a bigger problem that we may never recover from.
One evening, I was at the barn doing the regular routine of tending to Zain, and thought that he seemed a little weaker than normal, and wondering if maybe he wouldn't be around much longer. The next morning upon arriving at the barn, I found Zain laying in his stall having passed sometime in the night. Based on how things appeared, I am convinced that he had gone peacefully. That same day I did have a local vet out to look at him(inside), as I just wanted to confirm what we really felt had been going on. The vet found a tumor on his stomach the size of two basketballs, with several smaller ones near the larger one.
Given the situation, and what the horse was dealing with, I am also convinced that Dr. Anders was absolutely able to keep Zain comfortable through this whole ordeal, and)as result, allow for his passing to be as painless and as easy as it could possibly be given the scenario.
ZAIN WILL BE SADLY MISSED - thank you for your story.